When the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame held its induction ceremony earlier this month, one of the four finalists in the Proprietor of the Year category was Capi Peck of Trio's in Little Rock. For two decades, I lived walking distance from Trio's, and the trips up the hill from our condominium were frequent.
I think of Trio's a lot this time of year. That's because strawberry shortcake season approaches. The Trio's version, which uses Arkansas strawberries, draws customers by the hundreds each spring. Some of the saddest looks I've ever seen on my wife's face have come on nights when she has heard these words: "I'm sorry, but we've already sold out of shortcake for today."
Last Saturday's column was about downtown Little Rock's Hotel Frederica. For many years, it was the Hotel Sam Peck. Capi Peck is the granddaughter of founders Sam and Henryetta Peck. During the same induction banquet at which Peck was honored, a finalist in a restaurant category known as Gone But Not Forgotten was Jacques & Suzanne, which opened in 1975 on the top floor of what was then the First National Bank Building. The restaurant closed in 1986. The space is now occupied by the private Little Rock Club. The people who worked at Jacques & Suzanne went on to create their own popular dining establishments--places such as Andre's, Ciao Baci, the Purple Cow, Cafe St. Moritz, Restaurant 1620 and Graffiti's. The restaurant had strong European influences, and it's often said that Jacques & Suzanne was the first place that truly served continental cuisine in Arkansas. I won't argue with that, but I will tell you that it was Sam Peck who first whet Arkansans' appetites for fine dining with a European flair.
Duncan Hines' book Adventures in Good Eating had a photo of the Hotel Sam Peck's Magnolia Dining Room in its 1952 edition. The hotel and its restaurant were favored by national reporters who covered the 1957 Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis. Harry Reasoner of CBS News later stated during a story on the world's famous hotels that his favorite was the Sam Peck in Little Rock.
"Henryetta Peck took her 12-year-old granddaughter, Capi, to New York in 1965," W.W. Satterfield writes in the current issue of the Pulaski County Historical Review. "While waiting to enter a Broadway theater, someone tapped Mrs. Peck on the shoulder and said, 'Excuse me. Mrs. Peck, you won't remember me, but I stayed in your hotel in 1957 when I was covering the school crisis for NBC. I'm John Chancellor.' Capi reports that Henryetta was overwhelmed that he would remember her and recognize her, away from her usual locale. ... They had a nice conversation about the hotel."
When Winthrop Rockefeller moved in 1953 from New York to Little Rock at the urging of an Army buddy from World War II, he chose the penthouse of the Hotel Sam Peck. Rockefeller, considered the black-sheep son at the time, was attempting to escape the tabloid press in Manhattan. He so enjoyed the hotel and the food that he wound up living there for two years until he could complete a home atop Petit Jean Mountain.
"Sam quoted him as saying it was nicer than his Park Avenue facilities," Satterfield writes. "Rockefeller was known to have an appreciation for quality alcoholic beverages. Bob Peck (Sam and Henryetta's son) reported that after Rockefeller took up residence at the hotel, he had such a quantity of fine wine and spirits shipped to his suite that the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board fined him for not having Arkansas revenue stamps. After he was elected governor, Rockefeller sometimes stayed in the hotel when in Little Rock rather than at the Governor's Mansion where he spent little time."
When Burt Reynolds was in the state filming the movie White Lightning in 1972 (it was released the following year), he stayed at the Sam Peck with actress and singer Dinah Shore, who he was dating at the time. Satterfield says Capi Peck remembers that "Dinah and Henryetta became close friends, and Henryetta was offended when Dinah left before Burt did and was quickly replaced by a young woman." Satterfield describes Henryetta as "the face of the hotel. She was the greeter. She knew the hotel guests and local restaurant customers, remembered them and called them by name. At breakfast, she would pass out muffins to customers."
It was Sam Peck who reportedly introduced Caesar salad to Arkansas, having had it prepared tableside at the renowned Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. He also developed the Peck salad that's still served at Trio's. It features bacon, roasted chicken and toasted almonds on lettuce with a special vinaigrette. Capi Peck says of her grandfather: "He put it on the menu in the late 1940s. The only difference between his version and what we serve at Trio's is that it was originally made with iceberg lettuce. And, yes, it's the most popular item on our menu."
Sam and Henryetta Peck sold the hotel in 1972 to Herbert Weissberg, who owned hotels such as the Gramercy Park in New York. His son Steven moved to Arkansas to manage the hotel. But the son also enrolled at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and only came to Little Rock on weekends. The long decline of the hotel and its fine-dining venue had begun. Capi Peck keeps those dining traditions alive at Trio's, which she opened in 1986 against the advice of her father and grandmother. Satterfield writes: "They agreed that the least pleasant part of the hotel operation was the restaurant."
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 03/28/2018