Arkansas Restaurants

Groupon is a combination of the words group and coupon. Each day, we offer an unbeatable deal on the best of Little Rock: restaurants, spas, sporting events, theater, and more. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, we get discounts you won't find anywhere else. We call it "collective buying power."

Taste buds do the talking when it comes to making a burger, chicken sandwich, or grilled cheese at Cheeburger Cheeburger. That’s because customers, rather than cooks, design what's for dinner. After selecting a base—whether an all-natural Angus burger, a chicken patty, a veggie patty, or a type of cheese—customers deck it with their choice of 29 complimentary toppings such as roasted red peppers, steak sauce, and chopped garlic.

Customers can also build their own salad or garden diorama with a choice of 24 salad fixings. Freshly gilded fries and onion rings round out entrees. For dessert, cooks blend Edy’s Grand ice cream with syrup and candies to create 1 of 1,258,000 possible shake flavor combinations. Thanks to its neon color scheme and oldies music, the restaurant brims with a vintage ambiance.

A Big Apple–focused menu sends aromas ricocheting off the walls of NYPD Pizza, which are bedecked with New York City memorabilia and televisions screening classic films and sports. Begun in Orlando by a native New Yorker who was frustrated at the lack of New York–style pizza in his new city, NYPD Pizza bakes up New York flavor as close to authentic as possible without traveling to the Big Apple to kiss the mayor. Genre-bending plate fillers strut from the pizza menu in configurations named after notable New York locales such as the Bleecker St. baked ziti pie topped with ricotta, mozzarella, and housemade sauce. The Tri-Borough BLT tosses traditional sandwich toppings such as smoked bacon and mayo across a hand-tossed crust, and individual pieces of the Oneonta, a hot cheese slice cloaked with cool shredded mozzarella, help patrons streamline supping or learn fractions to prepare for rap battles with math teachers.

A slick mosaic of cerulean and cobalt tiles below the bar dominates the pizza joint’s bright interior, which is also festooned with petite dangling lamps, black tablecloths, and wood chairs evoking a modern lounge feel. Eyes drift to a TV screening sports behind the bar or the panoramic wall-covering mural of the Brooklyn Bridge at night. Across the room, another wall-size mural tempts doodle additions of King Kong with an aerial view of Manhattan’s skyscrapers. :m]]

El Porton Mexican Restaurant has sated cravings for fresh, healthy ingredients for more than two decades, serving up authentic Mexican lunches and dinners that complement the bar’s array of 85 tequilas. Amid golden walls that evoke a warm afternoon in a tropical cantina, guests kick-start stomachs by watching chefs craft lime-infused guacamole tableside. From the kitchen, beef and shrimp fajitas sizzle, wafting aromas of onion and bell pepper that transform into cartoon hands to lure in noses. Warm days open El Porton's patio, where sunshine heightens the flavors of make-your-own combo platters spread with chile rellenos, tostadas, and burritos, as well as USDA steaks aged a minimum of 21 days. Tequila shots arrive in flights or individually, and customizable margaritas in flavors such as mango and classic lime pour forth from salt-rimmed glasses to accentuate entrees and fuel conversations about Mexico's hidden agave rivers.

In November of 2009, Adam Richman of Man v. Food sat down at one of the wooden tables inside The Mean Pig BBQ and ordered the restaurant’s Shut-Up Juice Challenge. His only goal: to finish the smoked, pulled-pork sandwich, which comes topped with coleslaw and a slather of Shut-Up Juice—a fiery concoction of barbecue sauce mixed with concentrated habanero extract. After a hard-fought battle, the professional eater barely limped past the finish line, completing a challenge that bests most diners. At the restaurant’s last count, less than 2% of contenders who started the Shut-Up Juice Challenge finished it.

The Mean Pig BBQ may be most widely know for its spicy challenge, but locals come here for the chopped-pork sandwiches, fall-off-the-bone ribs, and smoked beans, a Mean Pig original. The owners smoke the pork and ribs over a hickory-wood smoker for 24 hours before drenching the meat in homemade mild, medium, or hot barbecue sauce. They temper the heat with creamy coleslaw, potato salad, and icy beverages to cool scorched tongues.

Though the entrees at The Dixie Cafe make the biggest splash across its menu marquee, they're threatened with gastronomical upstaging by the southern-style eatery's 19 sides and scratch-made gravies. The chicken-fried steak, for example, is a tender, hand-breaded fillet that fully blossoms with flavor only after chefs smother it with cream gravy and cheddar cheese. And the Cajun grilled catfish's down-home taste isn't fully developed until it is paired up with bites of turnip greens, fried okra, or a homemade roll. The classic platter meals take advantage of this by pairing an entree with two sides, rolls, and jalapeño cornbread and can be ordered "light" for a portion that's smaller than the regular size and easier to toss in the air and catch in your mouth.