The texts and emails began rolling in within minutes of each other that sad Friday earlier this month. People wanted to make sure I had heard that the Pine Bluff institution known as the Sno-White Grill would be closing.
I had no way of knowing when the news would come, but I knew it was inevitable. Sno-White owner Bobby Garner is well past retirement age, and no one was waiting in the wings to replace him. Garner purchased the restaurant in February 1970 from Roy Marshall, who had owned it the previous 27 years. He never dreamed he would have a 45-year run.
There was a newspaper clipping from the Pine Bluff Commercial framed on the wall of the restaurant. The story was dated Nov. 29, 1991, and told of a fire that broke out at Sno-White at 12:26 a.m. on a Thursday. It was Thanksgiving morning. The fire destroyed the business at 310 E. Fifth Ave. The writer said Sno-White had the reputation of serving the best hamburgers in the state. Garner told the newspaper: "I don't think I've gotten over the shock yet. I'm down, but I'm not out." Within months, Garner was back behind the counter, serving as the short-order cook and dishing out those famous hamburgers.
Across Arkansas, there are restaurants where locals gather to drink coffee, discuss the previous day's sports events, talk politics and catch up on the town's gossip. Few of those gathering spots have a history like that of Sno-White, which was founded in 1936, one year before Walt Disney produced his first full-length animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Garner was a hands-on operator who was quick to tell you he was the only one with a key to the building. He would arrive six mornings a week at 5:30 and then come back on Sunday mornings to clean up. The restaurant served breakfast and lunch from Monday through Saturday and added dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. When I interviewed Garner several years ago for a magazine story I was writing, I asked him why he had yet to slow down. He smiled and said: "I checked with my board, and they said Sno-White doesn't have a retirement plan."
Of course, Bobby Garner was the board. From opening time until the last customer left, he ran the show. None of the coffee mugs matched, which was part of the charm of Sno-White. I drank coffee one morning from a mug that said "Sparkman Sparklers," the name of a girls' basketball team from Dallas County that was nationally known in the 1930s. It was as if the restaurant had become the repository of south Arkansas history.
There once were a number of locally owned, full-service restaurants in Pine Bluff. As the city lost population and economic vitality through the years, those establishments closed. There was John Noah's Restaurant over by the Norton Lumber Mill. There was Wonderland and others that Garner named.
"Most of my friends have either died or moved," he told me. "There's a void there."
Business was good right up to the end. The prime rib special three evenings a week was popular. So were the plate lunches. Garner could list lunch specials off the top of his head. Monday featured pork chops or chicken and dressing. On Tuesday, it was chicken and dumplings or grilled beef liver. The choices on Wednesday were fried chicken, baked ham or spaghetti and meat sauce. On Thursday, it was chicken fried steak, chicken spaghetti or barbecued pork. Fridays featured salmon croquettes, fried catfish or hamburger steaks.
"We had a lot of people come in on Tuesdays just for the liver," Garner told me. "That's hard to find in restaurants these days, and folks won't fix that for themselves at home." He also was quick to tout the cornbread salad: "You make it like you would make tuna salad. But instead of using tuna, you use cornbread."
The mornings belonged to the coffee-drinking regulars. If you looked immediately to your left and to the back of the room when you walked in, you would see them in the famed Back Booth. It was the one with political posters covering the walls behind it: "I'm for Arkansas and Faubus," "John McClellan for Senate," "Dale Bumpers for Senate" and even "Monroe A. Schwarzlose, Democratic Candidate for Governor, the Law and Order Candidate."
Schwarzlose hailed from nearby Kingsland and ran for governor in the Democratic primaries of 1978, '80, '82 and '84. There was also a poster for Pine Bluff's Joe Holmes, who ran for governor in the 1990 and 2002 Democratic primaries. He was among the regular coffee drinkers. Bill Clinton even came in as president to have one of Garner's hamburgers.
"When I left the night before, there was a car across the street with two guys in it," Garner said. "They were watching the restaurant. I came back early the next morning, and these two guys were still in the car. The police later began blocking the streets several blocks away in every direction. If you were already in here, you could stay. But nobody else could come in."
Garner doesn't remember which hamburger the president had in those pre-vegan days. It might have been the Hutt Special, named after the owners of the Hutt Building Materials Co. over on Alabama Street. Or it could have been the Perdue Special, named after what was once Pine Bluff's largest office products and commercial printing company.
Garner, who grew up 18 miles west of Pine Bluff at Grapevine in Grant County, joked: "When I was coming up in Grapevine, I thought I might be president. I never thought I would cook a hamburger for one."
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas' Independent Colleges and Universities. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 02/18/2015