When I walked into The Vault, the new fine-dining venue at 723 Central Ave. in Hot Springs, I felt as if I were somewhere other than the Spa City. You see, I was only 8 years old in 1967 when Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller shut down casino gambling. For most of my life, downtown Hot Springs was a neighborhood whose best days were in the past. The popularity of the baths had been declining since the late 1940s. With illegal yet wide-open gambling gone by 1967, downtown lost its appeal.
Between the late 1950s and the mid-1960s, hundreds of hotel rooms were added downtown. The Majestic tacked on the high-rise Lanai Tower. The Downtowner, the Aristocrat and the Velda Rose were constructed. Here's where things stand now: The Majestic has been torn down. The Velda Rose has been empty for years. The Downtowner is now The Springs and badly needs a makeover. The Aristocrat is a residential facility for seniors and is quite the eyesore.
In Wednesday's column, I outlined the amazing rebirth of downtown since the fire that destroyed parts of the Majestic in the winter of 2014. Upscale restaurants such as The Vault and The Avenue (which is at The Waters boutique hotel across from Bathhouse Row) have led the way. They're on the cutting edge of a neighborhood revitalization that I think will result in developers putting condominiums and apartments in the large buildings that remain empty downtown.
The Vault is in the Citizens Building, a beautiful structure that stands out due to its white Tiffany bricks. Developer Jason Taylor bought the downtown landmark, which had been empty since 1978, in 2015 and now has six residential units and a jazz club upstairs. He partnered with Dr. Daron Praetzel of Hot Springs to make The Vault the kind of place that will draw people from across the state for dinner.
We were told that the restaurant would open last November, but it took until May because general manager Randy Womack is a perfectionist. Womack, who has worked on this project since November 2016, shows me the salvaged doors from Hot Springs' old Knickerbocker Hotel and the wine cage that contains 1,100 bottles. He explains that the restaurant's sound system has 1,750 songs. He tells me that the man who did the Venetian plaster came all the way from Seattle. He shows me the alligator skin on the walls of the men's restroom and the python skin on the walls of the women's restroom. He takes me in the bank vault, which can be reserved for private dining.
Womack, who was raised at San Luis Obispo in the Central Coast region of California, came to Hot Springs 21 years ago to work for general manager Horst Fischer at the Arlington Hotel. He fell in love with the city and stayed.
Taylor, who hails from Malvern, has rehabbed several properties downtown and has plans for future developments. He says, "We kept asking ourselves, 'What things are really needed to move the needle downtown?' One of the things we determined would do that was a restaurant of this caliber. We hope it will bring a whole new clientele downtown. Once they get here, they'll see everything else that's going on."
Fine-dining restaurants such as The Vault and The Avenue complement a pizza-and-beer revolution that's taking place downtown. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you had told me a decade ago that having craft breweries is an important part of the economic development puzzle, I would have looked at you with a blank stare. I understand now that economic development in the knowledge-based economy is all about attracting talented people. And young, highly educated people really seem to like things such as craft breweries and pizza joints.
Rose Schweikhart led this revolution when she began putting together a plan in 2012 to turn the Superior Bathhouse into a craft brewery. The Superior, the smallest of the eight structures on Bathhouse Row, opened in 1916 and closed in 1983. Overcoming more obstacles and red tape than she cares to talk about, Schweikhart created the Superior Bathhouse Brewery, the only brewery inside a national park and the first to utilize thermal spring water in the brewing process. She opened part of the space in July 2013 and began brewing at the site about 18 months later. One of my favorite places to sit in Hot Springs is at the front windows of the Superior, looking at the people on the sidewalk and the traffic on Central Avenue.
Over on Park Avenue, Brooklyn native and former Wall Street banker Anthony Valinoti opened DeLuca's Pizzeria on Nov. 22, 2013. On that first day, he locked himself in the men's room for a time. "I was terrified," he says. "I couldn't believe that I had the hubris to do this. The idea of feeding other people had sounded good as a general concept, but then I actually had to do it." Since then, DeLuca's has regularly topped lists of the best pizza restaurants in Arkansas.
Numerous places have been added to the pizza-and-beer mix downtown. There's Bubba Brew's Taproom in the former Bank of America building on Central Avenue. There's SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint on Ouachita Avenue in an old building that once housed a piano repair shop. Also on Ouachita Avenue is the Craft Beer Cellar, which soon will begin serving barbecue. Core Brewing Co. out of Northwest Arkansas opened a taproom on Central Avenue. And there's Grateful Head Pizza Oven & Beer Garden on Exchange Street.
The momentum downtown seems unstoppable at this point. What a difference four years can make.
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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 05/19/2018