John Tom Browning opened Browning's Mexican Food in 1946, as victorious Arkansas soldiers hurried home to their wives and the baby boom began.
In her blog Tie Dye Travels (see arkansasonline.com/88plato), food researcher Kat Robinson describes this Ark-Mex pioneer's 1949 menu, which included dubiously Mexican fare, from egg-topped enchiladas to spaghetti or rice "con chicken." The kitchen also dished up club sandwiches, pimento cheese, ham, steak, fried chicken, fried oysters, fried White River catfish ... lobster ... .
Also on that 1949 menu was the Plato de Saltillo, father of the Saltillo Plate that six decades of Arkansans came to love and revile: a heavy porcelain platter bearing a meat taco, a cheese taco and a chili-sauce soaked enchilada with tortillas, toasted or plain. Some years these landmarks emerged from a sea of molten pinto bean ... chili? It was a semi-fluid that congealed as it cooled. Shaved iceberg and chopped tomatoes were in there, somewhere, and maybe a garnish of sliced onion. It went down with the fruity red punch.
Browning's daughter Bette and her husband, Boyd Montgomery, took over in 1959. In 1968, Donald and Janell Phelan bought them out.
Over the years, Browning's expanded, opening El Patio and other locations, including take-out outlets for which the food was prepared at the original location: 5805 Kavanaugh Blvd.
There were fat cinnamon rolls for breakfast; the chicken was fried to order.
They advertised, with a jingle: "We've got what people like, what people like to eat."
One time, Don Phelan was near the register when a mother came in with her 5-year-old. Phelan noticed the boy's penny loafers were on backward. He said, "You've got them on the wrong feet." The boy mulled this, then looked up and said, "They're the only feet I've got."
Staff stayed on for decades. Two kitchen hands and an "up front" person who started in 1946 remained through 1985. Alma Lee Deason of Mabelvale waited tables more than 30 years, Barbara Lee Schay more than 15.
The familiar waitresses took to wearing orthopedic shoes; the back room grew shabbier and dim. The nearby Heights Theatre closed, reducing traffic.
In 2008, David Ashmore and partners staged a doomed revival; when their Browning's Mexican Grill reopened in 2011, the bright back room with a big-screen TV and alterations to the Saltillo Plate dismayed old customers.
In 2014, Yellow Rocket Concepts bought the failing business. In 2015, Heights Taco & Tamale opened at 5805 Kavanaugh Blvd. The menu's very different in its focus on fresh ingredients, but one item — Plato 1947 — pays homage to the ol' Saltillo Plate.