South Hot Springs Isn't Waiting On Downtown For Its Next Restaurant
Downtown Hot Springs got a new ice cream shop this summer. The business behind it has been serving the south side of town for years.
Scoops Homemade Ice Cream opened its second location at 829 Central Ave. on July 1, 2026, tucked in next to Deluca's Pizza in the middle of the downtown tourist strip. Owner Greg Hatcher told the Sentinel-Record he'd been driving through downtown and noticed "almost every single spot was full," and figured visitors passing through wouldn't know to look for the original Scoops further south on Central. That original store, at 4043 Central Ave. near the Walmart Supercenter, is the one that's been quietly building the customer base for over a decade. Downtown didn't discover Scoops. Downtown needed what south Central Avenue already had.
That's the piece of this year worth understanding if you live on this end of town. The updates landing on the south side right now aren't spillover from somewhere flashier. They're proof that the corridor between Lake Hamilton and DeGray has been carrying its own weight for a while, and the businesses that know it best keep choosing to put more money into it rather than less.
Central Avenue south of downtown doesn't get the postcard treatment. There's no Bathhouse Row here, no gallery walk. What it has instead is a run of places that never had to court anybody: Bubba's Catfish-2-Go at 5411 Central Ave., open Wednesday through Saturday for lunch and dinner service, Andy's Restaurant on Albert Pike Road, and Smokin' In Style BBQ a few doors down the same road, known for a brisket that's built its bark over hours in the smoker rather than a flash-fried shortcut. None of these are new. That's the point. This end of Central has spent years accumulating regulars the same way any neighborhood does, one Tuesday dinner at a time, without needing a write-up to justify the visit.
The new activity this year is layering on top of that base, not replacing it.
In June 2026, JB Southern Creole Bar & Grill opened at 5431 Central Ave., a few blocks south of Bubba's. Arkansas Business reported the restaurant is owned and operated by Lee Beasley and business partner Dean Jennings, the same two who ran the former JB ChopHouse, also known locally as Bone's ChopHouse. If you remember eating at ChopHouse in its later years, this is the same operators, the same neighborhood, a different menu.
The address itself tells you something. Beasley & Jennings LLC acquired the deed to that property in December 2024, taking over a 3,062-square-foot space that had most recently housed Crazy Samurai. That's an operator with a track record on this stretch of Central choosing to reinvest here again rather than open something new downtown or on the lake. When someone who already knows the numbers on a corridor decides to put another restaurant into it, that's a more reliable signal than a single grand opening ever could be.
The commercial real estate side of the corridor backs this up. At the signalized intersection of Albert Pike Road and Airport Road, a former church space of roughly 31,000 square feet is in the middle of a multi-million-dollar renovation, according to a spring 2026 commercial listing for the property. New pylon signage, upgraded parking, refreshed landscaping. The intersection carries an estimated 62,000 vehicles a day, which is a serious number for a corner that isn't downtown and isn't lakefront. Current co-tenants in the same retail run include 7 Brew Drive-Thru Coffee, U Storage, Little Caesars, and Pulse Fitness, the kind of everyday mix that only shows up where the daily traffic is already local rather than passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Put that traffic count next to the fact that Beasley and Jennings picked this same general stretch for their second act, and the read gets clearer. The money moving into south Central Avenue this year isn't chasing a trend. It's following people who already live and eat and run errands here.
The other piece of this year worth knowing about sits about 30 miles south of the city on Highway 70. DeGray Lake Resort State Park sits on the north shore of a 13,800-acre lake in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, and it's Arkansas's only resort state park, meaning it pairs a full state park with an in-park lodge, marina, and golf course. Thirty miles isn't a five-minute errand, but it's close enough to plan around rather than build a whole weekend trip for.
A few dates worth having on hand if you're on this side of town:
None of that requires a weekend getaway mentality. It's the kind of Saturday-morning drive you make once you know the dates, not a trip you have to plan around a hotel.
What ties all of this together is simple enough to say plainly. The businesses expanding this year didn't need to prove themselves on the south side first. They already had. Scoops didn't open its second location here because the first one struggled. It opened downtown because the original had outgrown what one storefront could hold. JB Southern Creole didn't land on Central Avenue South because it was cheap or overlooked. It landed here because the operators already knew the neighborhood would show up.
If you've lived along this stretch for a while, none of this should feel like discovery. It should feel like confirmation of something you already suspected: this end of town has never needed downtown's attention to be worth investing in.
If you're curious what any of this means for your own corner of the south side, from what a renovated intersection down the road might do to everyday convenience to how a new restaurant two blocks over tends to ripple through a neighborhood over time, the team at 501 House to Home has been watching this exact stretch of Hot Springs for over two decades. Reach out anytime you want a local read on what's changing around you, no obligation attached.
When you work with Jeff Kennedy and his team, you benefit from professionals who understand your needs and will work their absolute hardest to ensure excellent results for you and your family. Give Jeff a call today and discover the difference he can make for you!