Cotham's Mercantile

5301 Highway 161 South, Scott, AR - (501) 961-9284

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Posted By Michael Stern on 11/26/2008 3:15:00 PM

In the Grand Prairie about a half hour southeast of Little Rock, Cotham's Mercantile is perched on stilts above a slow-flowing river. Built in 1917, it has been a general store, a jail, and a military commissary. Contemporary Arkansans know it as a plate-lunch destination.

The old wood building is fronted by a broad porch. Enter a swinging door into a dining room packed literally to the ceiling with vintage house and farm bric-a-brac, from garden tools to vintage television sets. Remote the restaurant may be, but it is rare to see an empty chair. Bare wood tables are surrounded by customers who come for hearty noonday meals built around catfish, chicken-fried steak, or chicken-fried chicken, and such daily specials as fried pork chops (Monday), chicken and dumplings (Tuesday), meatloaf (Wednesday), and Southern-fried chicken (Thursday). Side dishes include corn fritters, hush puppies, collard greens, and fried green tomatoes. There is a long list of sandwiches, too, the king of which is known as a Hubcap Hamburger. That is an immense circle of cooked ground beef – close to a foot in diameter and a half-inch thick – that comes in a bun that nearly fits, dressed with a salad's worth of mustard, lettuce, tomato slices, pickles, and hoops of onion. Incredibly, it is possible to lift it with two hands from plate to mouth. The outlandish specialty has earned such renown that the store's push-pin map of the United States has no room left for any more pins to show where Hupcap-loving customers have come from; business cards from visitors around the globe are tacked up all around it.

Desserts include fine Arkansas fried pies and peach or blackberry cobbler.

Cotham's serves lunch Monday through Saturday and supper Thursday through Saturday.

Scorecard

Overall: Legendary - Worth driving from anyplace

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Reviewers Photos [Upload Your Photos]

"Cotham's makes an especially good version of that popular Arkansas dessert, fried pie. This one is apricot."
Cliff Strutz

"This gargantua is a hubcap hamburger on a full-size dinner plate. Also available are hubcap cheeseburgers and hubcap jalapeno cheeseburgers. Those are onion rings in the background."
Michael Stern

"Chicken fried steak blanketed with gravy is an everyday lunch special; it comes with two vegetables and regular or jalapeno-spiked cornbread."
Michael Stern

"Southern fried chicken is an every-Thursday lunch special."
Michael Stern

"The onion rings are large, rugged, and lightly battered, and are the perfect side for a Cotham's burger."
Cliff Strutz

"Above the kitchen door is a portrait of the house specialty."
Michael Stern

"Remote as it is, Cotham's is packed every day at noon. Its motto is 'Where the Elite Meet to Eat.'"
Michael Stern

"People come from all over the U.S. to eat hubcap hamburgers at Cotham's Mercantile."
Michael Stern

"Tony Perrin is the Arkansas tipster who brought us to Cotham's Mercantile. Here we are after lunch, happy and well-fed!"
Michael Stern

"Built in 1917, Cotham's Mercantile was originally a general store; it started serving lunch to local farmers in 1984 and it has since become a Roadfood beacon."
Michael Stern