It’s been a couple of years since White Water Tavern last tried to serve food, and in the meantime things have gone on much as they always have at the local favorite — the beer has been cold, the whiskey strong, and the music generally spectacular. But late nights and hard drinks can be tough to take without something to sustain, and it’s with this in mind that musician and cook Jonathan Wilkins and White Water have announced a July 6th grand opening that features a new menu full of choices to make any hungry barfly happy. Wilkins has been a fixture at White Water for the last five years playing music, working as a sound and door man, and cooking in each kitchen iteration the bar has tried. Deciding to parlay a love of what he refers to as “simple, rootsy fare” into the new menu, Wilkins has planned a small but very tasty sounding line-up of sandwiches and burgers to feed the PBR-soaked masses.
Wilkins wants his kitchen to be a “common sense” affair, drawing on over 15 years of restaurant experience from here to his hometown of St. Louis to know “what works and what doesn’t.” He’s also committed to using local ingredients whenever possible, including beef from Youngblood Grass Fed Farm in Grannis, cheese from Rose Bud’s Honeysuckle Lane Cheese, and vegetables from Little Rock’s own Dunbar Gardens and Victory Gardens Project. The new menu is available after the jump, and Wilkins would like to remind everyone that “bacon can be added to every sandwich, and is, in fact, encouraged.”