Community Bakery is opening a new West Little Rock location in the Market Place shopping center at 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road.
Kevin Shalin of The Mighty Rib Blog reported Tuesday that the 2,000-square-foot unit will feature indoor and outdoor dining, a full line of cafe and bakery items and drive-thru service. The building’s former tenant, Mickey’s Cakes & Sweets (previously known as Mickey’s Special Affairs), moved to the Vali-Hi shopping center off JFK Boulevard in North Little Rock earlier this year.
Community Bakery operates another West Little Rock outlet at 270 S. Shackleford Road and its longtime downtown location in Little Rock’s SoMa neighborhood at 1200 Main St. The bakery was originally opened by Ralph Hinson in North Little Rock’s Rose City neighborhood in 1947. Joe Fox purchased the business from Agnes Bargiel in the early 1980s and ran it for more than 30 years. Fox told the Arkansas Times in 2012 that when it came to baked goods, Community Bakery used to have very little competition.
“We were the first ones to do artisan breads here in town,” he said at the time, “then Boulevard Bread opened up, hired away our artisan bread baker. I went in and recruited another from out of state, and they hired him away too.
“Eight to 10 years ago there was no other place to get espresso. We had a line out the door in the morning of people getting espresso drinks, lattes, cappuccinos; there was no Starbucks here or Panera. But now we’ve got tons of competition.”
Juli Brandenberger and John Brandenberger partnered with Fox in 2018 to learn the business and bought him out the following year. They hope to open the new Rodney Parham location in the fourth quarter of 2024.