Jamie Gaston and Rob Gaston, owners of Bryant’s Copper Mule Table & Tap (3348 Main St., Bryant), have announced they will be opening their second location on Thursday, Aug. 17 in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood at 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.
The Gastons moved to Bryant in 2018 after years of living in the Bentonville area.
“It was pretty evident that Bryant really only had chain-style restaurants, and there’s nothing wrong with those, we frequent them all the time with our family,” Rob Gaston said. “But it was a bit of a change from what we were used to in Bentonville, as far as just variety.”
Gaston said he and a business partner decided to open a restaurant in Bryant after a Razorback versus Alabama football game they were watching was over by halftime (probably the Oct. 26, 2019 48-7 blowout from the end of the Chad Morris era), and they wanted to take their wives out for cocktails and appetizers but couldn’t think of a place to go.
“We felt like if there was a place in Bryant that offered unique food and cocktails, it would be a good business for the area,” Gaston said.
Gaston said they were far enough into the project when the pandemic began that they decided to move forward with it and opened in Nov. 2020. The following summer, Gaston said his business partner needed to step away, so he bought him out. Jamie Gaston then left her job as a nurse in the Bryant School District to help run Copper Mule.
Gaston’s East Arkansas background is the inspiration for the Southern-style section of the menu, which he said is a balance of Southern-style and Creole-style food. It features a variety of fried fish baskets, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, pasta Orleans, shrimp and grits, a New York strip and a variety of sandwiches and burgers.
Gaston said they wanted to be known for their “Arkansas Mule” cocktails, inspired from the Moscow Mule, a vodka-based cocktail commonly served in a copper mug. There are about 12 Arkansas mule varieties on the menu, many made with local vodkas from Rock Town Distillery and Delta Dirt Distillery (Helena-West Helena). Gaston said they’re going to have 10 beers on draft, specialty whiskeys and bourbons and several high end wines. The restaurant’s about 2,250 square feet and will seat about 90-95, Gaston said. Two different oyster appetizers, a ribeye steak, a salmon filet and a prime rib sandwich are new items being added to the Heights menu, Gaston said.
Hours will be 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tue.-Thu. and Sun. and 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fri.-Sat
The phone number is 501-916-9533.