The original Purple Cow location that opened in 1989 at 8026 Cantrell Road was one of thousands of buildings that stood in the path of the EF3 tornado that tore through Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Jacksonville on Friday, March 31.
When the tornado started its path of destruction through Little Rock it was some time after 2:20 p.m., a common downtime for many restaurants between lunch and dinner. Purple Cow’s customers had already cleared out before the tornado hit the store, said Ken Vaughan, president of Purple Cow restaurants. Vaughan said it’s not abnormal that the restaurant was empty at that hour, but on that particular day, everybody was probably trying to get home ahead of the storm. Vaughan said the general manager and Purple Cow team members took shelter in the freezer and walk-in cooler.
“That saved their lives,” he said.
The restaurant appears to have sustained significant damage. The windows are blown out, half of the purple metal roof was ripped off, the stone wall out front looks like someone took a sledgehammer to both ends. Surrounding trees were damaged and the billboard sign that hangs adjacent to the store was stripped of its ads. Vaughan wasn’t sure about the extent of the damage when we spoke on Wednesday because insurance adjusters had not been able to make it out to the store yet. He said they were scheduled to make their inspection today.
Vaughan said none of the employees were injured but some of their cars were damaged. “We’re working with them to help them get taken care of, either with insurance or to get some new wheels,” Vaughan said.
Cantrell store employees who want to work more hours are taking shifts at Purple Cow’s Chenal and North Little Rock locations, Vaughan said.
“Other restaurants are going to be helpful if we need to farm them out temporarily until we can reopen. We’re not letting anybody go, even that means we have to carry a little extra labor. We want to keep our staff taken care of; it’s not their fault that this happened, obviously.”
Vaughan said that the Cantrell location has a very popular brunch that it offers on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Chenal’s store typically serves brunch on Sundays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., but in the coming weeks it will start offering brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. to accommodate guests.
Vaughan said that whenever the Cantrell store has had power outages in the past, business has picked up at the Chenal location. But the Cantrell store is a staple to the neighborhood, Vaughan said, and residents of Foxcroft, Robinwood, Leawood and Cammack Village have been regulars for decades.
“It’s our original location. A lot of our guests have a special place in their heart for it, and we have a very special place in our heart for it, so we want to rebuild there. That’s our plan at this time,” Vaughan said. “How long that takes remains to be seen, but that will be determined in the coming days and coming weeks.”
We’ll let you know when we get an update, and you can follow Purple Cow’s progress here.