Eat Local, Think Global: Hillcrest Little Bakery Follows A Unique Formula

The owners painstakingly revived a Hillcrest shotgun house to locate the restaurant. Photos by Jamie Lee.

 

To have a successful local eatery, you need several important ingredients — a head for business, a vision, heart and of course, good food. Scott Loye and his daughter, Zara Schmidt, have shown they can provide all of these and much, much more. Both born and raised in Hot Springs, they have turned an old home in the Hillcrest area of Little Rock into a successful, sustainable restaurant.

 

“I have a background in food services and liked the restaurant business,” Loye said. “I traveled the country over the last five or six years extensively, and saw the explosion in the biscuit operation. I realized that we didn’t have any place like that in Little Rock, and that gave me some incentive to open.

 

“I loved the Nashville hot chicken and the bananas foster in New Orleans, so I thought I could take some of those components and meld them together.”

 

 

Loye started researching where to purchase a commercial property in Little Rock, but finding a place that he could make his own proved hard. He came across an old shotgun house, originally built in 1942. After a long permitting and renovation process, during which time the restaurant was almost completely rebuilt, Hillcrest Little Bakery opened its doors in November 2019.

 

Loye’s vision transformed the broken-down house into a functional restaurant, featuring indoor seating for 15, along with a deck with umbrella seating. There is even a roll-up door that was installed where the front wall was. Loye also built a little apartment in an outbuilding where he lived for a short time while going back to school and working as a counselor. The demands of his “day job” as a counselor proved considerable enough that he found it necessary to turn the day-to-day management reins over to Schmidt.

 

“The original concept was a donut place,” he said, noting that quickly turned HLB into a 24-hour operation. “It was burning me out, having to work and do the restaurant full time.”

 

Schmidt, who previously worked at Cracker Barrel, was originally supposed to be front of house support, but now has been cooking for more than a year. The father-daughter dynamic is one of mutual respect as both hold the common goal to make the restaurant the best it can be.

 

 

“It’s definitely been a balance for us,” Schmidt said. “But we’ve been doing it for four years now. We have our days, but for the most part, we have hit our groove. And we both care about this place.”

 

One thing both have shared from the beginning is a customer service philosophy.

 

“One bad review costs you 90 customers in the restaurant business,” Loye said. “Every visit here must be the same quality. I brought all these experiences from all these different places, and I knew we couldn’t be a breakfast place that takes over an hour to get your food. We had to figure out how to get food out quickly, with good quality, in such a small place. I think we have done well with it. Most of our orders are out of our kitchen in five to seven minutes.”

 

The restaurant’s vibe is that of a neighborhood joint with a good mix of locals and new faces each day. The aesthetic is clean and bright, boasting a lot of natural wood with a classic style.

 

“When I walk in here, it still feels homey to me, like your local corner breakfast spot,” Schmidt said. “We get the best of both worlds; weekdays I have my regulars that come in, get their breakfast and even take work calls. Then on weekends, we get new faces, and families from all around Little Rock.

 

“We advertise for the out-of-towners looking for an eclectic experience, those not wanting to go to a big commercial restaurant, but a local spot” Loye said. “For the first four months we were open, there was a 45-minute waiting time here.”

 

 

Hillcrest Little Bakery offers specialty biscuit dishes and traditional breakfast fare with a twist, such as The Swimming Benedict, featuring smoked salmon, poached eggs with hollandaise over biscuits. The top seller — and owner favorite — is The Hot Springs, including biscuits smothered in cheese, eggs and hot chicken. The menu also boasts healthy, diet-conscious items such as vegetarian and gluten-free options.

 

“A lot of people don’t see our menu and just think we are strictly a bakery. Then they walk in and see our menu and are like, ‘Wow, there is so much here,’” Loye said. “I was taught how to make bananas foster at the world-famous Brennan’s in New Orleans. I took that back home with me, and my dad and I played with it for years. Now we have made it our own with our bananas foster pancakes.”

 

Several of the dishes are named for Little Rock neighborhoods, an idea Loye came up with to localize the fare from the scratch-made biscuits to the homemade almond amaretto cheesecake, a family recipe from Loye’s dad that he taught Schmidt to make.

 

 

“We wanted to have that local presence,” Loye said. “For people from out of town, it gives them that eclectic experience while locals come in and assign their identity to a dish.”

 

Since the beginning, the restaurant has shown a consciousness that reverberates on several levels. Wanting to deliver value for the dining dollar, the portions are very generous at a reasonable price using local vendors as much as possible.

 

“We are very value-conscious,” Loye said. “I’ve watched some restaurants go up close to 50 percent on some of their items in the last 16 to 18 months. Our menu items, from the day we opened, haven’t gone up even 20 percent.”

 

Schmidt said, “We try to use local ingredients when we can. We use some Petit Jean meats and local eggs when we can get enough of them.”

 

 

Another impressive aspect of operations is the restaurant’s commitment to being environmentally conscious, something Hillcrest Little Bakery puts into practice daily. The staff recycles everything it can, including aluminum, cardboard and glass, and uses real table service to eliminate plastic waste. Even the to-go containers and cups are completely biodegradable. The restaurant is so efficient, there’s no dumpster out back; all that’s needed are two city garbage cans to handle a week’s worth of waste.

 

“When I opened this place, I had a vision for changing the restaurant business worldwide,” Loye said. “With a wrapper or a foam container, you are looking at a half-life of 112 years. That’s four generations of people that will have to deal with that. I said there must be a better way to do this, and we really took that to heart.

 

“If we had a big green dumpster, would it be easier on us? Sure, it would, and it would keep me from having to come load up and haul cardboard to get recycled. But no, we aren’t going to operate that way.”

 

The long hours and extra effort have paid off in a popular local spot that has enhanced the neighborhood and, in its own small way, improved the world. It’s also a source of great pride for the people who work there.

 

 

“It’s been a great blessing to us,” Loye said. “The local word of mouth is great. And we are still at a level of success that I feel comfortable with. There is a lot of competition now in the city with breakfast places, but the health- and world-conscious view that we have speaks to our success. I tell Zara, this place will be handed down to you; this will be yours and you will own it.”

 

Schmidt said, “My goal for customer service and for food has always been consistency. I want you to come in and get the same great food each time, be welcomed and know that we are excited that you are here. We are happy that you come in and walk through our door, and we want you to have a positive experience each time.

 

“Dad wanted to create a space for our family, for me, for us to do together. It’s a family restaurant. When any customer says ‘Oh, is this your place?’ I love to tell them it’s me and my dad.”

 

WHERE TO GO:

Hillcrest Little Bakery

203 N. Van Buren Street, Little Rock

(501) 747-4960

WHEN TO GO:

M-Th-F: 7 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Sat – Sun: 8 a.m. – 2 p.m.

WHAT TO TRY

The Hot Springs Biscuit

The Avocado Biscuit

The Swimming Benedict

She’s Says She’s Not Hungry loaded fries

Bananas Foster Pancakes

 

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