Arkansas native Joey Lauren Adams, best known for her role in the 1997 film “Chasing Amy,” is planning to open a restaurant in Hot Springs with her husband, cinematographer Brian Vilim, this fall. The restaurant’s two stories will be developed in two phases, followed by a neighboring hotel, she said.
Adams said she envisions the Central Avenue restaurant, Lyle’s, as a casual neighborhood bistro.
“I’d like it to feel like it’s been here for a while, and really, I want to cater to locals because I think that tourists will find us if you have a great space for locals,” she said. “We just want a neighborhood place where you can come and eat and drink and feel comfortable.”
Aerial view of the buildings
She added that she and Vilim purchased the buildings at 1028 and 1016 Central Ave. four years ago after buying a lakehouse in Hot Springs in 2019 and “falling in love” with the town during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said the 15- to 16-room boutique hotel at 1028 Central Ave. will be called Hotel Algoma, an homage to the 1914 building’s original name. The restaurant, Lyle’s, is named after her late father.
Algoma Sanitarium
“My dad loved old buildings. He loved antiques,” she said. “We used to come to Hot Springs every Sunday after church to shop for antiques for our house in North Little Rock, and when he passed, he had saved a lot of old brass fixtures that were originally gas, and he rewired them to be electric and a lot of this beautiful fretwork that was in our house that he had collected. … When we started this, I just felt like all of this is going to fit so well in there, and it’s all his stuff, so let’s call it Lyle’s.”
The concept is now taking shape with help from Zak Walters, chef and co-owner of Sedalia’s Oyster & Seafood in Oklahoma. Adams said she recruited him to guide the direction of the restaurant.
Chef Zak Walters
“I kept breathing and breathing and breathing, and it just wouldn’t come to life,” she said. “Then, finally, I realized we don’t have a heart for this building yet, and so Brian and I just decided that we really needed to find a chef that could be the heart of this whole project.”
She added that she is pleased to add to the rich hospitality landscape in Hot Springs while honoring the city’s history.
“The more there is to do in Hot Springs, the better it makes the town,” she said. “There’s so many great restaurants here, and if there’s another one, it becomes a place where people want to come and experience the food.”
Vilim said he is excited to help revitalize the historic downtown area.
The hotel building
“We’re located in a part of downtown that’s been underdeveloped for quite some time, so we feel like downtown Hot Springs is growing, and it just seemed like the perfect spot to sort of try to renovate not only our block but the surrounding blocks around us and be a part of the growth of Hot Springs and leave something everlasting,” he said. “I mean, if we do a good job with this building, it will be here for a really long time.”
That longevity is a stark contrast to the world of cinema, he added.
“When you work in film, you do everything you can to build something only to tear it down as fast as possible when the money runs out or when the shoot’s done,” he said, “so to build something that can grow and evolve is intriguing, for sure.”
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