Walk the Square any weekday evening and you will pass the old Pressroom storefront without much thought, because it does not look like a restaurant anymore. There is no menu board out front. The windows were covered with construction paper for most of the spring. What eventually opened inside does not call itself a restaurant at all. It calls itself a theater.
The theater format is reflected in the programming: Bentoville Food Theater offers rotating menus and guest-chef events, while Stoic Brews, which opened last year, focuses on gluten-free beer and food. The two businesses, within two blocks of each other, show different ways to shape downtown dining.
A different approach to dining
When Axios NW Arkansas covered the project in March, Onyx Coffee Lab co-owner Jon Allen described a goal of creating a space that would feel like a food hall in downtown Los Angeles, with a coffee bar and an Indian restaurant under the same roof. Bentoville creator Phil Libin has said the region has plenty of good food. Northwest Arkansas is growing fast, and the Food Theater brings another dining format to the mix.
Bentoville Food Theater occupies the old Pressroom space at 100 NW 2nd Street, torn open into Onyx's existing downtown café next door. Inside, three stages run every day, each with its own chef and its own format, and the menu at each one changes by season rather than staying fixed.
- Center Stage runs temaki and sushi omakase, hand-rolled to order at the counter.
- Fire Stage is live-fire yakitori and skewers over binchotan charcoal.
- Chef Stage is home to Ippudo, in what OpenTable lists as the ramen chain's first US franchise in its 40-year history, and it doubles as the venue for limited "Food Concerts," where a visiting chef runs the room for a few weeks and then leaves.
The culinary direction behind all three comes from two Michelin-recognized chefs: Shinichiro Takagi, whose family restaurant Zeniya in Kanazawa holds two Michelin stars, and Billy Kong, whose San Francisco restaurants Kinjo and Saru Sushi Bar helped define contemporary Japanese cooking on the West Coast. The Fire Stage is led day to day by Chef Koki Shabanguh, who trained under Chef Masashi Nabeta at Yakyudori and served as executive chef under Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto at Momosan Ramen & Sake. The build-out runs about 6,000 square feet and the venue expected around 45 employees once fully staffed.
None of this comes cheap in the way a taco truck does, but it is not fine-dining pricing either. Early coverage from BeLocal NWA put the Chef Stage experience at $20 to $35 per person, with the full range across all three stages landing between $20 and $50, beverages not included.
What is actually on right now
This is the part that matters if you live three blocks away and are deciding what to do Friday night. The Food Theater's programming does not sit still, which is the entire point.
As of this month, Fire Stage is running an Obon-season grill menu built around charred vegetables and meats, timed to the end of summer. Center Stage has shifted into "hatsuaki," an early-autumn handroll lineup with a refreshed format. Chef Stage, home to Ippudo, is serving Kitakata ramen, a clear soy broth with flat curly noodles, chashu, and scallion. On September 12, Onyx Coffee Lab paired up with Chef Stage and Ippudo for a one-day-only coffee-and-ramen collaboration. And October 9 and 10 bring the venue's first Korean barbecue Food Concert to Chef Stage, with visiting chef Brian Shin behind the counter for the weekend only.
If none of that sounds like your kind of night out this month, that is fine. Check back in six weeks and the entire lineup will have changed again.
A different kind of specialization
Two blocks over on SW A Street, Stoic Brews Alternative brings another downtown option.
Stoic Brews Alternative opened in the old Pedaler's Pub building in March of last year, and it remains, by its own account and by Downtown Bentonville Inc.'s business listing, one of fewer than 30 dedicated gluten-free breweries in the entire country. Owners Rebecca and Jay Davitt had spent years running kickboxing gyms in the area before Jay, nearing retirement, decided he wanted to brew beer instead. Rebecca, who has a background in food science and has been gluten-free for nine years herself, took over production, using millet, buckwheat, rice, and corn in place of barley and wheat.
Its food offering includes pizza dough from Sandi Sue's Gluten-Free Bakery here in Bentonville, and every ingredient in the building is certified gluten-free, no exceptions. Arkansas Business reported that some customers cried at the bar over their first beer in twenty years.
The two businesses are close enough to make a paired downtown visit practical.
Two blocks, on foot
If you are planning an evening around both, the geography works in your favor. Stoic Brews sits at 410 SW A Street. The Food Theater is a few minutes' walk away at 100 NW 2nd Street, right on the square itself. Downtown Bentonville Inc.'s own parking guide flags the free lots at SW A and SW 2nd as a solid pair for this stretch, though it warns they fill up fast on weekend nights, so arriving early or parking a block further out and walking in is the more reliable plan.
Worth timing around the Bentonville Farmers Market too, since it already brings a crowd downtown twice a week, Wednesdays from 11 to 3 and Saturdays from 7:30 to 1, and was named a USA Today 10Best Readers' Choice winner for Best Farmers Market this year. A Saturday market run followed by an evening Fire Stage seat, or a Wednesday market stop that turns into an early Stoic Brews dinner, both fit naturally into the way people are already moving through downtown on those days.
What actually changed
Downtown Bentonville's dining options include both Bentoville's rotating menus and visiting-chef events and Stoic Brews' gluten-free offerings. Check what is on before planning a visit; the Food Theater's menus and events change over time.
If you are watching how downtown Bentonville keeps evolving and want a neighbor's read on what it means for the neighborhood day to day, Marla Roberds lives and works right here in Northwest Arkansas and is always glad to talk through what is changing on the Square, whether or not a move is anywhere on your mind.
