Restaurant Manager is Fat, Cool and in Contempt

Toney Goucher has given up on his own barbecue restaurant and gone to work as general manager of the 18,000-SF Cool Water Village Cafe in Fayetteville.

Goucher said he started his new job, working for owners Tracy and Celeste Hoskins, on April 22.

The 10-year lease expired on Goucher’s Fat Toney’s BBQ location at 1301 Garland Ave. at the end of 2001, and the building’s owner wanted him out to make room for friends who opened Lucky Luke’s BBQ in that spot. So Goucher moved the restaurant a block down the street to 1317 Garland Ave., but never opened in that building citing “problems with permits.”

“ABC wasn’t going to give him his liquor license because he was behind on his HMR taxes,” said Casey Jones, the Fayetteville prosecutor. ABC stands for the state Alcoholic Beverage Control office in Little Rock.

Jones said he couldn’t remember how far Goucher was behind on the city’s hotel-motel-restaurant taxes, but he said the situation was getting serious.

“We worked out a deal with him, but he never followed through on it,” Jones said, “so we filed a motion for him to be held in contempt of court, which could carry up to 10 days in jail.”

Coy Kaylor, a longtime Fayetteville restaurateur who had been chef at Cool Water, died recently after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Goucher said he would introduce the Fat Toney’s barbecue menu at Cool Water by mid-May. He said the owners plan to build a 2,000-SF patio out front complete with a waterfall.