Uncle June’s Offers Good Eats in Retro Atmosphere (Business Lunch)

Uncle June’s
709 W. Emma Ave.
Springdale
3 Stars

Uncle June’s is the most avuncular restaurant we’ve seen in a while.

Eating at this cafe is like eating at a relative’s house, but nobody at Uncle June’s makes you clean your plate. From the homemade chili and 89-cent bologna sandwiches to the Blue Bunny ice cream cones, this place reminded us of the corner grocery of yore. That’s right: Yore corner grocery store.

The walls are a festoonery of retro fun including milk bottles, model cars, rock ‘n’ roll concert posters and photos of folks like John Wayne, Elvis Presley and Lucille Ball. Old books line one wall. Record albums line another. And there’s a record player in the corner if you get a hankering to hear one of them.

One diner in our review trio started off with a coffee cup full of chili ($1) and was very impressed. He then ordered his usual bland turkey sandwich on white bread ($3.65) and, oddly enough, thought it was a little bland. He chased it all with a large espresso mocha $2.89 that was delicious in spite of the fact that it looked like something from the Crumpet Tea Room in Rogers.

Another reviewer tried a toasted version of the Jay Dub Club ($5), a ham, turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich to which he added the following from the “fixins” menu: mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar and oil, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and pickles. Additional offerings include honey and spicy mustard, black olives and jalapeños.

His sandwich basket included chips and a Coca-Cola fountain drink, and he compared the fare the kind of Arkansas Delta eats he loved as a kid — a fun throwback to places like Rose’s Diner (aka Rose’s Cantina) in Leachville, Mo., where the cotton farmers stop shaking a leg long enough to eat lunch this time of year.

He followed that with a double-decker, butter-pecan ice cream cone ($1.50) and declared the food and down-home service as “uptown Saturday night” as a trip to Betty’s Country Store in Beech Grove (Greene County).

The female in the group decided to trump the dainty sandwich orders and indulge in the Chili Dog combo ($3), which comes with a drink and chips. She noshed happily on her Cheetos, trying to remember the last time she actually ate a chili dog, let alone Cheetos. The hot dog was hidden in a mountain of chili that was thick enough to eat with a fork. She loved every onion and cheese-topped bite and fought the urge to finish the whole thing. After topping it off with a cookies’ n’ cream ice cream cone ($1.50), she commented that it was then nap time.