Pressroom in downtown Bentonville abruptly closes after 8 years

The Pressroom has gone silent in downtown Bentonville. The restaurant at 100 N.W. Second St. on the square has closed.

According to a printed sign posted Monday (March 4) on the front door, the closure is permanent to make way for a new tenant later this year. The sign read:

Pressroom is closing! To our customers, thank you for your years of patronage. We are honored to have been a part of the downtown community. Stay tuned this spring as a brand new vibe will fill this space.”

Ropeswing Hospitality Group of Bentonville is the restaurant owner. The company provided this statement to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal:

“Pressroom has been a big part of Bentonville’s downtown community, and we are proud of what we have accomplished here over the years. We want to thank all of our employees for their hard work and dedication to making a great dining experience. All current Ropeswing hourly and salaried employees are being offered a severance package. In the restaurant and hospitality world, new concepts are always appearing, and this decision is simply a reflection of that. We are excited to see what the next big thing will be at this vibrant location.”

It is unclear how many employees are affected. According to social media posts on Monday, at least one of them was caught unaware.

Emily Curtis of Fayetteville said she found out about the closure Monday morning from a Pressroom co-worker through a messaging app.

“I was informed by my coworkers (not management, HR, or corporate Ropeswing) that I was out of a job, effective immediately,” Curtis wrote. “My coworkers that were scheduled for lunch service this morning were sent home during the pre-shift meeting by HR with no explanation whatsoever. All of us, including the ones that showed up for work [Monday], were left completely in the dark.”

Curtis, who’d worked at the restaurant since July 2023, wrote that she received a phone call from Ropeswing later on Monday with news that Pressroom would be closed for good.

Pressroom opened as a sit-down restaurant in January 2016 in the Midtown Center. In its first iteration, one block over on Central Avenue, the eatery opened a few years earlier as a pub/coffee shop.

Ropeswing exists under the Runway Group umbrella and operates multiple restaurant concepts in Bentonville, including Ladyslipper, Preacher’s Son, Undercroft, Louise and Sunny’s.

Runway Group is a business team based in Bentonville led by Steuart Walton and his younger brother, Tom Walton. They are grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton and the sons of Jim Walton, chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group Inc.

The diversified holding company makes strategic investments in Northwest Arkansas in real estate, hospitality, outdoor initiatives and aviation.