Giant Hamburgers & Giant Antiques

You might remember that I have family in Arkansas.  Considering that it has snowed eight inches today where I live and it is 70 degrees in Arkansas right now, I’m feeling rather homesick.  So I thought it would be fun to write about a previous Arkansas trip.

Last August I spent a long weekend visiting my Mom.  My brother was also visiting and suggested we partake in some Arkansas classics.  Cotham’s Mercantile is famous
for their hub cap size hamburgers.  It even made it into the Hamburger America book as one of the 150 best burger joints in America.

You would never know that former Presidents have eaten here by looking at it.  It doesn’t even look like a restaurant, for that matter.  But it is!  And a famous one at that! By the way, check out the dragon fly I caught in the picture (top right corner). 🙂

The inside is no different.  Rustic country charm is the theme here.  But you can’t really call it a theme, because this is just the way it is.  They didn’t make it look like this, time did.

Sorry for the glare on the menu.  Hopefully you can still get an idea of what they offer.

Of course the main you reason you come to Cotham’s is the giant hub cap size hamburgers.  I was also happy to be back in the land of good fried food.  No one does that quite as good as the South.

While Man vs Food went for the hub cap (actually four of them), I decided a normal size burger would be just fine.  Especially considering I was adding fried green tomatoes and fried pickles as my sides.

My Mom also went for the regular burger but with fries.  We were saving room for dessert! 🙂

My niece, on the other hand, is young and can still eat whatever, so she went for the Hub Cap burger AND fried pickles.  That is one full pound of meat people!

And my brother joined her, but had fries instead of pickles.  We tried to show how big these were using other objects, but that didn’t really work.  Just know that they are big.  The video gives the best idea because they are holding them in their hands.

Just what we needed after a full pound of burger and fried sides…a Mississippi Mud Pie!  I would call it a homemade ice cream sandwich.  It was chocolate cake, ice cream, more chocolate cake and hot fudge on top.  Don’t forget the whipped cream!  It was good, but I was craving something I can only get (done right) in the South.

A chocolate fried pie!  Holy moly people…I freakin LOVE these things!  There are several spoons there, but I did not share this baby.  The chocolate was all warm and gooey on the inside.  Seriously, I am salivating right now and getting sad that I don’t know where I can get one of these where I live.  It was the perfect ending to Cotham’s.

Up next was Morris Antiques, another Arkansas classic.  If you want some antiques this is the place to go.  My brother loves this kind of stuff, so we let him show us around and tell us all the interesting stuff that he knows.

I don’t know much about antiques, only what looks interesting to me.   I liked these chairs above, mostly because I’d never seen anything like them before.

I thought the carved wood on these pieces were amazing!  I just love the history of them, wondering where they have been and who they belonged to.  I’m weird like that!

It’s hard to see in the picture (more details in the video), but this is a Robin Hood bed.  There are four heads on the headboard (get it?) of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, etc.  With the right bedding and fabric in the canopy part, this would be amazing in a child’s room.

I had such a great time with my Mom and brother enjoying these Arkansas classics.  Mostly I enjoyed spending time with family, but the chocolate fried pie is a close second.  To be honest, the burgers at Cotham’s are special because they are big.  They didn’t taste that much more amazing than any other burger.  But it was a fun day doing things that I don’t normally do.   What’s your favorite thing to do when you are visiting your family?