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Sunday, June 25, 2017
Mike’s Place tops the list for fine dining Mary Kate Mansfield Features Intern
Mike’s Place is a wellknown institution around the Conway community and for good reason. The eatery has consistently won award after award since it opened 12 years ago, and this year is no different. After winning awards for best business lunch, fine dining and best seafood (no easy feat in a land locked state) and coming in as runner up in five more categories, Mike’s show its aptitude for good food once again. Owner Mike Coats is a veteran cook originating from Louisiana and is a pro at bringing the coast to Arkansas with innovative seafood recipes that will knock your socks off. He started the journey to the top of the Conway restaurant scene in 2004 when he pushed boundaries, with the help of the citizens of Conway, to be the first restaurant in Conway to sell alcohol to its patrons despite dry county laws in Faulkner County. Though Mike’s Place was
able to break into a new era of dining in Faulkner County with their liquor license, according to Coats only 14 percent of sales are alcohol, which only speaks to the quality of their food. The many people behind the food of Mike’s Place share similar stories. Coats himself, throughout college, managed the Conway Country Club as well as worked at the Little Rock Country Club where his interest in the hospitality industry started. He is able to keep the customer service and the food fantastic and consistent and attributes success the staff. “We’re fortunate to have a strong employee base in the area, we have virtually no turnover,” Coats said. “ I don’t hire a server a year, so we’re really fortunate. Twenty percent of my staff has been with me since we opened 12 years ago, and half of those were with us at other concepts.” In the rare event that Coats has to hire a new staff member, he reaches out to the community of Conway, most of the time to one of the three colleges in the area. Coats feels that the young people in
MARY KATE MANSFIELD PHOTO
the area are highly important to his business and their own personal success. In the same way he attributes a lot of Mike’s Place success to his staff, Coats also takes cues from the community and his guests. For instance, the salmon is grilled over an oak plank rather than the usual cedar plank, giving the salmon a taste unique to only Mike’s
Place and its innovative kitchen staff. The salmon is only one example of the high-quality experience that Mike’s Place gives. All of the dishes on this eclectic menu have been compiled from the various places around the world where Coats and his wife have traveled, which brings a little bit of the world to central Arkansas.
Coats also attributes his success to many things like his employees and the community, but he also attributes the fantastic success of Mike’s Place to good old fashioned hard work. “You don’t work harder because you make more, you work harder because you care,” he said. And many people couldn’t disagree.