Oct. 2 is the target date to open the second outlet of Hot Springs’ Deluca’s Pizzeria in the Breckenridge Village Shopping Center, 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road at Interstate 430, Little Rock.

The restaurant will occupy 6,000 square feet in Suite C8, which had formerly housed men’s clothier Greenhaw’s, adjacent to the new home of Mt. Fuji and opposite the new location of Waldo’s Chicken & Beer, forming a sort of in-center restaurant row. It will seat approximately 190, with a private dining room, an upstairs lounge and a bar.

Deluca’s serves authentic 18-inch New York-style pizza cooked in a 725-degree brick oven (flown in from Italy) and “artfully charred,” according to the website (originaldelucas.com), and makes its dough and pasta by hand daily. The Little Rock menu will also include gourmet burgers, fresh salads, meatballs and cannolis.

Anthony Valinoti, a Brooklyn transplant, opened the first Deluca’s in November 2013 at 407 Park Ave. in the Spa City. It moved to bigger quarters at 831 Central Ave. in 2018 and to even bigger quarters next door, at 833 Central Ave., in early 2023. The pizzeria has garnered widespread recognition and numerous accolades, including, most recently, an invitation to participate (with 34 other select establishments from across the country) in Dave Portnoy’s One Bite Pizza Festival, Sept. 14 in New York City’s Randall’s Island Park.

Portnoy, president of Barstool Sports, visited Deluca’s in February 2023 and gave it a rating of 8.7 out of 10 stars, calling Valinoti’s pizzeria “legit” and declared it could compete with anyone in the country. A post on Deluca’s Facebook page (facebook.com/DelucasPizzeriaNapoletana) declares it is the only pizzeria from the South to be part of the competition, which is being billed as “the greatest gathering of pizzerias ever.”

Hours for the new restaurant will be 4-10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 4-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. And hiring is underway: “We’re currently seeking talented individuals to join our team in various roles, including front of house supervisor, back of house supervisor, hosts, servers, bartenders, line cooks and dough

seating is at individual tables that are butcher-block-topped with serviceable metal-andwood chairs. TVs in one area show sports programming; the middle dining area features picture windows that look out on the vast stretch of cleared but as yet undeveloped land to the north that will likely sooner or later house strip centers or bank buildings or other retail outlets.

A contemporary country soundtrack is prominent as you enter and in the restrooms, but not quite so audible in the dining areas. Wood piled up for the smoker, which hides behind a screen in the front part of the building, forms a distinctive portion of the front facade.

Blue Ember already has a role model in town — the local branch of Northwest Arkansas-based Wright’s BBQ. Like Wright’s, Blue Ember’s system involves placing your order at a front counter where the counter folks cut meat to order and pile side items onto metal trays — no waiting for your food to be delivered.

Unlike Wright’s, however, the order system is complicated and not explained upon entry — customers have to figure it out for themselves. Unlike Wright’s, and most barbecue places of our experience, you cannot order a plate or a platter — you must order the individual meat item by weight, with side items exclusively a la carte and at an additional price. Overall, you are probably not paying more, or much more, for a portion of meat and a side item than you would for a comprehensive barbecue plate in most places (though at most places your plate would include two sides), but it still feels a little hinky paying a la carte for barbecue.

If Blue Ember isn’t a 20-minute drive for you, give them a try. But after a couple of visits there, we’d say

the barbecue doesn’t nearly match up to what we’ve had at Wright’s, which, on Rebsamen Park Road in Little Rock’s Riverdale, is much closer to where we work and live.

There’s nothing in the entryway at Blue Ember to tell patrons how to order, but there is a QR code posted on the wall that’ll take you and your cellphone to the online menu. There you’ll find their various smoked meats by the 1/3 pound, ½ pound and full pound, most of them similarly priced: 1/3 pound, $6.33; ½ pound, $9.50; 1 pound, $19, for ribs, original sausage, jalapeno pineapple sausage, smoked turkey breast and pulled pork.

You’ll pay extra for pork burnt ends — 1/3 pound, $8.67; ½ pound, $13; 1 pound, $26 — and for brisket — 1/3 pound, $9.67; ½ pound, $14.50; 1 full pound, $29. A smoked chicken quarter is $6.99.

The online menu recommends “1/3 pound to ½ pound of meat per person.” Salads and baked potatoes (regular and sweet) for which you pay extra to add meat are available if you’re not into meat.

We were not particularly impressed by the pork burnt ends, which came in a sweet and sticky sauce. We fared a

bit better with the ribs, which were fall-off-the-bone tender, just as they should be, and very meaty; the counterman, weighing two ribs as .44 pounds and judging that a third rib would put us over the half-pound we ordered, threw in that third rib and didn’t charge us for it, but overall we weren’t impressed with the ribs, either — they just weren’t smoky or flavorful enough.

Cosmopolitan Companion veered off in an almost completely different direction: She ordered the Arkansas Salad ($8.49), a hefty bowl full of

iceberg and romaine lettuce, topped with carrots, hardcooked egg, tomatoes, cheese and house-made croutons. Yes, you can add meat to it at an a la carte price — pork, $5; chicken, $6; brisket, $6.70, though we only paid $5 for what must have been a smaller portion of added brisket. The salad was a cheerful experience, but we weren’t particularly impressed with the brisket, either, and there was too little of it to really charge up the salad.

It took an extra visit to finally come up with something we can praise: the smoked turkey sandwich ($7.99), which we had seen online reviews recommend (and which the fellow behind the counter hailed as the really good choice and his favorite). It consisted of pound of turkey, lightly dusted with dry rub and slightly overflowing the slightly sweet “buttery” bun. It also benefited by adding a little of hot and spicy barbecue sauce — one of three options (original, which is somewhat sweet, and “kickin’ apple,” which is sweeter) available to pump from gallon jugs around the corner from the soft-drink dispensers.

Other sandwich options: brisket, $11.99; sandwich:

$6.99; pulled pork, $7.99; and what must be the menu tour de force, Special Ops, $14.99, which piles on that buttery bun brisket, pork, sausage, barbecue beans and a rib. Other menu options include sweet or regular baked potatoes, available for loading with brisket, $11.69; pulled pork, $9.99; or chicken; $10.99.

We will say this for the side items: You do get enormous portions for your $2.99. Our mac & cheese, very cheesy though somewhat bland, was almost too much to consume on the premises. And our corn on the cob was a whole cob, not a cobette. Other side options: fries, slaw, BBQ beans, fried okra, baked potato, baked sweet potato, potato salad, green beans and brisket twisters (a toasted jalapeno filled with “decadent brisket and cream cheese, wrapped in seasoned bacon,” according to the menu).

We did not visit the dessert/beer station, where are available a handful of beer options (no wine or booze — which of course spurs that old joke about what wine goes best with barbecue: beer) and three dessert possibilities: soft-serve ice cream, “Shaw-berry” cake (strawberry cake with chocolate icing) and a waffle sundae (Belgian waffles layered with ice cream and smothered in hot fudge).

Another difference from Wright’s: There you are pretty much responsible for bussing your own table space, and there are trash receptacles at various strategic locations throughout the restaurant. At Blue Ember, we don’t think we could have bussed our stuff if we’d tried — there’s no evident place to dispose of things. But staff members are constantly circulating to clear tables and make them available to incoming diners.