Fayetteville's Next Neighborhood Hangouts Are Moving Into a Church, a Dollar General, and a Mountaintop

A table near the front of a building on the Mount Sequoyah Center campus came from Arsaga's at the Depot, and it still has cinder burns from the fires that hit that building after the coffee shop closed. In early October, Cary Arsaga was on the campus at 150 N. Skyline Drive building a deck along the side and back of a building he is turning into Arsaga's on the Mountain. Local artisan Eugene Sargent built the sign out front and several of the patio tables, and he and Craig Young made the tables for the center seating, according to the Fayetteville Flyer.

That hilltop coffee shop is one of three projects across Fayetteville that follow the same pattern. Each one puts a place to eat, drink or linger inside a building that was never meant for it. Arsaga's is going onto the Mount Sequoyah campus. Zelli Pasta is going into a former church facing Gulley Park. A brewery, a gear shop and a sandwich counter are filling an old Dollar General strip near Walker Park.

Two of the three needed a zoning change first

Two of these addresses were zoned for other uses until recently.

The Mount Sequoyah campus was zoned for institutional use only, which limited it to churches, schools and government facilities, according to the Fayetteville Flyer. In 2023 the City Council approved a rezoning that allowed third-party commercial use inside the Ozark building. Mount Sequoyah officials then issued a request for proposals for a coffee shop operator in 2025.

The former Township Baptist Church at 2044 E. Township St. was zoned single-family residential. In October 2024 the council voted 7-1 to rezone the roughly 1.17-acre property to Neighborhood Services-General, which allows a mix of residential and commercial uses. The Fayetteville Flyer reported that several council members and nearby residents backed it because they wanted a neighborhood restaurant, coffee shop or other gathering place close to Gulley Park and the trail system. Other neighbors opposed it over traffic and further development in the area.

The third site, on South School Avenue, was already commercial. The work there is reuse. Three tired buildings are being divided into smaller spaces at rents the developer says are meant to stay reachable for local operators.

On the mountain: Arsaga's next chapter

Cary Arsaga told the Flyer he expected to retire after selling the Mill District location, which became Dempsey Bakery. The Mount Sequoyah building changed his mind. "I really love it up here," he said. "I just like being on this campus."

The plan, as the Flyer described it:

• The room: painted green, with tile lining the coffee bar at the back and large windows on the front and sides. Daughter Jacqueline designed it. Cindy Arsaga designed the family's earlier shops.
• The menu: the full Arsaga's coffee lineup, plus beer and wine. Daughter Ava runs the food, which will be shareable plates, charcuterie-style boards sized to the group, tartines like the ones at the Center Street "toast" location, breakfast sandwiches and salads, changing with the seasons.
• The extras: a new soft-serve program with vegan flavors, developed with local resident Amelia Foxtrot, and part of the family's bakery operation moving on site.
• Outside: a large rock patio out front, with the new deck wrapping the side and back.

Arsaga's on the Mountain joins the family's four current Fayetteville locations: the "toast" shop at 200 W. Center St., the "Carsaga's" drive-thru at 1509 W. MLK Jr. Blvd., and the counters inside the Fayetteville Public Library and the University of Arkansas Law School Law Library. In October the family said it hoped to open the mountain shop later this year.

A church with a storefront facing Gulley Park

The Township project has been in the works for more than two years, and it now has its first commercial tenant. CJC Development announced on Oct. 29 that Zelli Pasta will take about 1,500 square feet on the ground floor of the former church, with its storefront facing Gulley Park, according to the Fayetteville Flyer. The shop will sell sandwiches, pasta and specialty groceries.

Zelli comes from Springdale. Husband-and-wife founders Mitchell Owen and Angelina Bowen started it in 2022 as a small-batch pasta business downtown there. It has since added a retail market and deli, and its pasta is sold at Whole Foods, Walmart, Sam's Club and Harps. Bowen told the Flyer the couple lives in Fayetteville, not far from Gulley Park, and that they had "always talked about how cool it would be to be a part of this project." She also mentioned that homemade ice cream is a possibility.

The two-story building will have about 7,600 square feet of commercial space, split evenly between the floors. Office suites will share the ground floor with Zelli, and the second floor will be leased as commercial space. Eight attached townhomes are going up on the west side of the lot. STOKE Architecture's Matt Poe is leading the design, and construction is expected to finish in June 2027.

"Our vision for Township has been to create something that feels like a natural part of this neighborhood," CJC founder Cameron Clark said in the Flyer's report.

South School is filling an entire strip

Clark is also behind the largest of the three projects. The South School Strip at 1221 S. School Ave. takes in the former Dollar General building, the former pawn shop next door and the building that housed Rick's Iron Skillet. CJC is developing it with TJ Lefler of Lefler Capital, and Burke Larkin is also involved.

When the project was announced in February, Clark explained its scale and its reasons to the Fayetteville Flyer:

"The goal is to have two small restaurants there, a few other retail spaces, and we'll have space for a coffee shop. The spaces will be small, where the rent won't be too crazy."

He said the city's planned improvements to School Avenue and the upgrades underway at nearby Walker Park were part of what drove the project.

The anchor tenant got there out of necessity. Fossil Cove Brewing owner Ben Mills said the lease on the production facility next to his original Birch Avenue taproom was ending in May, and he needed room to keep brewing at the same volume. The South School space solves that. It will have production tanks and canning equipment, a bar set up like the flagship's, an indoor beer hall of about 2,000 square feet, and a patio out front. Wicked Wood Fired Pizza, which has served food from a small building outside the original brewery since 2018, plans to move its container to the new site.

Two more tenants have signed on since then:

1. Next Gear Outdoors, an outdoor gear and apparel consignment shop of about 4,300 square feet run by Derek Newman and Taylor Kinzler. It will sell used equipment for hiking, camping, climbing, paddling, cycling, fishing and winter sports, plus some new accessories. The owners told the Flyer they want shoppers to be able to "stop in to shop, drop off gear, pick up an online order, or simply spend time before or after visiting the brewery."
2. Archie's Sandwichery, which opened at 280 N. Walton Blvd. in Bentonville in June 2025. It is known for stacked sandwiches on Italian bread from Ozark Natural Breads, including the Crispy Boi and the Gabagool. The shop is named for owner Kevin Girkins' dog, Archer. "It's happening a lot sooner than we anticipated, which is awesome," Girkins said in the Flyer's report.

With a brewery, a pizza container, a gear exchange and a sandwich counter, the strip already holds the "two small restaurants" and shops Clark described, and he has left room for a coffee shop.

The calendar, address by address

The South School side has the most activity in the short term. The mountain shop could open first. Township has the longest wait, but its zoning question was settled two years ago, and its first tenant is a Fayetteville couple who live near the park their storefront will face.

Fossil Cove is also looking past this project. Mills told the Flyer he has done preliminary work on a third Fayetteville location off Rupple Road in west Fayetteville, though that is a few years away. "I don't want to operate anywhere else but Fayetteville," he said.

If you're wondering how a new coffee shop or brewery down the street might change your corner of Fayetteville, or what a rezoning like Township's could mean for nearby homes, I'm glad to talk it through with you. Amanda Gainey has followed Northwest Arkansas neighborhoods closely since 1994 and can help you sort out what's happening near you. Let's Work Together.