Lately, it’s difficult to throw a rock in Fayetteville without hitting a delicious pizza restaurant. We’ve got plenty of Mexican food, quite a bit of Thai food, and Martin Luther King Boulevard might as well re-change its name to Chicken Restaurant Street.
But for all the food choices we have in Fayetteville, this town has been seriously lacking in Indian food options. Until now.
On Sunday, Fayetteville got its first dedicated Indian food restaurant when Zauq Pakistani Indian Cuisine & Grill opened on Archibald Yell Blvd., inside the building where Greenhouse Grille got started.
The new restaurant had a soft opening on Sunday and expects to have a grand opening in a few weeks. On Sunday, the food was served buffet-style, with several traditional Indian and Pakistani dishes available for sampling, but manager Niriha Kadambi said that Zauq will offer regular menu service beginning today.
“We’re just trying to gauge what dishes everyone will like. We plan to have all kinds of vegetarian options, plenty of lamb and beef dishes, kebabs,” Kadambi said. “Apart from that, nobody has explored as many possibilities as far as Indian Pakistani food. We’re going to open into everything you could possibly think of.”
Kadambi is from India, and came to Fayetteville as a student at the University of Arkansas before helping to start the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant is from Pakistan.
Zauk is open for lunch Monday through Saturday from 10:30 am – 2:00 pm, dinner from 5:30 pm – 9:00 pm, and will also open for Sunday brunch from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm.
Kadambi said the soft opening went better than they could have expected.
“We’ve had so many people call and ask, ‘Are you really open,” she said. “We’ve had a great response so far.”
