Starting a steakhouse wasn’t part of the plan, not at first. In fact, Trey Goodman, fresh out of the University of Arkansas, had taken the LSAT and was toying with law school.
“Then a buddy and I started talking about opening a seafood place,” he says. “We had no clue what we were doing. I’d delivered pizza in high school and that was it, but we thought it sounded fun.”
That’s when a conversation between his father and the team behind Doe’s in Fayetteville sparked a new idea, one that quickly took on a life of its own. Twenty years later, that door’s still open, with Doe’s serving some of the biggest and most delicious steaks in town.
“It was a big blur, honestly,” Trey says of those early days. “It was definitely a steep learning curve, but looking back, it was just about staying busy and putting one foot in front of the other.”
For everything he didn’t know, there were two things Trey and his partners immediately hung their hats on: the uncompromising quality of the food and maintaining a comfortable, laid-back ambiance. These elements proved to be the combination that has sustained Doe’s Eat Place for more than two decades, a straight-ahead formula that starts with monster steaks and handmade tamales.
“Our focus has always been on the steak, right?” Trey says of the beef cut daily from whole loins into steaks at least one-and-three-quarter inches thick. “We have the big cuts, and we have the individual portions on our filets.”
“Individual” is a relative term when it comes to Doe’s supremely seasoned and masterfully prepared steaks. The filet, which in most establishments is the most petite cut, comes two-and-a-quarter inches thick and can be had in sizes up to fourteen ounces, which gives some idea what the “big cuts” look like. The restaurant’s famed porterhouse and T-bone are merely priced by the pound, meaning the protein sky’s the limit. Meanwhile, the sirloin and ribeye do not list weight on the menu at all, suggesting, to borrow from an old saying, “If you have to ask, you probably can’t finish it.”
“They’re definitely large,” Trey says with a laugh. “We do have people eat them by themselves all the time, but they are all built to be split among several people.”
Therein lies the second part of Doe’s allure: sharing things off the same platter with a friend or loved one, which lends the kind of intimacy to a meal that doesn’t exist much anymore. Passing around a plate of the incomparable tamales or splitting the last few boiled shrimp or sautéed mushrooms evokes memories of the best meals at home, a feeling warmed by the cozy surroundings that Doe’s occupies.
“We are located in what was the Joseph Noble Brewery, which was actually Arkansas’s first brewery. The building was completed in 1848,” Trey says. “Over the years, there were a couple of restaurants in here, and in the mid to late eighties, it was purchased by Wiedman’s Old Fort Brewery, and they had a brew pub and actually started distributing beer and things like that.
“We chose it not even as much for the location, but for the building itself. We felt like it really fit the concept. It’s a little different style of building, but for a place that specializes in beef and big steaks, we just felt that the building perfectly fit what we were doing.”
A building has to have a certain magic to be large enough to seat one hundred thirty-five diners inside, plus about fifty more on the patio, and still feel cozy, but that’s exactly what Doe’s landmark home manages to create.
“We did a little research at other locations here in town and even looked at building from the ground up at one point,” Trey says. “This building wasn’t available when that whole process started, but even back then, we talked about it as, oh, that would be a great spot. When it became available, we decided, hey, let’s give it a shot.
“It’s definitely challenging to be in a one-hundred-and-seventy-something-year-old building, but we wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s part of us, and we’re obviously part of it.”
In the decades since Doe’s opened, the menu has evolved because, unlike other franchise models, Trey and his team have been afforded some flexibility in what they choose to serve outside of the must-have steaks and tamales. This has allowed him to realize, in part, his original dream of offering delectable seafood options, including salmon and lobster tail, in addition to the traditional shrimp. All of the options, be they traditional or contemporary to the original, follow the same mandates of freshness and quality.
Asked what he has enjoyed most about his restaurant adventure, Trey says it all comes down to the fundamentals: the joy of being in the kitchen and the satisfaction he gets from seeing customers, new and old, enjoy the finished product.
“The one thing about this business that is exactly as I always envisioned it would be, is the relationship with the guests,” he says. “I’m a pretty social person, and so getting to interact with the guests, having that rapport and building that relationship with people, whether they are regulars or first-timers, has been pretty cool. That’s been my favorite part of it.”
Visit Doe’s Eat Place at 422 N. 3rd St., in Fort Smith.
doesfortsmith.com I 479.784.9111
