Otaku Takeout

Arkansas's first instant ramen bar doubles as a Little Rock card shop, stocking Pokemon, One Piece and Riftbound next to imported snacks and karaoke rooms.

Otaku Takeout is the rare place where you can crack a Pokemon booster, order a bowl of instant ramen and sing karaoke in a private room without leaving the suite. It is Arkansas's first instant ramen bar, and it sits inside the Outlets of Little Rock as the original store in Jesse and Gwen Pruit's two-shop operation.

The trading card inventory is real, not decorative. Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, Lorcana, Digimon, Flesh and Blood, Union Arena and Riftbound all get shelf space in sealed product and singles. That card section is, in fact, what led to the family's second business — players kept colonizing the ramen tables until staff were hauling out folding tables to keep up, and the Pruits eventually opened The Dojo across the hall to give organized play a dedicated home. Serious tournament players now head over there; Otaku Takeout keeps the retail and the food.

What surrounds the cards is a full Japanese pop-culture store: imported snacks and drinks you will not find at a Kroger, manga and anime merchandise, figures and collectibles, apparel, a small D&D corner, and an arcade. Reviewers consistently describe it as a place to bring a kid for an afternoon rather than a quick in-and-out purchase, and the Monster Hunter and anime merchandise selection gets called out as often as the cards do.

This is a good stop for anyone shopping trading cards Little Rock-wide who wants to hit two stores in one trip: The Dojo and Otaku Takeout are a few dozen steps apart inside the same outlet mall, under the same ownership, with separate phone numbers and separate inventory. Splitting a visit between them covers both sealed-and-singles retail and a full tournament floor.

Hours run 11AM to 8PM Monday through Thursday and 11AM to 7PM Sunday, with the store opening an hour earlier and closing at 10PM on Friday and Saturday. Weekend evenings are the busiest stretch for the ramen bar and arcade, so if you are here primarily to shop cards, a weekday afternoon gives you a much quieter counter and more staff attention.