Feltner’s Whatta-Burger in Russellville is for sale

Feltner’s Whatta Burgera long-popular restaurant for Russellville residents, Arkansas Tech students and travelers on Interstate 40 to and from northwest Arkansas, was put up for sale earlier this month.

Arkansas food historian Kat Robinson, who featured the restaurant in her 2021 book/Arkansas PBS special, “Arkansas Dairy Bars: Neat Eats & Cool Treats,” reports that the owners Randy Ellis And Missy Feltner-Ellis want to retire and hope to find a buyer who will continue the Feltner tradition. The restaurant will remain open in the meantime.

Missy Feltner Ellis is the daughter of the late Robert Feltnerwho opened the restaurant on Thanksgiving Day 1967. Robinson wrote in her book that Feltner’s originally began as a milk bar with a walk-up window and adjacent patio. The restaurant added the indoor dining area in the 1980s.

The 22,000-square-foot restaurant is located at 1410 N. Arkansas Ave., across from Arkansas Tech, and is listed for $2,500,000.

Feltner’s Whatta Burger was inducted into the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame in 2021 along with Monte Ne Inn Chicken of Rogers and Star of India of Little Rock.