Start from 24 curated places around Eureka Springs, AR, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Local Flavor Cafe
A chef-owned restaurant on South Main Street that has been a consistent local favorite for more than three decades. The kitchen builds eclectic dishes from fresh, often regional ingredients, with a menu spanning lunch plates to weekend brunch and evening service. The hillside deck offers a rare view over the rooftops of Historic Downtown.
Grotto Wood-Fired Grill and Wine Cave
Dinner service in a literal cave -- the dining room is carved into the hillside, with a natural spring trickling along the rock wall and candlelit tables pressed close together. The kitchen centers on a wood-fired grill that drives the menu of steaks, seafood, and seasonal sides. It has become the go-to anniversary and special-occasion table in town.
Trails & outdoors
Lake Leatherwood Loop
A 2.5-mile loop through Lake Leatherwood City Park that circles a 1940s limestone dam built by the Works Progress Administration, passing through hardwood forest and along the lakeshore. The park itself spans 1,600 acres with 25 miles of total trail, but this loop is the accessible backbone that rewards casual hikers and rewards repeat visits in different seasons. The WPA dam is the standout structure on the route.
Black Bass Lake Trail
A 1.9-mile easy loop around Black Bass Lake that combines fishing access, birdwatching opportunities, and gentle lakeside walking through a mix of maples and grassy shoreline. Pileated woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, slider turtles, and occasionally bald eagles have all been documented here. The trail is well-marked, appropriate for families, and far less trafficked than the Leatherwood network.
Things to do
Intrigue Theater
A magic and illusion theater operating inside a 120-year-old stone church on Mountain Street, where husband-and-wife illusionists Sean-Paul and Juliana Fay perform a Victorian-era mystery show under crystal chandeliers. The duo have appeared on Penn and Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent, but the intimate venue -- fewer than 100 seats -- makes the performances more immediate than anything on a larger stage. Multiple show formats run through the week.
Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour
Nightly guided tours through the 1886 Crescent Hotel explore the building's layered history as a luxury resort, a women's college, and a fraudulent cancer hospital run by Dr. Norman Baker in the late 1930s. The morgue Baker installed in the basement is the tour's centerpiece. Multiple tour lengths and formats are offered, including a midnight investigation that uses ghost-hunting equipment in the building after hours.
Landmarks & sights
Thorncrown Chapel
A glass-and-timber chapel designed by E. Fay Jones and completed in 1980, Thorncrown rises 48 feet into the Ozark forest canopy on 425 windows covering more than 6,000 square feet of glass. The American Institute of Architects named it the fourth-greatest building of the 20th century. It draws both pilgrims and architecture lovers from around the world.
1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa
Perched on West Mountain, the Crescent opened as a luxury resort in 1886 and has cycled through lives as a college, a cancer quack hospital, and finally a storied hotel. The National Trust for Historic Preservation designates it one of America's Dozen Distinctive Destinations. The Victorian architecture, hilltop gardens, and infamously dark past make it the town's most layered landmark.