5 Star Stories: Pancho’s Cheese Dip attracts national following

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – Did you know cheese dip is considered an important part of Arkansas food culture? Some even claim it first showed up at an Arkansas restaurant in the 1930′s, but historians cannot agree whether that eatery was in Little Rock or Hot Springs, Arkansas. There’s even a World Cheese Dip Championship that’s been held almost every year in Little Rock since 2010. But, there are still others, who say the cheese dip that was born in West Memphis is the true king of cheese dips and it’s also the subject of this week’s 5 Star Story. We recently ran into three Rhodes College students who were on a spring break mission while on their way to their hometown of Little Rock: the Arkansas Cheese Dip Trail. They were dining on Pancho’s Cheese Dip and chips at 3600 East Broadway in West Memphis, Arkansas when we met them. Pancho’s was the brainchild of Morris Berger who surprised his son with a high school graduation trip to Mexico in the 1950′s. During their visit, their tastebuds were so tantalized by the food, Berger decided to bring the flavors home with him to West Memphis, Arkansas. Rather than throwing in the towel, the family tore down an old nightclub they owned called the Plantation Inn which, according to Berger’s daughter, was once the place to be when it came to live music from Memphis artists. “I met every single person who played there. Willie Mitchell, Floyd Newman — they all just were wonderful,” even Isaac Hayes, reminisced Brenda O’Brien, who also lived above the inn with her family while growing up. Soon after the new restaurant opened in the shadow of the Plantation Inn, the Berger family, encouraged by the popularity of the West Memphis location, expanded their Pancho’s empire with more than two dozen restaurants throughout Memphis. But, about 20 years ago, the family closed down all of its restaurants except the one in West Memphis and another at 717 White Station in Memphis. They found more growth potential in its products like the cheese dip, salsa and dressing, the magic of which now happens at a little factory on Winchester in Memphis near the airport, where it’s shipped out to more than 1,200 stores like Kroger and Walmart, to name two, worldwide. “You can pretty much buy it in every store in the state of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, ” boasted Pancho’s President Tim Wallace. “This is new to everyone. We actually loaded cheese dip on a train last week and it’s on its way to the West Coast now, to Sam’s Clubs all the way in California, Nevada, Arizona — two of them in Hawaii.” “Every ingredient in our cheese dip is all-natural,” he said. “It’s all-natural we don’t cheat our customers. I take pride in knowing that we don’t cheat the people because my family eats it and there a lot of other families that eat it.” O’Brien’s two sons run the company now, the third generation of the family to do so. It’s certainly loving that’s kept customers like Leon Alexandar from Mountain Home, Arkansas coming back for decades. We ran into him at the West Memphis location during lunch. “I think it’s gonna rank high up there ‘cuz a lot of the places are in Little Rock, that are on the list. So I’ve had a lot of them before. So I think this one is pretty high, yeah,” they report.