In 1976, David Stobaugh was nearly finished with his degree in banking and finance at the University of Arkansas when he decided that career was not for him.
So, he looked to a higher power for guidance. “One morning about 2 a.m., while praying on a hill overlooking Fayetteville, I felt like the Lord put his hand on my back and said that I should go into the restaurant business,” Stobaugh, 71, remembered. “At this point, the only (service industry) experience I had was busing tables for a few months at the Sirloin Stockade in Springdale.”
Forty-nine years later, Stobaugh’s namesake restaurant, Stoby’s, the Conway and Arkansas icon, is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Its sister restaurant in Russellville opened in 1984. “It’s remarkable to me,” Stobaugh said of Stoby’s success. “I can remember thinking several years ago, when Frank Brannan’s (Drive-In, a long-time Conway landmark restaurant) had been around 50 years, and it was, ‘Wow.’ And now to realize you can see that within eyeshot, it’s just amazing. Just one small step at a time.”
After that conversation on the hilltop, Stobaugh spent several years in various restaurant positions all over the state, landing in Conway to work in management for the old Danver’s. One day in 1980, he drove down Donaghey Avenue, passing Mrs. Smith’s Pie Shop at the Robinson intersection. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s a good spot for a restaurant, right down the street from the college,’” he recalled…