Last Updated: March 3, 2026
Cheese dip has always been more than a side dish in Arkansas. In the Natural State, it’s a comfort, a calling, and for many (myself included), a core memory.
Before it landed on fast-casual menus, late-night cravings, and TikTok tables, cheese dip was already bubbling away in a dirt floor restaurant in Hot Springs, Arkansas. What started as a humble house blend of melted cheese and spice has grown into something much bigger: a shared tradition, a source of pride, and arguably—though we’ll save that debate for another day—a contender for one of America’s great regional foods.
This story isn’t about winning an argument about what constitutes “cheese dip” and the case for “queso.” This is about honoring where it began. This is the history of cheese dip, as told by the people who live it, live it, stir it, and serve it. And for me? It’s personal.
A Back Story: Born Into the Dip
The night before I was born, my family dined at (much missed institution) El Palacio, a Huntsville, Alabama, restaurant and Mama had her fill of their classic piping hot yellow cheese dip. Just hours later in the early morning my mama would go into labor—so it’s true I was quite literally born into a cheese dip story. As a toddler, I choked on a chip there. It closed in 2016, but by then, the dip had already become part of me and my found neurodivergent food blogger identity, “the queen of queso.”
Growing up in North Alabama, Velveeta and Rotel were holiday staples. We fancied ours up with hot breakfast sausage. But no one else I’ve met (yet) ever dipped shrimp cocktail into cold cheese dip like my Papaw. It’s weird. It’s good. Don’t knock it!
So when I pulled back into Little Rock—ironically, the first place my parents lived after they married in 1978 after a decade spent chasing cheese across Texas, it wasn’t rivalry I was chasing. It was recognition. 42 years (and countless bowls) after being born to eat cheese dip, I’ve chased that comfort back to its roots in Little Rock, Arkansas—the state that profoundly claims to have invented cheese dip.
The History of Cheese Dip: Mexico Chiquito
It all started in 1935 at a little spot with dirt floors called Mexico Chiquito, founded by Blackie Donnelly. It opened in Hot Springs but quickly moved over to North Little Rock. Donnelly was a pilot who flew a twin-engine plane between Mexico and Arkansas, smuggling back ideas, spices, and maybe a secret or two. Some say he only “landed” in Arkansas because he literally crashed his plane here. Another version gives Donnely’s wife the cheese dip credit—a mirror to Nashville’s spicy, woman-powered (albeit faceless and nameless) hot chicken origin story.
Some of the stories could be folklore. But the cheese dip? That’s fact, when you roll into the Natural State.
Yellow, velvety, garlicky. Chili powder, cumin, onion, maybe jalapeños. A smooth base of American or Velveeta-style cheese product. Sometimes milk, sometimes butter and flour. It wasn’t the same Tex-Mex. It wasn’t standard Mexican fare. THIS was something new. Call it Ark-Mex. And yes—it came with a fruit punch on the side.
Mexico Chiquito is still around, by the way. It’s currently owned and operated by the five daughters of Jerry Haynie, who passed away in 2011. Haynie purchased the restaurant and its cult-favorite recipes in 1979 from Donnely and expanded it into a mini-chain—now a woman-owned legacy still serving that same secret dip.
The White Cheese Dip Revolution
Enter the 1980s. Mark Abernathy, freshly back in Little Rock from a stint helping launch TGI Fridays in Dallas, decided to try something bold at Blue Mesa Grill. Alongside Frank McGehee, he created the first-ever white cheese dip—a spicy, creamy mix of smooth melty cheese: mozzarella, provolone, and roasted green chiles. Later, at Juanita’s, he gave it a stage. Just like the national music acts he hosted there, white cheese dip became a hit. It didn’t replace yellow—it joined the family, in true Southern style.
Mark didn’t just invent a new dip. He cemented cheese dip’s place in Arkansas civil rights, food, and music culture. He helped launch the Central High School Historic Site, brought artists like John Prine and Joan Baez to town, and secured a lifetime supply of cheese dip in his restaurant sale deal. As one should.
Cheese Dip (or Queso) on Every Menu
Everywhere you go in Little Rock, cheese dip is there—sometimes front and center, sometimes quietly hidden in a breakfast burrito or on poutine.
At Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro, now run by Don Dugan, the award-winning le Petit Roche cheese dip recipe remains top-secret. Don took over the business and its emotional legacy—there’s a mural tree painted inside in memory of the original owner’s son. The cheese dip is buttery, beloved, and fiercely guarded.
At El Sur Street Food Co, Louis didn’t put cheese dip on his original Honduran food truck menu. But once he opened a brick-and-mortar in SoMa, the requests poured in. Now it’s on the happy hour menu, served glowing over a tea light in a custom dish—next to baleadas and anafre. Because in Little Rock, even Honduran menus bow to the queso gods.
At The Fold, a former Altel station turned taco-and-margarita haven, the queso is white, thin, spiced with habanero, and studded with bison. It was unexpected. It was delicious. And it confirmed that cheese dip has permission to evolve.
At The Faded Rose, a New Orleans-inspired restaurant, the dip wasn’t even part of the original concept… but guests kept asking. Then a bankruptcy judge literally ordered it to stay on the menu. It’s the only court-mandated cheese dip I’ve ever heard of. Honestly? Respect.
At Samantha’s, chefs Chris Tanner and Samantha are building a Little Rock legacy—cooking with Gulf seafood, Arkansas bacon, and Hatch green chiles. Their cheese dip is white, clean, comforting, and respectful of the people who make it. They even kept staff on payroll during COVID by putting them to work on demo crews.
At @ the Corner, cheese dip meets brunch. Their team sources local eggs and cream, and they’ll tell you proudly they once bought chickens to control egg prices. The dip comes from scratch. But the feeling? Pure Southern comfort.
And at Lost Forty Brewery, part of the Yellow Rocket empire, there’s not just cheese dip—there’s cheese dip dust.
The World Cheese Dip Championship, Food Tours, and Chips & Dip as Communion
In the early 2010s, filmmaker and researcher Nick Rogers set out to find the origin story of cheese dip.
But what he uncovered went deeper than melted cheese and recipe scraps.
His documentary, In Queso Fever: A Movie About Cheese Dip, became the first real cultural excavation of the dish. It wasn’t just about who made it first, but why it mattered.
Nick interviewed historians, home cooks, restaurant owners. He filmed conversations over stoves and across bar tops. He connected the dots between family memories and regional identity. And then he did something big: He founded the World Cheese Dip Championship—a festival, a contest, and a homecoming all rolled into one. There are trophies and keepsake cheese dip serving trays. Judges. Banners. But it was the last line of his documentary that stayed with me.
“It’s not about who made it first. It’s about the people standing around the bowl.”
That line echoed something I’d already been living.
After my mama and my bonus dad died, I found myself hollowed out and unsure how to hold space for grief. I started hosting quiet meetups in Nashville, originally just a few friends in folding chairs. No rules. No name.
But I always brought cheese dip. A big warm crockpot. A stack of chips.
People came not knowing what to say. But then they’d hover near the bowl.
They’d scoop. Sit. Stay a little longer than they meant to. Somehow, cheese dip softened the edges. It gave us a reason to linger.
Now, I call them Queso Connection Nights—simple gatherings built around melted cheese and real conversation. It’s not about healing all at once. It’s about having something warm in the middle of the table when the world feels cold.
Rex Nelson, Fried Catfish, and the Food That Brings Us Back
No story about Arkansas culture is complete without Rex Nelson—author, journalist, political columnist, radio host, and lifelong chronicler of the Delta. He’s written for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, covered state politics, and shined a spotlight on everything from small-town football to barbecue joints off Highway 70. But he’s also spent decades documenting the soul of Arkansas food.
When we met up at the iconic Buffalo Grill, we talked about cheese dip (theirs has chili, too, and is a local favorite)—but also about what it means to the South. Rex sees cheese dip the way he sees fried catfish at tables in Central Arkansas—as more than food. As ritual.
Catfish, he said, belongs right next to cheese dip in Arkansas’s culinary pantheon. They show up at the same kinds of places: reunions, wakes, church picnics, political fundraisers, roadside fish fries.
He described them both as “the dishes people remember being around when something big happened.”
Rex is someone who understands that Southern food isn’t always fancy—but it’s always meaningful. It anchors us. It welcomes us back.
He reminded me that what’s in the bowl matters—but who’s around it matters more.
And honestly? That might just be the thesis of cheese dip itself.
Looking for more food stories from around the South? Click here.
