Montego Cafe appears closed, while Bruno’s moves forward

Montego Cafe appears to be closed. The signs for the Main Street establishment have been taken down and scraped off the windows and brown paper prevents a peek into what’s happening inside. Evidently, nothing.

The reggae, jazz and blues nightclub and restaurant opened in November, after the first tenant in the reclaimed building at 315 Main, Porter’s Jazz Cafe, had a fitful one-year sojourn at the nicely appointed digs.

A call to proprietor Brad McCray was not returned by this column’s press time Friday afternoon. Efforts to contact promoter Chris Bowen were likewise unsuccessful.

Nighttime crowds had been large and constant at the spot that was the first new dining and entertainment location on Main, which is undergoing a renaissance.

Which is not to say that the Montego Cafe lull — if that’s the right word — is an indication of what’s happening on the rest of Main.

Across the street, Bruno’s Little Italy was undergoing final inspections by the city Friday morning. Tense inspectors and construction officials were attending to safety and functional matters for the restaurant that will open, possibly this week, as part of the Mann on Main complex.

The interior is as subdued as Montego Cafe’s is (was?) colorful and lively.

Dark wood, leathercovered booths, tables and chairs — all in black — are complemented by the brown and white tile floor. Bruno family photos are already up on the north wall, sending the signal that tradition will hold sway.

Most of the roughly 100 seats will, of course, be inside, with some outside dining on the raised area above the broad, shaded sidewalk and beneath the black awnings extending from the triple-arch facade.

Main Street is nothing these days if not full of promise.

If you said it is the talk of the town, you’d be right.

Wednesday night, the board overseeing the search for a location for the Little Rock Technology Park dropped the 14-story Boyle Building at Capitol Avenue and Main Street into the mix of proposed locations for the park.

That came as news to Scott Reed, who heads up a partnership that has plans for the historic building,

which is part of the fourbuilding Main Street Lofts project that is underway. He and partners also are building the K Lofts apartments above the Montego Cafe location.

“I’ve not talked with anybody about that,” Reed said Friday morning. However, he said that he has “been a proponent of having the tech park downtown. ‘Tech park’ is a bit of a misnomer. It’s a job creator; it’s an incubator for startup businesses in technology and sciences.”

Innovation Depot in Birmingham, Ala., is a good example, Reed said. “Talk about a good Southern incubator,” he said. It’s in an old Sears building of about 300,000 square feet. “They converted it into a tech park. There’s 500 people there every day.”

The area has all the amenities, such as restaurants and hotels. Reed bought one of those old hotels, he said.

As for the Boyle Building, Reed said he and his partners are “in the ninth inning” on securing a commercial tenant for it, although he again declined to say what kind of tenant that would be.

“I think any location downtown is going to be a smart location” for the technology facility, he added. If you have a tip, call Jack Weatherly at (501) 378-3518 or email him at