When Bruno's Little Italy reopened, after a nearly two-year hiatus, in October 2013 at a new location, 310 Main St., Little Rock, the original plan was for it to be open Tuesday-Saturday for dinner and Tuesday-Friday for lunch. However, the sheer volume of dinner business they did from the outset, and the size of the kitchen, made it impractical, if not impossible, to prepare for two meals a day. So the idea of lunch at Bruno's sort of went by the wayside.
Until now. Co-owner Gio Bruno has been doing a lot of thinking and planning for some time about setting up a grab-and-go lunch spot/delicatessen next door at 308 Main St., and last week signed a lease for Bruno's Little Italy Deli in the space that most recently housed a tattoo parlor.
The deli will offer some of the sandwich favorites from the days when Bruno's served lunch at its locations on Roosevelt, Old Forge and, briefly, Bowman roads -- meatball, Italian sausage, chicken, veal and eggplant parmigiana -- plus Italian roast beef, build-your-owns and po'boys (maybe, Bruno says, the occasional special, like sausage, pepper and potato), served with house-made potato chips dusted with spice and Romano cheese. They'll also have soups, salads (possibly including the pasta salad from Papa Gio's, a short-lived lunch spot Bruno operated in the late '80s on West Capitol Avenue). And, if he can work out the mechanical requirements, maybe 6- to 8-inch individual pizzas.
"We will have some Italian groceries," he says. "Customers will be able to buy Italian meats and cheeses by the pound." There will be a limited amount of indoor seating -- eight stools against a wall, where folks can sit and eat or wait for to-go orders. In fair weather, customers can also perch on the Bruno's Little Italy patio. And, he adds, in the manner of a food truck, there will be a front to-go window, "and you can pick up food on the sidewalk without ever going in."
And speaking of food trucks, Friday is the last day until sometime in fall, when it cools down a bit, for the Main Street Food Trucks. As of deadline , Tiger Q BBQ, Fork in the Road and Loblolly Creamery, plus a couple of others to be announced, are scheduled to be serving, 10:45 a.m.-1 :30 p.m., at the corner of Main Street and Capitol Avenue, Little Rock. We'll keep you posted on their autumnal return.
Napoli Pizza opened about a month ago in the former Sbarro space in the food court at McCain Mall, McCain Boulevard and U.S. 67/167 in North Little Rock. Very much like Sbarro, the menu features pizza (whole and by the slice), pasta, salad and strombolis. Hours reflect those of the mall: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 12:30-6 p.m. Sunday. The phone number is (501) 771-1987.
And speaking of pizza, a Hunt Brothers Pizza outlet recently opened in Little Rock at Colonel Glenn Grocery, 17500 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock. Phone: (501) 821-4577. The menu features a 12-inch pizza with choice of Original, Thin or Breakfast Buttery crust (up to 10 toppings for no extra charge, though double cheese will cost you); Hunk A Pizza (billed as by the slice, actually a quarter of a 12-inch pie); and Wings and WingBites. We had some telephone communication problems on just what are the grocery store's operating hours -- but Angela Petkovic, a spokesman for parent company TBHC Delivers, which operates Hunt Brothers Pizza outlets in more than 3,000 convenience and grocery stores in 14 Southern and Midwestern states, gave us 5 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Turns out there are more than 500 Hunt Brothers Pizza outlets in stores across Arkansas. (We found five others in the Little Rock metro area, two in North Little Rock and three in southwest Little Rock.)
CM Smoke Artisan BBQ is now open, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, at 605 W. Main St., Jacksonville. Owner Mike Stevens describes it as "old-school barbecue," smoked "low and slow over a wood-fired pit." The phone number is (501) 985-6328.
Lauren Hopkins, director of brand for Plano, Texas-based Mediterranean restaurant chain Zoes Kitchen, confirms that the chain will, in fact, be building an outlet on Chenal Parkway, across from the Target store near the intersection with Markham Street. "We're really excited that this unit will be freestanding, which allows us to incorporate much more of our brand aesthetic and design elements into the interior and exterior of the restaurant," she says. The restaurant, somewhere in the range of 2,500-2,800 square feet, will employ about 30 people. Target opening date is sometime in October. Check out the company website, zoeskitchen.com, for menu, etc.
One of our sharp-eyed correspondents called last week to tell us that Tequila Express, 12325 Stagecoach Road, Little Rock, the former location of D'Carlo Ristorante & Pizzeria, had closed. The problem is, nobody had ever gotten around to telling us that the place had opened. D'Carlo closed in July 2014; Tequila Express, which apparently existed in some other location -- there are earlier photos on the Facebook page -- started doing business there in December. And it may have moved again -- what we heard we got when we called the phone number, (501) 747-2250, wasn't a disconnect message, but that the number had changed to something as yet unknown.
And speaking of Loblolly Creamery, inside the Green Corner Store & Soda Fountain, 1423 Main St., Little Rock, it will host an Ice Cream Happy Hour, featuring handcrafted sodas, ice cream and "boozy" floats (with help from Rock Town Distillery), 5-7 p.m. July 9. The creamery will donate 10 percent of its total sales to the Thea Foundation. All ages are welcome, though, of course, you must be 21 to get the boozy stuff. Kids and adults will be decorating the sidewalks with chalk. Also, during July, the creamery will give to the Thea Foundation 10 percent of the sales of its seasonal Blueberry Pie ice cream. Visit theafoundation.org, email stacey@theafoundation.org or call (501) 379-9512.
And a correction to last week's report on the meal preparations Matthew Bell and his South on Main kitchen team are making for Aug. 17 at the James Beard House in New York's Greenwich Village. Co-owner Amy Bell notes that the wine for the six-course dinner for 80, which will be complimentary for those who have paid the $170 cost of the meal ($130 if you're a James Beard House member), is not, as we reported, being donated. Bell et al. will also be absorbing that cost as well as the cost of food, beverages, transportation and New York accommodations. "We are working with Raptor Ridge out of Oregon to pair each course, and their owner is actually attending the dinner, but the wine is not being donated," she explains.
Has a restaurant opened -- or closed -- near you in the last week or so? Does your favorite eatery have a new menu? Is there a new chef in charge? Drop us a line. Call (501) 399-3667 or (501) 378-3513, or send a note to Restaurants, Weekend Section, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203. Send email to:
eharrison@arkansasonline.com
Weekend on 06/25/2015