All the world’s a stage, And all the restaurants are merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances, And one eatery in its time plays many parts.

There’s no real evidence Shakespeare was a foodie.

But if he had had my job, covering Elizabethan taverns instead of writing comedies, tragedies, histories and sonnets, that’s how the classic speech from As You Like It might have turned out.

As with most years, 2013 was a volatile one in the restaurant business. New restaurants opened;

long-standing ones closed or reappeared in new guises. Chefs and menu offerings came and went.

Culled from a year of Weekend section Transitions columns comes this annual roundup. As usual, it’s not a comprehensive list - more a host of highlights.

DOING IT UP “BROWN”

As with our 2011 roundup, the big story of the past year is the reopening of a venerable “iconic” Little Rock restaurant with a more than six-decade history, after several opening-date postponements.

That year it was Browning’s Mexican Grill, 5805 Kavanaugh Blvd. This past year it was Bruno’s Little Italy, which opened in the first week of October, in its fourth location under that name, at 310 Main St., a couple of weeks short of two years since it closed on Bowman Road in October 2011.

Under the guidance of longtime customers and downtown renewers Jimmy Moses and Rett Tucker of Moses Tucker Real Estate, Bruno’s is front, center and in the middle of the Main Street development. The opening was supposed to be in August, but various complications and delays dragged it out for nearly two months. Lengthy waits for tables, especially on weekends, still exist and the sheer volume of dinner business has continued to hold up plans to open for lunch.

It marks the return of the Bruno family to control after 20-plus years under former owner Scott Wallace, who rescued Bruno’s after a 10-month interregnum in 1987-88 because he missed the toasted ravioli.

While Browning’s jettisoned pretty much every scrap of what it was to reopen as a new entit in the same, though completely redone, building, Bruno’s reopened with its Bowman Road menu (based on century-plus old family recipes brought over from Naples) pretty much intact; most of the few changes actually hark back to the way things were done at the original Bruno’s on Roosevelt Road.

The Brunos made sure the new design incorporated a pizza window, through which diners can watch the pizza makers toss dough - a prime feature on Roosevelt Road and Old Forge Drive, but not on Bowman, where the kitchen design didn’t permit it.

The renewed Bruno’s, by the way, is not in any way connected with Bruno’s Italian Bistro, which now occupies the Bowman Road space. That’s the work of one Bruno Beqiri, whom central Arkansas restaurant patrons will remember from the many Italian and Mediterranean restaurants he has run or cooked for over the years.

One further link between Browning’s and Bruno’s: “Bruno,” of course, is Italian for “brown.” OUT WITH THE OLD

In other venerable restaurant news:

Frank Holmes Cox III and Thomas Dale Alford III bought Leo’s Greek Castle, 2925 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, from Hector Parodi, who’d had the place for 20 years. They’ve made some menu tweaks and added a wine-and-beer license.

Chip’s, the half-century-old barbecue place at 9801 W. Markham St., Little Rock, also got a new owner this past year. Chris Harcrow, an old friend of the Chipman family, which opened the restaurant in 1961, took it over in August, and Ernestine “Tina” B. Chipman, widow of founder Thomas (who died in July 2012), retired.

In mid-October, Denton’s Trotline, 2150 Congo Road, Benton, closed after three decades in business. Owners and kin cited road construction, the spread of chain restaurants in the area and the publicity and political pressure tied to the arrest of then-Saline County Sheriff Bruce Pennington for public intoxication in their parking lot.

Say McIntosh Pie Factory and Restaurant opened this past fall at 2801 W. Seventh St., Little Rock, in the building that most recently housed a failed restaurant, Say McIntosh on 7th. Like its predecessor, the kitchen uses barbecue recipes developed by restaurateur and social activist Robert “Say” McIntosh. Say’s grandson, Robert McIntosh III, runs this latest, er, incarnation.

Plans by entrepreneur Gene Hickman to reopen long-vacant former Sir Loins Inn, 801 W. 29th St., North Little Rock, as Sir Loins Steak and Lobster House, have so far failed to come to fruition as Hickman deals with a series of legal difficulties in Lonoke County stemming from fraud charges involving a former business there.

AT THE HIGHER END

Vesuvio Bistro moved from within the Best Western Premier Governors Suites, 1501 Merrill Drive, Little Rock, to 1315 Breckenridge Drive, the former west Little Rock El Chico location, in late July. The new space offers twice the seating so the restaurant won’t have to turn away weekend customers.

Its hotel replacement, Table 28, opened in mid-autumn. Executive Chef (and Arkansas native) Scott Rains, whose credits include several San Francisco Bay area restaurants and the Horseshoe Vineyard near Bonnerdale, west of Hot Springs, serves high-end fare to 27 standard tables plus the eponymous feature table, where special-occasion guests can order a special six-course meal.

The Bennett family sold Vieux Carre, and the next-door club, The Afterthought, 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, to Joe Gillespie, who took over April 1. Gillespie brought in Greg Wallis, formerly of Ya Ya’s Euro Bistro, as his new chef and eventually put restaurant and club under the umbrella name of Afterthought Bistro & Bar.

Owner-chef Matt Bell’s South on Main made its long-awaited debut in the Oxford American headquarters in the 1300 block of Main Street, Little Rock (the original home of Juanita’s) in early August.

Celebrity chefs Donnie Ferneau Jr., who in late January left Rocket Twenty One, the Hillcrest restaurant formerly and eponymously named Ferneau, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd., and former Capital Hotel Executive Chef Lee Richardson did not, as they had been expected to do, open new restaurants this past year.

Ferneau did pop up in August at The Tavern Sports Grill, in the Promenade at Chenal, 17815 Chenal Parkway, Little Rock, helping Ben Bradley et al. put together a new menu. And he popped up again as “guest chef” at Cellar 220, 220 W. Sixth St., Little Rock, formerly Lulav and, for a few brief months last year, the Italian Kitchenat Lulav. Reports continue to swirl about a place Ferneau is on the cusp of opening downtown, possibly in the 200 block of Capitol Avenue.

Cache, in the new Arcade Building, 425 President Clinton Ave., in Little Rock’s River Market District, is set to open to the public Thursday, following a splashy $75-a-person New Year’s Eve bash. The owner is Rush Harding III; his son, Payne, will move downtown from west Little Rock’s 1620 Savoy to become general manager and top chef.

WANT FRIES WITH THAT?

In area burger news:

Big Orange opened a second location in July in the Midtowne Shopping Center, West Markham and University on the Pierce Street side, behind Cantina Laredo.

Texas-based Mooyah Burgers, Fries and Shakes opened its second Little Rock location in mid-February in Kanis Plaza, 10825 Kanis Road. The first is on Cantrell Road at Taylor Loop.

David’s Burgers, with highly successful Conway and west Little Rock restaurants, opened a North Little Rock outlet at 3510 Landers Road, off U.S. 67/167, in the long-vacant Roadhouse Grill.

Buffalo Grill owner Doug Green cited the west Little Rock Mooyah and David’s operations as factors in the demise of his west Little Rock restaurant, 400 N. Bowman Road, just three months shy of its 25th birthday. “My baby is dead. We had to put her down,” he said at the time. The original Rebsamen Road location is still going strong.

The House, 722 N. Palm St., Little Rock, which at various times centered its menu on gourmet burgers, closed at the end of August. A negative Arkansas Times review and the opening of Big Orange Midtown may have been among the final nails in its coffin, but the restaurant had a long history of menu changes, inconsistent food and service and unfulfilled promises. ASIAN GRACEFULLY

Lulu Chi has been expanding her restaurant empire this past year, expanding Chi’s Chinese Express, 17200 Chenal Parkway, Little Rock, which had been pretty much a take-out only establishment, into the next-door former Coffee Beanery space as a full-service restaurant. She also opened Chi’s Asian Cafe & Sushi Bar at 3421 Old Cantrell Road in Riverdale (previously Union Bistro and originally a Lenny’s Sub Shop) with a pan-Asian accent (sushi and some Thai and Japanese items). But her attempts to introduce an authentic Sichuan menu at those locations and the original Chi Dim Sum & Bistro, West Markham Street and Shackleford Road, pretty much went bust.

Chi’s protege, Robert Tju, co-owner of Sushi Cafe, converted his unsuccessful Asian-fusion RJ Tao Restaurant & Ultra Lounge, 5501 Kavanaugh Blvd. in the Heights, into a “casual cafe featuring Southern/New American cuisine” with a “fusion spin,” now called Cafe 5501. A January target opening date for a new, smaller second Sushi Cafe outlet, possibly to be called Sushi Cafe Hub, inside the Eleven Two Eleven Center, 11211 Cantrell Road, just west of Interstate 430, has been postponed.

Mike’s Cafe Vietnamese and Chinese Cuisine opened at 5501 Asher Ave., Little Rock, in a building that previously housed something called The Union, with an extensive Vietnamese and Chinese menu and a couple of pool tables.

Vietnamese/Thai/Chinese restaurant Sai Gon Cuisine, 14524 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, closed in late November. It had not fared well since moving west 18 months before (after a Dunkin’ Donuts essentially booted them out of their lease at 6805 Cantrell) into a hard-to-access and parking-deprived strip center.

Taste of India, in the Lakewood Village Shopping Center, 2629 Lakewood Village Drive, North Little Rock, closed near the end of August. Curry in a Hurry, which owner Sahil Hameerani had moved from a slot on Pike Avenue in North Little Rock in February 2012 into what had previously been an Indian restaurant, Amruth, in the Market Place Shopping Center, 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock, closed in a hurry in September.

TEX, MEX AND TEX-MEX

Mamacita’s Bar & Grill, “opening soon” for several months in the 5923 Kavanaugh Blvd. space previously occupied by Heights Cafe and originally Satellite Cafe, finally opened its doors as May slipped into June.

Bart Barlogie Jr., son of the famous oncologist, finally opened his long-delayed The Fold: Botanas & Bar (original name: B&B Taco Garage) in May in an old Alltel fleet service station at 3501 Old Cantrell Road in Riverdale, just across Mart Road from the Riverdale Chi’s.

An offshoot of the Alvarez family, which operates several locations of La Hacienda and also west Little Rock’s La Casa Real, opened a second downtown Cotijas Mexican Grill in July in the Legacy Hotel, 625 W. Capitol Ave., Little Rock. (The original is at 406 Louisiana St.)

The “temporary” closure in May of Bumpy’s Tex Mex, which had taken over the former west Little Rock Faded Rose, 400 N. Bowman Road, Little Rock, turned out to be permanent. In mid-August, Alejandro “Alex” Lopez moved in his Fonda Mexican Cuisine, serving “traditional Mexican cuisine, not Tex-Mex.”

Like a cat with multiple lives or a werewolf that can only be killed with a silver bullet (pay your penny and pick your simile), the “door” at the former Hop Drive-In, 7706 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, continued to revolve.Establishments that opened there this past year include the short-lived Home Fresh Burgers; another, even shorter-lived, attempt to reincarnate The Hop; and its current occupant, Luna Maya Burritos, which opened in October.

FASTER FOOD

Fayetteville-based Slim Chickens opened its first Little Rock outlet in May at 4500 W. Markham St., in the former Back Yard Burgers building across from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (and directly across the side street from a combined KFC/Taco Bell). A second, west Little Rock location opened in November in a former Arby’s, 301 N. Shackleford Road.

Short-lived Redbone’s Downtown, 300 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock, gave way to the first Little Rock outlet of Memphis-based minichain Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken shortly after Memorial Day. Some, especially fried chicken fans, were heard to cheer.

The first Arkansas outlet of the Louisville, Ky.-based faster-than-fast-casual J. Gumbo’s franchise opened in early May in the Centre at Ten shopping center, 12911 Cantrell Road, Little Rock.

PIE IN THE EYE

The long, winding and spotty saga of Hunka Pie, which originated in a corner of an Argenta furniture store and has migrated twice, first to the former Hop Drive-In, and eventually to the former Starlite Diner, MacArthur Drive and Military Road in North Little Rock, finally came to an end. The diner reopened in early April as Starlite Cafe;

co-owner Alan Littlefield opened Littlefield’s Cafe around the first of December to replace Starlite, which recently closed.

WRAPPED UP IN CHAINS

A Twin Peaks outlet, with a wait staff of “lumber Jills” in khaki shorts and tied-top, decolletage-baring flannel shirts, opened in July on the lot that had once been Cozymel’s, 10 Shackleford Drive, overlooking West Markham Street.

Little Greek Restaurant, the first Arkansas foray of a Florida-based chain-franchise operation, opened in Mid-September in the former Cheeburger Cheeburger in the Pleasant Ridge Towne Center, 11525 Cantrell Road, Little Rock - just a few doors down from Istanbul, a Turkish restaurant. Still no word of any kind of trans-Aegean conflict.

Arkansas’ first Chuy’s Fine Tex Mex franchise opened in early May in the Chenal Marketplace, 16001 Chenal Parkway, Little Rock (a Rogers branch opens this month). Atlanta-based pizza-and-beer chain Mellow Mushroom opened in mid-June literally a stone’s throw away in the same center.

North Little Rock’s first Dunkin’ Donuts opened in mid-December at 6725 John F. Kennedy Blvd. in Indian Hills, in the former Dogtown Coffee & Cookery.

The Jackson, Miss.-based Newk’s Eatery minichain of “fresh casual restaurants,” with outlets in North Little Rock and Hot Springs, opened one in Jonesboro in November. And we smoked out the location of the long-planned Little Rock location - 314 S. University Ave., in the Park Avenue development, with an early February target to open.

STILL MISSING

What we still don’t have as the new year turns: A Ruth’s Chris steak house. And (all of which you’ll see advertised on a regular basis on cable TV): Red Robin. Joe’s Crab Shack. Boston Market. If we can’t have these chains, we could at least stop being teased by their commercials.

Style, Pages 29 on 01/07/2014