Poppa Mojo’s to close on Halloween

A downtown Cape Girardeau bar will close at the end of the month. Ron Taylor, proprietor of Poppa Mojo’s Frozen Daiquiris and Pizzeria, announced his restaurant at 130 N. Main St. would shut down after Halloween.

“I appreciate the city. I appreciate all my people who have been here and supported me all these years,” Taylor said.

Taylor bought the building in 2012, running a burger joint, Main Street Station, there with his wife, Barbara. They also operated an Airbnb upstairs.

Barbara Taylor was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2013 and, to spend more time together, the couple visited New Orleans regularly, where Barbara would dine on the city’s cuisine while her husband played music.

“She was like, ‘We should open up one of these New Orleans places in Cape Girardeau.’ And I was like, ‘We should, shouldn’t we?’” Taylor said.

That conversation sparked the idea of what would become Poppa Mojo’s. With the burger business winding down, Taylor and a team of volunteers took three months after the coronavirus pandemic to convert Main Street Station into a new pizza-focused establishment, a touch of New Orleans in Cape Girardeau.

“We weren’t here to be a bar. We weren’t here to get people drunk. We were here to provide a good time for everybody: good food, good drinks, good music,” Taylor said.

After his wife died in January 2019, he sold the building to new landlords, and his lease ends Thursday, Oct. 31, this year. He will use his new free time to take care of his elderly mother and stepfather, as well as to reconnect with some old hobbies, such as making music and surfing. Taylor said he’s made sure his employees all have jobs lined up as well.

To close out its history, Poppa Mojo’s will host karaoke every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with live music Friday and Saturday; it is closed Sunday and Monday.

Feeding Cape in more ways than one

While the bar may be closing, Taylor still wants to keep serving food. In particular, he aims to continue the Feed Cape program his wife started. The program feeds people in need if they stop by Poppa Mojo’s at a certain time.

“Every day between 4 and 6 o’clock (p.m.), we’d feed anybody that’s hungry for free,” he said. “No charge, no questions. You don’t have to be homeless, you just have to be hungry.”

Nobody ever took advantage of Feed Cape by pretending to be destitute, which Taylor was thankful for. Especially at the height of the pandemic, people even left tips or entire dishes to help him feed the hungry.

“It went from (feeding) two or three people a day to 40 or 50 a day. It got intense. We had all this food, and we went through it, then food started showing up here. I’d have food at my front door when I’d come in to do this. People would leave things with no notes, no names, just people leaving things for me to cook,” he said.

He used tips he received at the restaurant to buy most of the food for Feed Cape.

Taylor wants to keep doing Feed Cape, if he can find a way to do so. Helping the homeless is a big deal to him.

“When your city stops caring about its citizens, that's when it goes to hell in a hand basket,” he said. “I just feel like if you have a business in this town and you’re not giving back personally to your community, what are you even doing?”

After a dozen years in the same location, Taylor said he will miss the establishment and the friends and family he made along the way.

“It’s been a whole lifetime … but now that chapter is over and it’s time to start something new,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to see all my peeps still.”

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