BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Nineteen years ago, Birmingham chef Chris Dupont sold his car, invested a few thousand dollars he had put away, and made a handshake deal with his landlord to open the original Café Dupont on Main Street in small-town Springville.

Now, Dupont is only a few days away from opening another restaurant – a more casual, globally-inspired little place he calls Tau Poco – just three doors down from the present location of Café Dupont on 20th Street North in downtown Birmingham.

To Dupont, it’s like starting all over again.

And that’s a great feeling.

“I still remember when I started Café Dupont,” he says. “It was just a real entrepreneurial spirit. . . . I lived in the back of the restaurant for a year. I know you can do it if you have the will and the passion.

“This to me is kind of like going back to that moment,” Dupont adds. “We don’t really need to do anything except show people we really care about what we’re doing. And that doesn’t take money. That just takes your effort.”

Tau Poco – which, loosely translated, means “small vessel” in Vietnamese, Dupont says -- should open sometime next week in the former location of the New York Style Delicatessen, which closed a few months ago.

Meanwhile, by early next year, Dupont hopes to open yet another restaurant, Dupont Public House, in the former Lovoy’s space in Homewood’s SoHo Square.

The time to grow

Tau Poco and Dupont Public House will add to Dupont's suddenly expanding portfolio of restaurants that includes not only Café Dupont but also Mix bakery and café, which he opened nearly three years ago in the One Federal Place office building on Fourth Avenue North downtown.

“I think in every economic environment there are times of growth and there are times where you just hold,” he says. “I think this is a growth period for us.”

White butcher paper conceals all of the activity that is going on inside the old New York Style Delicatessen, which will be the new home of Chris Dupont's Tau Poco. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)

First comes Tau Poco, an informal lunch spot where customers may choose from a menu board that will feature Venezuelan corn cakes, Moroccan flatbreads, Korean bossam pork, Peruvian vegan ceviche, Israeli couscous and Caribbean plantains, among other international dishes.

“We are trying to get as many different flavors – from heat to sweet to tangy to sour,” Dupont says. “We don’t want to compose the dishes. We would rather let the customer pick.

“A lot of the customers are going to come in and rely on us to connect the dots, but after you come in two or three times and start tasting things, you will start to branch out and people are going to develop favorites.”

A food truck without wheels

Although the space is small, with seating for only 16 diners at four tables inside, the flavors will be big, Dupont says.

“This is kind of like the greatest hits of things I’ve read over the years that I’ve really enjoyed and wanted to have in a restaurant,” he says. “So this box (space) affords us an opportunity to do whatever we want.

“And it follows the idea of the food truck without the truck,” he adds. “It’s kind of like our food truck but in a brick-and-mortar (restaurant).”

The Tau Poco menu will feature dishes from such countries as Morocco, Peru, South Korea and Venezuela. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)

Because of the limited seating, Tau Poco likely may become more of a “grab-and-go” takeout place, Dupont says, but he will let the customers determine that.

He has yet to settle on the menu prices or hours of operation, but the restaurant likely will be open from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, he says.

Taylor Joiner, who has worked at Café Dupont for three years, helped develop the menu and will be in charge of the day-to-day operations, Dupont says.

They got the idea for Tau Poco after Dupont prepared a Christmas dinner for his staff using New York chef and restaurateur David Chang's "Momofuku" cookbook. In culinary circles, the innovative Chang is widely admired for using French cooking techniques to blend Asian and American flavors and dishes.

“The story behind ‘Momofuku’ and David Chang was very inspirational to both of us,” Joiner says. “So it was kind of a launching pad.”

A restaurant in motion

While Dupont and Joiner have been in the Café Dupont kitchen testing the menu, Birmingham artist Veronique “Vero” Vanblaere, who owns Naked Art gallery in Forest Park, has worked magic with her paintbrush, transforming the old New York Style Delicatessen into the vibrant, new Tau Poco.

“She would ride her bike down here, and every day she would come in and she would have a new idea,” Dupont says. “I told her, ‘You don’t have to ask me to do anything, just do it.’”

With a few cans of paint and her vivid imagination, Vanblaere has reenergized the space with bright splashes of red, yellow, green and aqua -- which represent some of the colors from the flags of the countries featured on the Tau Poco menu.

“I wanted it to be really colorful because it’s an international place . . . a place where everyone finds something they like,” Vanblaere says.

Birmingham artist Veronique "Vero" Vanblaere from Naked Art gallery in Forest Park was given free reign to decorate the Tau Poco space. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)

Vanblaere carries out Tau Poco’s street food vibe with a mural that depicts a young woman driving a scooter while she nibbles on a bite of food, her hair flowing underneath her helmet.

“I like the idea of people coming in, (then) getting on their scooter or bike, and taking off while eating their food,” she says. “No time wasted, but you get a fantastic street food experience.”

As he did with the original Café Dupont, Dupont is opening Tau Poco with a minimal investment – in this case, less than $15,000, he says.

“It’s half the amount it would take you to get a food truck (going),” he says. “That was my goal, and we’re still under 15 grand for opening this place.

“That's a story I want to come out, as well: If you’re a cook or you’re someone who’s passionate about food, you don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars to put something on a plate.

“You just need to have passion about what you like and what you want to do and you will find a space like this, a second- or third-generation space, with nice, cheap rent. It’s just up to you to add that energy and put the heart and the passion into it.”

Coming soon to Homewood

After he gets Tau Poco up and running, Dupont will move on to his next restaurant venture, Dupont Public House, which is still a couple of months or so away from opening, he says. It is a much bigger, and more expensive, project.

“I’m juggling a bowling ball (Dupont Public House) in one hand and a ping pong ball (Tau Poco) in the other,” he says. “It’s definitely a contrast and a tale of two restaurants.”

The SoHo space that Dupont Public House will take over has been available since Lovoy's restaurant closed last November, about 2½ years after moving there from its old, familiar Green Springs Highway location .

Dupont Public House will take over the SoHo Square space vacated by Lovoy's restaurant, which closed last November. (Birmingham News file/Beverly Taylor)

“We’ve been working on that project for a few years, trying to go into Homewood and trying to find the right thing there,” Dupont says. “I think that’s the right spot, the right time.

“We are trying to put together the right menu, get the right feeling,” he adds. “We are trying to cross so many barriers because Homewood has so many different price points and there are so many different people that can go out every night.”

Dupont Public House, he says, will be a place where people may get a burger and a beer while they hang out and watch the games on TV.

“I’m going to cross as many food barriers as I can – from a hamburger to a charcuterie plate,” he says.

With Café Dupont, Mix and now Tau Poco, Dupont Public House will give Dupont four restaurants to keep an eye on, but he says it is a manageable number.

“A lot of our staff is intermingled between the restaurants,” he says. “To attract good people, you need diverse attractions.

“I want good cooks who can come in and work with Taylor and myself in this (Tau Poco) space. They can go to Mix and learn how to make bread and pastries, go to Cafe Dupont and do fine-dining, and go to Public House and learn how to do other things.”