New owner of former Locos is making ‘a total redo’ to create more than a sports bar

While the new owner of the former Locos in Macon hopes to attract a sports crowd, he hopes to offer more than just bar food.

After “a 100-percent remodel,” JR Tavern will open at 2440 Riverside Drive, said co-owner Clive Webley.

“We have done everything,” he said. “We have put in new floors. We redid the ceilings, redid the lights (and) redid the walls. We’ve added TVs. It’s a total redo.”

JR Tavern will have 22 TVs to watch, and “we’ll also have a big projection screen for Saturday college games and Sunday games,” he said. “I’m shooting for Sept. 1 or before (to open). I’m trying to get open before college football starts.”

Tim Thornton, owner of Thornton Realty Co. and owner of the building, said Locos, which opened in 2002 and closed earlier this year, had been operating under older building and health codes, so a lot of work had to be done to bring the building up to date.

The restaurant is not a franchise of similarly named JR Crickets in Atlanta.

“We bought into the JR name,” Webley said, “but we actually have the freedom to run with our own menu, our own ideas. ... Definitely, menu-wise, there will be some things similar.”

The Macon restaurant will include “your traditional bar food, your wings, good burgers, but we are also going to serve entrees (including) seafood as well,” he said.

Though Webley wasn’t born in Macon, he graduated from Southwest High School in 1988 and worked for the Macon Police Department from 1998-2001.

He has not owned a restaurant before but said he “had dabbled in it.”

“We will still be pretty much a sports bar. We’re just taking it up a notch,” Webley said. “It’s definitely going to be a big space for the community to come and enjoy themselves.”