VIP’s Café, a popular lunch spot near Montefiore Medical Center on Gun Hill Road, has had free wireless Internet now for more than a month. Laptop users and web surfers are still slowly trickling in, but in the eyes of café owner Steve Larous and Jerome-Gun Hill Business Improvement Director Roberto Garcia, the wireless connection is more important for what it represents: more economic activity, connectivity and technology flowing into the northwest Bronx.

The BID partnered with New York Wireless, which, in turn, coordinated the wireless installation of the connection by students from Monroe College as a training experience.

This is just the first of many such projects, Garcia says.

“The concept overall is to connect people, to close the gap on the digital divide and give folks access to free wireless,” Garcia says.

By any indicator, this was a pretty good deal for the café, with any costs for equipment or the monthly DSL bill being picked up by the BID and its manager, the Mosholu Preservation Corporation (which publishes the Norwood News).

Larous signed on to the wireless deal because it was free and it might be convenient for customers, not because technology is important to him personally.

“I don’t have a laptop, I’m an old-fashioned guy,” he says. “Anything new that comes along to help out the neighborhood, I’m going along with it.”

Garcia says the larger community will benefit from free wireless connectivity because it will enhance the quality of life for residents, local workers and business owners.

“Disproportionately, in so many other places, like Manhattan, you can walk down the street and find free internet anywhere,” Garcia says, “but the Bronx doesn’t have that.”

He and Larous both use the same example to show the immediate impact of free wireless. If a drug company representative makes a deal at Montefiore, they can now take a seat across the street at VIP’s and file or communicate the order electronically.

“People deal with the hospital, they leave and go to someplace in Westchester where there’s parking and wireless,” Larous says. “Since they’re here, we want to keep them here.”

He says he doesn’t even care if they’re staying at his restaurant, as long as it’s “all in the neighborhood.”

“From a purely economic aspect, it keeps people coming back and spending more money,” Garcia says. But on a grander scale, the Internet connectivity will also “improve commerce, the ability of the public to shop, and information dissemination, not only in the business district but in the community.”

Though the costs were covered this time, the BID is ultimately looking at companies like Verizon to adopt and expand the project to provide wireless to other businesses, as well as parks (Garcia mentioned Williamsbridge Oval Park) in the area.

The Internet emanating from the wireless router at VIP’s Café is just the first step.

Ed. note: VIP’s Café is located at 131 E. Gun Hill Rd., between Rochambeau and Bainbridge avenues. The phone number is (718) 655-8500.