A 40-year-old building that began as Henderson’s, one of the city’s first experiential restaurants, and then spent 24 years as a nightclub, is coming down.
The city is reviewing a permit application for ELEV8 Demolition to demolish the closed building at 320 General Doolittle Drive north of Atlantic Boulevard in East Arlington.
“The lease terminated. The building has outlived its useful life,” said Greg Willis, marketing and public relations manager of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, the property owner.
The 9.3-acre site is behind car dealerships. The property is gated and is not accessible by the public.
It is on the southeast side of Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport, the authority’s airport for corporate aviation and flight training.
Willis said it is about 715 feet from the edge of a runway.
“JAA intends to use the property for non-aeronautical land uses compatible with city zoning,” he said Aug. 30.
JAX Airport Director of External Affairs Michael Stewart said Aug. 30 the demolition will open up the property, which is part of more than 100 acres the authority has nearby for development.
“Hopefully we will get some developer that will bring something to us,” he said.
“It is well-controlled what we can develop on non-aeronautical” property, he said.
That would be development that does not impede the airport activity.
ELEV8 will tear down the 11,073-square-foot building at an estimated cost of $55,000, the permit application shows.
It was the Jacksonville Gold Club Gentlemen’s Club & Steak House for 24 years before closing in April 2021, according to the club’s Facebook page.
Willis said its lease expired.
JAA did not set out to lease property to a nightclub. It inherited the lease through a bankruptcy filing.
‘Howitzers, trucks and jeeps’
When Henderson’s launched in April 1982, it was a new experience in Jacksonville.
The World War II-themed restaurant was set among palms and palmettos in the wooded area north of Atlantic Boulevard.
The Florida Times-Union Call Box feature reported the history in November 2016.
Henderson’s was named after Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, an island famed as the site of America’s first land victory against the Japanese, the newspaper said.
Call Box said a 1982 Times-Union story described the restaurant as a battered, soot-stained structure that looked like a cross between a bombed French farmhouse and a Disney war zone. Also that year, a Jacksonville Journal story described it as a baroque, turreted building that suggested a medieval castle as much as a World War II airstrip.
According to Call Box, “howitzers, trucks and jeeps were scattered outside the building while old fighter planes, separated from the restaurant’s bunker windows by barbed wire, awaited action under the trees out back.”
To enter, diners wound through a dim passageway lined with sandbags. Dining rooms were disguised as foxholes, and an outside lounge had gaping holes in the wall and half the roof missing.
“Headphones connected to air traffic control dialogue, if diners so desired, while tape-recorded machine-gun fire could be heard after leaving your car,” Call Box said.
Restrooms also were themed. The women’s restroom piped in British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famed “We shall fight on the beaches” speech that he delivered in June 1940.
A cocktail lounge included a large dance floor and a big screen on which movies and newsreels from the 1940s were projected.
Call Box said the restaurant was owned by David Tallichet, board chairman of Specialty Restaurants, and was part of a corporation that had 47 similar outlets in California, Texas and Florida.
Fire and closure
Call Box said Henderson’s closed in 1986 because it wasn’t making money and the quality of its food went down. And it was hard to find.
The property was subleased and reopened as Bugsy’s Hideaway for about a year, and then as 94th Aero Squadron. In September 1992, the Squadron closed and reopened a month later under its original Henderson’s name.
“The military machinery was gone, but the building, decor and atmosphere remained remarkably unchanged,” Call Box said.
That didn’t last either.
Call Box reported the Jacksonville Port Authority, before it was split in 2001 to form the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, had signed the original lease agreement with Specialty.
When Specialty filed for bankruptcy in California, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the lease to White’s Place, operator of the Gold Club, in 1995.
“And so it has remained, describing itself as a gentlemen’s club that excels at providing sexy entertainment,” Call Box said Nov. 13, 2016.
Soon after, Jacksonville Daily Record news partner News4Jax reported an accidental fire damaged the building Nov. 26, 2016.
The club was on fire when an employee arrived for work at 10 a.m. Witnesses said they saw smoke billowing from the roof as dozens of firefighters worked for nearly three hours to put out the flames.
The general manager said no one was inside the building. He added that the club sustained heavy damage.
The city issued permits to repair the fire and smoke damage.
Willis said the original lease was Oct. 22, 1980, to Nov. 30, 2020. The court assigned the lease to White’s Place on Aug. 16, 1995.
That lease terminated April 2021 because the court added five months to it, partly due to the November 2016 fire.
Stewart said the JAA had to honor the Gold Club lease that was assigned by the court.
“What it reflected on the authority, it was as if we were wanting to operate a Gold Club,” he said. “That was something the community and us wanted to get rid of.”
The club posted on Facebook on April 20, 2021, that after 24 years, it was closing the location.
Now demolition can bring something new to the site.
“This will open it up,” Stewart said.
