Sid & Linda’s Seafood Market & Restaurant at 12220 Atlantic Blvd. will close May 27 with the retirement of owners Sid and Linda Camacho.
The married couple opened the business in 2013.
Before opening their restaurant and market, they operated Safe Harbor Seafood restaurant and market in Mayport.
They began running the Safe Harbor Seafood market in 2007 and two years later operated both the market and restaurant. The couple worked at Safe Harbor until they opened Sid & Linda’s Seafood Market & Restaurant.
Sid & Linda’s is at southeast Atlantic and Kernan boulevards.
The closing was announced April 28 on Facebook.
While both are of retirement age – he is 65 and she is 62 – that is not the only reason they are closing, Linda Camacho said.
“After the pandemic prices have skyrocketed. Everything has gone up and up.”
They have had to raise menu prices twice because food costs have risen by more than 50%, she said.
Staffing also became a problem. Once open seven days a week, the restaurant has been closed Sundays and Mondays for the past year because they could not find enough people to work, she said.
Despite lower margins, she said they refused to cut corners. All of the food is made from scratch, including its sauces, like Tartar sauce.
“We make our slaw twice a day. Once in the morning and again in the afternoon,” Linda Camacho said.
The couple come to work at 6:30 a.m. and stay until 5:30 p.m. when the night shift arrives. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Sid Camacho cuts and prepares all of the fish and seafood.
Their son Anthony, 40, and daughter Lindsey, 33, work at the restaurant. They’ve told their parents they will find other jobs, but probably not in the food-service industry.
A potential buyer is interested in the business but no deal has been signed. Linda Camacho did not know if the location would continue as a seafood restaurant and market.
They have no firm retirement plans. After years of 12-hour-plus days, the couple plans to simply rest.
However, she hinted that retirement may not be permanent.
“Probably later on we may open something else. It won’t be a restaurant. Maybe a food truck,” she said.