by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
After a two week hiatus, Cafe Nola at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville has reopened.
Although several changes have been made to the restaurant since the museum has taken over operations, chef and manager Kathy Collins said that customers can expect the same great service that they’ve come to expect from the popular lunch destination.
“We’ve made some great new adjustments here and there,” she said, “but the quality service remains the same.”
Collins, former sous chef for Cafe Nola when it was managed by Bruce and Pam Pollett, said the menu is one of the cafe’s features that has morphed quite a bit.
Three of the staple menu items – the chicken salad, the roasted chicken sandwich and the lobster Cobb salad – are the only items from the former menu that remain listed on the new one, and even those have changed a bit.
“As chef before, I still had my stamp on many of the recipes for the dishes served but everything has a new twist to it now,” she said.
To consistently serve the freshest dishes, Collins said the menu will change seasonally.
In addition to the changes to the menu, some of the cafe’s decor has changed such as butcher paper table cloth and stainless steel serving utensils and accents. Also, some new stainless steel kitchen equipment has been installed along with tables that will accommodate parties larger than four people.
Extended dining hours are another change that Cafe Nola patrons can expect to see in the coming months. Cafe Nola was previously not open to the public on weekends. Collins said the scheduled date for the restaurants first Sunday brunch will be March 25.
“Once we have the brunch down, then we will start opening for dinner,” she said. “It could be a week [after the brunch], a month or later. It all depends.”
The extended dinner hours, according to Collins, depend less on whether or not museum security will be available and more on kitchen space availability, as Cafe Nola currently caters to private after-hour functions Thursdays through Saturdays.
“Since we have the one kitchen and it’s small, we can’t do both,” she said. “So it’s not necessarily a matter of security but a matter of availability, more or less.”
Troy Spurlin, director or special events and marketing for the museum, said the new cafe will hopefully couple with the museum’s rebranding.
“The museum itself has changed quite a bit over the past month, aside from having a new name,” he said. “The same is true of the cafe. While some things have stayed the same, many new exciting changes have been implemented for the reopening.”
Plans are also in the works to eventually be open for dinner during the First Wednesday Art Walk each month.
Did you know?
• Cafe Nola was named for it’s North Laura Street location.
• Both the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville and Cafe Nola sit inside the historic Western Union Telegraph Company building, built in 1931.
• Cafe Nola Chef and Manager Kathy Collins is a graduate of the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago’s Le Cordon Bleu Program and a former sous chef for Avondale’s fine dining restaurant, Pastiche.
• Former Cafe Nola managers Bruce and Pam Pollett plan to open their latest culinary enterprise, “Rosemary and Chives Urban Market and Restaurant,” a few miles away at the new EverBank Building on Riverside Avenue sometime in April.
• Cafe Nola’s current hours of operation are: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
• Upcoming Sunday brunches will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.