by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
It’s 10 a.m. and Del White, a regular, is sitting on a bar stool in Local’s on the Southbank with a cup of coffee and a cigarette, like he’s been doing for years.
It’s a neighborhood bar without a neighborhood, serving food and drinks until 2 a.m. to busboys, attorneys and businessmen. Some stop in to wait out a rain storm with a beer. Others, to catch a basketball game. Many enjoy the chicken wings and a cute bartender named Darlene.
“The thing about this place is you never know what you’re going to get,” said Preston Waldrop, the general manager and son of the owner, Phyllis Waldrop. “People will walk over from the hotels after their shift, so sometimes there will be no cars in the driveway, but people are literally falling out the door.”
Being the only downtown restaurant open after midnight in a city with a million people fills a niche. Its upscale neighbor, The Wine Cellar, and Local’s are just recently on speaking terms. It not surprising that the two wouldn’t get along at first, what with one obsessing over the latest pinot noir and the other flowing with the kind of customers that show up on the 15th and the 31st of the month. But cooler heads prevailed and when one or the other needs to borrow some salt — they need only ask.
Before the rash of hotels moved into the Southbank, the seven-year-old Local’s on Prudential Drive was a different place. They didn’t serve lunch, only bar snacks at dinnertime and they made the most of their money during sporting events. Early on, Local’s randomly cultivated a relationship with Baltimore Ravens fans and Waldrop still rents buses to shuttle them around when they’re in town for a Jaguars game. Some e-mail Waldrop a few weeks before the game to begin planning.
More regularly it’s the hospitality industry — servers from The Chart House and Morton’s Steakhouse — that cruise Local’s. Phyllis Waldrop also owns the St. Nicholas Lounge at the intersection of Beach and Atlantic boulevards. Customers who frequent that establishment, Waldrop said, will sometimes swing by Local’s.
“We don’t serve any food here that I wouldn’t eat myself,” said Preston Waldrop, whose family moved here from New Orleans when he was a child. “And everybody who works for me should be nice and smile.”
Saying that Local’s is sometimes confused for a chapter of a “local” union, Waldrop doesn’t advertise.
“We get judges, lawyers, cops, firemen, and City Council members in here,” said Waldrop. “But I can’t tell you which ones.”
Waldrop also said they get plenty of customers with dirt on their boots. On the weekends they don’t open until 5 p.m.
“We’ve thought about expanding but we don’t want to kill the quaint ambiance,” said Waldrop, whose voice was almost drowned out by the Bruce Springsteen song reverberating from the jukebox. “We hardly have any storage but we manage.” Waldrop said often people can’t find a table at lunch because it’s too packed.
Local’s isn’t big, about 900 square feet. Stools with backs straddle circular tables in the main dining room. The main attraction is the large, rectangular bar, which also doubles as a package store. There’s a very big television in the corner.
“The Southbank has really come up a lot,” said Waldrop. “And we have been here and gotten to know the employees of the restaurants and hotels as Jacksonville has grown. It’s kind of a different kind of neighborhood.”
Airline pilots and flight attendants with layovers in Jacksonville sometimes hang out at Local’s. If they’re tired of lavatories, they’ve come to the right place.
“We’ve got the cleanest bathrooms on the Southbank,” said Waldrop. “You can tell a lot about a place from its bathrooms.”
The kitchen, which is tiny, makes anywhere from 250-300 meals a day. “And 500 meals on Friday,” said Waldrop.
Phyllis Waldorp’s sister, “Aunt Louise” makes most of the food from scratch. Once a week is spaghetti day and many patrons, said Waldrop, enjoy that. The most expensive item on the menu is butterfly shrimp for $10.25. Otherwise, there aren’t many surprises: tuna salad, BLTs and chili.
And Waldrop said they’re plan is to be around for years to come.
“We’ve bought some property around the corner on Kings Avenue in case the landlord ever decides to pull the plug,” he said. “So we’ll always be here if you need a drink.”