by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
When Legal Art Works owner Jeff Davis set out to find a new and larger space for his growing business and growing staff, he looked all over Downtown. He looked at really nice spaces in towers and ground floor retail with plenty of room.
When all was said and done, one of the biggest factors in his decision was: Can you cookout in the space?
“When I would go out and look around, I would come back and the staff would say, ‘What’s the grill factor?’ I would see the beautiful spaces but they’d have zero grill factor,” said Davis, who is moving his business to a space in the Daniel Building on Bay Street over the weekend. “It’s funny how much having a spot to grill factored in. It’s a staple.”
Since opening up on North Laura Street three years ago, Davis has hosted at least 100 Friday cookouts and estimates he’s served up hundreds of hamburgers and hot dogs. He hasn’t sold a single one of them and his Friday cookouts have become almost cult-like.
The new space is four times bigger, will have plasma TVs, state-of-the-art everything and yet Davis simply cannot wait to fire up the grill again. With an indoor, yet open-air atrium, Davis will have a huge space capable of holding a big crowd. And, that’s exactly what he intends to do.
“About a month after we move we are going to have the event of the year,” said Davis. “I want to get a mariachi band from Orlando. I’m going to have it on a Saturday night and invite about 500 people, all the attorneys, paralegals and vendors we work with.”
What about the Friday cookouts?
They’ll continue — just in a bigger, better, covered space.