Safe Harbor Restaurant to reopen
Safe Harbor Restaurant should reopen soon in Safe Harbor Seafood in Mayport.
Chris and Deanna Wooten are working with consultant Ben Groshell, who owns several fish-camp restaurants, to rework the menu and operation.
Wooten said the restaurant will feature new equipment and a new workflow.
The restaurant closed Jan. 1 and the former operators have opened a seafood market in Southside.
Wooten said the reopened Safe Harbor Restaurant will seat 60. He didn't have an opening date and didn't want to comment on specific hours and days.
Wooten and Groshell had been planning to renovate the Monty's Marina restaurant next door to Safe Harbor, and Wooten said it remains a possibility. "That's still on the shelf for later," he said.
For now, Wooten said the logistics of renovating the larger restaurant didn't work out. Groshell remains a consultant. "We're doing everything Ben said," Wooten said.
Safe Harbor Restaurant posted on its Facebook page in May that it will be opening soon and was looking for "experienced expeditors, busboys/girls, cooks, cashiers. Part-time and full-time available."
In February, the Daily Record reported Safe Harbor Seafood planned to open a new and larger restaurant by summer in partnership with veteran restaurateurs Ben and Liza Groshell.
Wooten, son-in-law of Safe Harbor Seafood property owner Gerald Pack, said he and the Groshells would renovate Monty's Marina into a restaurant similar to those the Groshells operate.
The Groshells operate Marker 32, Palm Valley Fish Camp and North Beach Fish Camp, all along or near water, and are planning for the Julington Creek Fish Camp at the closed restaurant at Julington Creek in Mandarin.
As Wooten said then, Safe Harbor's waterfront location, in operation for a decade, continues as a fish market.
"The market's going strong," Wooten said Thursday.
Licensed to serve
Duval County Tax Collector Michael Corrigan issued business licenses to:
• Aroy Thai Fusion, 13475 Atlantic Blvd., No. 40-41, to Melanie V. Goh.
• Three Guys Seafood Inc., 2011 Emerson St., to Bilal H. Fshaikat.