European Street Cafe co-owner Andy Zarka is working on a new concept for Springfield – a soft-serve ice cream shop that also sells beer and wine.
“This is something that the neighborhood doesn’t have now. The time is right,” Zarka said Thursday.
Springfield United is planned at 1401 N. Main St. in a former auto repair shop that property records show was built in 1930.
He intends to lease and convert the almost 2,000-square-foot building into a neighborhood amenity.
Zarka owns four European Street Cafes with his mother in Riverside, San Marco, Jacksonville Beach and along Beach Boulevard near University Boulevard.
He and his wife, Marlo, will own Springfield United.
The Zarkas and their daughter, Amelia, 12, moved to Springfield from Riverside in March 2017.
“We absolutely fell in love with the neighborhood,” he said. Referring to the retail and restaurant development along Main Street, he said, “we wanted to be a part of it.”
Zarka will lease from property owner Trautmann & Co. LLC. Trautmann seeks a zoning exception from the city for the outside sales and service of beer and wine as well as food.
The exception application says the property is at Main and Fourth streets in Historic Springfield.
The Main Street location is between First and Eighth streets, a corridor “experiencing a vibrant and varied revitalization” that includes restaurants, microbreweries and specialty retail.
The application refers to Crispy’s, Uptown Kitchen & Bar, Flour & Fig and Wafaa & Mike’s Cafe as the Main Street restaurants. Hyperion Brewing Co. and Main & Six Brewing Co. are the microbreweries, and The Block Skate Supply is one of the retailers.
“Springfield United’s unique offering of soft serve ice cream confections and draft beer will fit nicely in this environment and provide a more family friendly environment than currently is available,” it says.
He envisions rolling up the bay door on the side to create a breezeway for patrons. Zarka said he would like to offer a playground, too.
“It will mostly be focused on the exterior and have community tables out front and out back,” he said. He will build a playground so kids “can come and hang out and play with the kids in the neighborhood” while parents gather as a community.
Zarka said Springfield United will offer soft-serve ice cream, cones and dipped cones, banana splits and the like. “This is not artisanal,” he said.
It will offer soft drinks, canned local beer and macrobrewery heritage drafts on probably four taps.
There likely will be snack foods, too.
Customers will order inside, where there will be some activities and TVs. The focus is on sitting outside and enjoying the neighborhood, he said.
Zarka said the exterior would stay the same and he anticipates $70,000 to $80,000 in other renovations.
In addition to the zoning exception, Zarka will work toward architectural drawings and permitting.
“We are not in a huge hurry,” he said. He anticipates opening “sometime next year.”
He also will have a neighbor. Work is underway next door on Fred Cotten’s Landmark BBQ, which had been operating at 2623 N. Main St.