The city of Jacksonville has selected European Street Cafe to operate a city-owned dining space at Riverfront Plaza, the park on the site of the demolished Jacksonville Landing.
In a July 6 news release, Mayor Donna Deegan’s office announced that the longtime Jacksonville restaurant operator was chosen through a competitive request-for-proposal process and was expected to open in the riverfront park by late fall 2026.
“Riverfront Plaza is being created as a place where Jacksonville comes together, and great public spaces deserve great local partners,” Deegan said in the release.
The release said European Street Cafe began in 1990 after its founders, the Zarka family of Jacksonville, transformed it from another restaurant they had taken over 10 years earlier at the Regency Square Mall. That was the Mr. Dunderbak’s German deli and restaurant.
In Riverfront Plaza, the restaurant will offer its menu of sandwiches, soups and salads, desserts, coffee, beer and wine, frozen treats and children’s items.
“Designed around both quality and efficiency, the café will provide quick grab-and-go service for Downtown employees during the workday while also creating an inviting destination for families, park visitors and eventgoers throughout the day and evening,” the release said.
European Street Cafe owner Andy Zarka said in the release that he was pleased to operate in the site of the Jacksonville Landing, which was demolished in 2019-20.
“The Jacksonville Landing was a place where so many of us made memories with family and friends,” he said.
“I was one of them. I loved spending time there, enjoying a meal while looking out over the St. Johns River. To now have the opportunity to help create those same kinds of memories for future generations at Riverfront Plaza is something I’ll never take for granted. I’m honored, humbled and grateful that the City has entrusted European Street Cafe with this opportunity.”
According to europeanstreet.com, the restaurant operates at 2753 Park St. in Riverside, 1704 San Marco Blvd. in San Marco, and 992 Beach Blvd. in Jacksonville Beach.
In April 2024, the city issued a permit for The Haskell Co. to build the Jacksonville Riverfront Plaza Cafe shell Downtown at a project cost of $3.5 million at the site of the former Jacksonville Landing.
Plans called for interior work in the 5,171-square-foot building to be permitted when a tenant was chosen.
The city opened the $38 million first phase of Riverfront Plaza, which includes the cafe building, in December 2025.
The building includes a rooftop playground. Other features in the first phase included riverwalk improvements, an event lawn and a walkway connecting the plaza to the Jacksonville Performing Arts Center.
The city lists the cost of the second phase at $40 million. That phase will include a rain garden, water feature, civic stairs, a beer garden and a pedestrian ramp to the Main Street Bridge.
In May 2026, the DIA board voted 7-0 to negotiate with the Baltimore-based Atlas Restaurant Group to build and operate a restaurant on a city-owned pad in another portion of Riverfront Plaza. The vote came after a scoring committee recommended that the board approve Atlas' proposal over one from St. Augustine-based PK Hospitality Group for the property on the southwest corner of the park.
Atlas, which operates more than 50 restaurants, proposed to build a shell building that the city would own, then build-out the shell and lease it. The group’s terms include being reimbursed $8 million from the city to design and construct the building.
Atlas would spend $4 million on the build-out, then pay a base rent of $560,000 annually with a 3% escalation per year.
If revenue reaches $11.2 million annually, the rent would switch to 5% of that revenue.
Atlas would provide maintenance and pay for insurance.