The restaurant business model is challenging even in the best of economic times.
These are not those times.
Food and labor costs are up. Margins are thinner. Menu prices are higher, and customers are cutting back as a result.
In March, Nation’s Restaurant News, a restaurant and hospitality trade publication, reported that 9% of full-service restaurants across the nation could expect to close this year. The report further said 42% of operators said their businesses weren’t profitable in 2025, while 60% of operators said their business conditions had deteriorated.
In Florida, the higher costs will be felt again in October when the minimum wage for nontipped employees increases $1 to $15 per hour and $11.98 for tipped employees, according to the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association.
Owners report that the minimum wage is hardly the standard compensation, with restaurants having to pay $17 and up to hire and retain kitchen workers.
The extent to which some have gone to remain open has included cutting hours, removing pricier items from the menu, delaying kitchen upgrades and even putting their plight out on social media.
Some have run out of road entirely. Others are finding unconventional ways to hang on. And some, defying the odds, are betting on growth.
Economics force closures
Across Northeast Florida, the economic challenges have hit some established names.
Amici Italian Restaurant in St. Augustine, open since long before new owners Freddy and Jennifer Underhill took over in 2020, shut its doors in June.
In a Facebook post announcing the closure, one of the operators wrote that the restaurant had weathered the pandemic, equipment breakdowns, labor shortages, rising costs and hurricanes before finally running out of options. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write,” the post read.
World Golf Village’s Murray Bros. Caddyshack closed June 27 after 25 years, just two years after cofounder Andy Murray optioned a 10-year lease extension and pledged to grow with St. Johns County.
Downtown, Bellwether closed its doors in March, ending a nine-year run as one of the few table-service restaurants in the historic core and a regular meeting spot for the city’s business and political figures.
In Nocatee, Catullo’s Italian restaurant announced in June that it would close its Marketside Avenue location after brothers Carl and Dave Catullo sold the space to a restaurant group.
And in Five Points, Prospect Five Points Bar and Restaurant closed June 28, citing a rough year and a slow season it couldn’t outlast, just blocks from the former Mossfire Grill, which closed in October 25 after 27 years.
The closures share a common thread: Owners fought to stay open before finally running out of options.
Pepe Ortiz, owner of Tequila’s Town, was one of them.
Ortiz closed his restaurant at 13475 Atlantic Blvd. in Harbour Village on May 31 after seven years, a decision he had pondered for more than six months.
“Honestly, we were actually hardly breaking even, and we were losing money,” Ortiz said. “It’s just way too much overhead.”
For example, he cited that a pound of hamburger has doubled in price since he opened the Jacksonville location.
A year ago, an average check for a couple at the restaurant was between $50 and $60. But by May, Ortiz said that average check had fallen to $35 to $40.
Regulars who may have stopped in a couple of times a week are cutting family dining budgets and eating out once every two weeks, he said.
Tequila’s Town is a family-run business with three restaurants in the Savannah, Georgia, area.
Ortiz is taking time off to regroup. When it is economically feasible, he said he’d like to reopen in that same area, but with a smaller restaurant.
Plea for customers
Not every owner facing the pressures has chosen to close. Some are finding inventive ways to keep the doors open, even if it means asking customers directly for help.
Melissa Endrina owns two Aloha Waffle Bar locations: one near the airport at 725 Skymarks Drive, which opened in 2022, and another at 1500 Beach Blvd. in Jacksonville Beach, which she opened in January.
While the North Jacksonville restaurant is doing well, the Jacksonville Beach location is trying to develop a regular clientele, she said. Some days brought in as little as $200 in sales. She was in a financial bind. The build-out at the Beach location involved more than $100,000 in unforeseen plumbing issues that drained her reserve fund.
“I had expended every bit of income that I had. We were getting so close to closing,” she said.
She had tried other methods to bring in customers.
“I had tried influencers. I tried paper marketing. We passed out cards. We even walked and gave samples,” Endrina said.
“I tried putting a sign on my truck, because Jacksonville Beach doesn’t allow signs. I put a sign on my truck and backed it up against Beach Boulevard, but then the sign started scratching my truck.”
Endrina was behind on a $1,500 JEA bill. Other bills were due.
“I was to the point where I was like, I’m gonna have to close my doors, I’m gonna lose my home. I invested my home equity into this place, basically everything I had. I was literally about to be homeless, so I just came clean with Jacksonville.”
She summoned the courage and made a video.
“It was very hard to do. We had to swallow a lot of pride and ask for help. This is not an easy thing to do,” she said.
She spelled out her problem in the video.
“Hey Jacksonville, it’s time for a heart-to-heart with you guys,” she said. “We are looking to the community for some support and some help here at Aloha Waffle Bar. We still struggle to get people through the door.”
She posted the video June 9. By June 13, the community had responded.
Even though she bought extra supplies thinking the video might attract some attention, she didn’t expect the outpouring. Wait times were longer than expected, but spirits remained high, she said.
She thanked customers and told them in a video posted June 13 that they were closing June 14 to give the staff a break and to deal with a small problem.
“We do not have any food left for tomorrow,” she said.
“It’s so nice seeing people in here, hearing people laugh, hearing people eat, having my staff joke around because you know they’re busy and having a good time. It just brings life to the whole place, and I just cannot thank you guys enough because we are completely out of food.”
She reopened June 15.
However, a month later she said business has slowed again.
“I didn’t expect it to stay gangbusters forever,” she said in a July 17 interview.
Some customers have returned, but sales are slowly dwindling, she said.
As a result, she is planning another video. She isn’t expecting the same customer increase, but she said it can’t hurt.
“I plan to go back and talk to the community and hopefully that will help a bit.”
Irons in the fire
There are new players entering the market every month, and some established names are opening additional locations.
Alder & Oak opened its second location July 15 in Jacksonville Beach, at 131 First Ave. N., replacing the former Jekyll Brewing next to sister restaurant Oaxaca Club.
Owner Mark Janasik, who also owns Oaxaca Club, Blueberry Artisan Bakery and the Southern Grounds coffee shops, opened the first Alder & Oak in January at The Hub in Riverside.
Regency Centers announced several restaurants for The Village at Seven Pines, its Publix-anchored shopping center at Interstate 295 and Butler Boulevard, opening in 2027, including 1928 Cuban Bistro. The Jacksonville-based restaurant, founded in Baymeadows in 2019, now has eight locations across four counties.
Alexander Chezaud told the Daily Record in April that he wasn’t planning a third location after opening a new Le Petit Paris and an offshoot, Le Petit Atelier, within a year. But when space opened in Ponte Vedra Beach, he said, he couldn’t pass it up.
“It’s not every day that you get spaces available in Ponte Vedra. It checked a lot of the boxes that we needed,” he said.
The new location, at 830 Florida A1A N., is Chezaud’s sixth since his first restaurant opened in Mandarin in 2019. He has since expanded to Atlantic Beach, Southside and San Pablo.
Earlier this summer, spouses Michael and Brittany Cooney announced plans to open two more Ember & Iron restaurants.
The first will open in 2027 at 62 Spanish St. in St. Augustine’s historic district. In 2028, another will open in The Village of Seven Pines.
The couple also owns Gemma Fish + Oyster at 2039 Hendricks Ave. in San Marco.
The decision to open two more restaurants is one of serendipity rather than a structured business plan, Brittany Cooney said.
“Location is the No. 1 stop when we think of any type of long-term growth,” she said.
“We search and seek the right opportunities in the right place, and I think the confidence with which we open is because we’ve done our due diligence of where we’re trying to go, what we’re trying to do and we’re looking for that location that will breed that success.”
The Cooneys grew up in Jacksonville and are familiar with the city’s growth areas, she said.
When opening the first Ember & Iron at 60 Shops Blvd. in Saint Johns, they wanted to be in that economically advantaged area.
The historic location of the St. Augustine spot means steady foot traffic and a customer base with a desire to dine out.
The opportunity to be part of The Village at Seven Pines was too good to turn down, Cooney said.
The adjacent Seven Pines neighborhood, where home prices start in the mid-$500,000 range, provides a ready base of customers that in many cases would be a golf cart or bicycle ride away. Recent road work now provides convenient access for those exiting Butler Boulevard.
“We would have waited five or 10 years if we needed to get the right spot where we felt comfortable opening,” she said.
Brittany grew up around the restaurant business and brand expansion. Her father is Chris Sorensen who, with his brother, Robin, founded Firehouse Subs. They sold the company to Restaurant Brands International for $1 billion cash in 2021.
Brittany said her father and her uncle are not part of the Ember & Iron business.
The Cooneys have no plans to expand the Gemma Fish + Oyster brand. The seafood restaurant opened in 2023 and is named after their daughter.
When it opened, there were not many seafood-specific restaurants in the San Marco and Southbank area other than The Chart House, she said.
Now, City Grille & Raw Bar on Prudential Drive and Taverna Oceana in San Marco also offer raw bars.
“Ember and Iron is our bread and butter,” Cooney she said.
“Gemma is this specialty, unique place that we built for San Marco specifically because we saw again — the location.”