Beachside Seafood in Jacksonville Beach: What Comes Next

"There comes a point where continuing to make small changes is no longer enough," Raymond De Padua said in late August, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. He was explaining why Pearl Hospitality Group plans to stop restaurant service at Beachside Seafood Restaurant & Market.

Less than a month later, on the north end of the same street, Maggie McIlroy described her plans for a two-story building that once held an insurance office downstairs and an apartment upstairs. She is turning it into a coffeehouse, and she said plainly that she does not have the budget for a full-scale kitchen.

These are two separate businesses with two separate owners on Third Street. In both cases, the building's age is a big part of what will be served there and how. Both plans lead with the counter, the market case and the pastry shelf. In both, a full-service kitchen is either set aside for now or pushed down the road.

A 1954 building and a restaurant that ran out of room to fix it

Beachside Seafood sits at 120 Third St. S. The building dates to 1954, and local reporting puts the business's start in 1989. Jason Arteaga bought the building from William Barnett Jr. in 2008. He later sold the property and business to Pearl Hospitality Group, which took over in May 2025.

Pearl's Aug. 28 release laid out the problem in plain terms. The group had been making capital improvements little by little while the restaurant stayed open. It then concluded that "the age and condition of the building called for a much more substantial level of renovation than could reasonably be completed around daily restaurant service." The release also named rising operating costs, more competition at the Beaches and "slower-than-anticipated growth in new customer traffic."

What matters most for anyone who shops there is what stays. De Padua said the fish market will remain open and will become the group's main focus at the property. Pearl plans to improve the market and add to what it offers. It is also exploring prepared food, grab-and-go items and retail.

"We are not walking away from Beachside. We are giving ourselves the ability to figure out what this property and this brand need to become for the next generation, while protecting the part of the business that has always been at the heart of Beachside: the market." Raymond De Padua, Pearl Hospitality Group

The timing is still open. Restaurant service is winding down sometime this October. The Florida Times-Union's coverage, last updated Sept. 14, said Pearl still had not set a final day. No decision has been made on how the dining space will be used. As of early October, Beachside's online ordering page lists the Third Street South location, says "Opens at 11AM" and notes that it is not taking online orders. It does not list separate hours for the market. A quick call before a weekend fish run is the surest way to check.

The group running this transition is not new to the Beaches. Pearl Hospitality Group also operates Izakaya Ko at Jacksonville Beach, Norikase in Tinseltown and Cafecito in Riverside. It is working on other concepts, including a revived Bellwether downtown.

A former insurance office learns to pour espresso

On the north end of the street, McIlroy's project at 803 Third St. N. faces the same kind of math from the other side. The two-story building is about a half-mile north of Beach Boulevard and a couple of blocks from the sand. Its last tenants were an insurance office downstairs and an apartment upstairs, and neither use needed a coffee bar.

McIlroy's list of needed work reads like an inspection report:

• An electrical upgrade to handle the kitchen equipment
• Plumbing for the coffee bar and bathrooms
• Structural support for a new mezzanine, plus a new staircase
• A rebuilt second-floor outdoor patio
• A restroom addition, with parking added as the lot is reconfigured

LAY Construction and the architecture team AE7 are working with her. She expects the renovation to take four to six months. Permits come first. She has started that process by filing a request for verification of an exemption with the St. Johns River Water Management District. Her target opening is summer 2027.

The menu is built around what the building can handle. Without a full kitchen, Maggie's Coffeehouse will open with croissants, other pastries and sourdough bread, which McIlroy bakes. It will also serve soft-serve ice cream, which can be eaten on its own or turned into an affogato with a pour of espresso. Breakfast sandwiches, toast, salads and bowls are a later goal. She called them "further down the line."

The details are personal. The coffee will come from La Prima Espresso Co., which she described as her favorite roastery "back home in Pittsburgh." Three signature drinks will be named after her dog, Oliver, and her cats, Franklin and Eloise. McIlroy lives in Atlantic Beach. This is her first business. Her path here ran through Southern Methodist University, law school at Duquesne University, a job at Jax Surf & Paddle in Neptune Beach and years of teaching fifth and sixth grade English.

The old layout turns into a feature. The finished shop will have about 1,900 square feet over two floors and roughly 50 seats. The former apartment upstairs will become a mezzanine that looks down on the coffee bar. "It will feel like a cozy loft up there," McIlroy said. The upstairs will offer only seating, with nothing sold there that isn't also available downstairs. That way, the plan needs no elevator or lift, and the new bathrooms will be ADA compliant.

Two buildings, one constraint

Side by side, the two projects follow the same logic. In each one, the building sets the limits and the plan is shaped to fit them.

A full-service kitchen is the most expensive thing to fit into an older beach building. It needs power, plumbing, ventilation and enough square footage, and it needs all of them to keep working through every lunch rush. A seafood case, a pastry counter or an espresso machine asks far less of the building. On Third Street this fall, both operators are choosing the lighter setup and leaving room to grow into more later.

Where to find each of them in the meantime

The gap between plan and opening will look different at each address.

At Beachside, the fish market is the part Pearl has promised to protect. Prepared food, grab-and-go and retail are all still things the group says it is exploring, and the Aug. 31 report gave no timeline for them.

McIlroy plans to start before her building is ready. In September, she said she would begin selling coffee at local farmers markets. The Beaches Beacon put the expected start in late October or early November. She has not named which markets. Jacksonville Beach's two regular open-air markets on the city calendar are the likeliest places to watch:

1. Jax Beach Arts Market, Saturday, Oct. 24, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Latham Plaza & Seawalk Pavilion, 11 1st St. N.
2. Beaches Green Market, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Penman Park, 321 Penman Road, including Nov. 7, 14, 21 and 28.

The city lists neither market's vendors, so a Maggie's booth at either one is a possibility, not a confirmed booking. The Seawalk Pavilion is also busy in the weeks around these market dates. Beaches Oktoberfest, now in its 11th year, runs Oct. 16 and 17. On Oct. 30, Trunk-or-Treat runs from 5 to 7 p.m., followed by a Moonlight Movie screening of "The Haunted Mansion."

For now, Beachside's market counter stays open on Third Street South, and a summer 2027 opening is planned for Third Street North.

Older beach buildings often hold their biggest costs where you can't see them, in the wiring, the plumbing and the structure. That is true whether the next use is a coffee bar or a family kitchen. If you own an older property near the beach and are weighing a renovation before selling, Michele Tremblay can walk through the building with you and help you decide which upgrades are worth doing before it goes on the market. Request a Private Consultation.