ABBQ Meat & Drink
Texas-style barbecue with a real kids menu and a large fenced backyard for cornhole and running around. The green space is the difference between eating with children here and carrying barbecue home.
Aardwolf Brewing Company
A taproom inside a former ice plant on Hendricks. The building does a lot of the work here, and a beer list has no way of saying so.
Ajua Mexican Kitchen and Bar
A Mexican kitchen and bar at Jacksonville Beach with its own vegan menu. Enchiladas, quesadillas, jackfruit birria, cauliflower tacos, and a full vegan entree give a mixed table more than one safe fallback.
Amazing Thai
Folio Weekly described a small strip-mall spot at the Gate Parkway exit, with an Ikea across the street, when it reviewed the place in 2023 under the earlier owners. Its own site says it has been under new ownership since August 2024, and it offers vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free starters.
BellyUp! Jax / Over 50
Over 50 Jacksonville
Nobody publishes the noise level, and it is the thing that decides the night.
Good places to eat and drink in Jacksonville, minus the nightclubs. When a spot gets loud later or draws a lot of kids, the card tells you.
10 spots
Blue Orchid Thai Cuisine (Riverside)
Executive chef Montakran "Bam" Schofield, who is from Thailand, and chief executive Jeff Schofield founded Blue Orchid on Atlantic Boulevard in 2016 and added this Riverside restaurant in 2022. Jacksonville Magazine described a shaded patio with a koi pond and a small waterfall.
Bold City Brewery
Mother-and-son founded, and still the brewery most Jacksonville drinkers name first. The Rosselle Street taproom is the original room, on a Riverside industrial block rather than a retail strip.
European Street Cafe Riverside
The Riverside room of a Jacksonville family-owned group that has been here for more than 40 years. On Mondays, children age 12 and younger get a free meal and juice box with a regular adult entree and beverage at all three locations.
Foo Dog Curry Traders
A Riverside curry counter where the dishes begin vegan and the protein is the add-on. That reverses the usual mixed-table problem: plant-based diners get the base menu, while everyone else decides what to add.
Grassroots Natural Market
A natural foods market in Five Points with vegan options at the deli counter and fresh juice. A grocery with a vegan lunch rather than a vegan restaurant, and listed as exactly that.
Homespun Kitchen
Scratch cooking on Oak Street with vegan and gluten-free built into the menu rather than bolted onto it. A vegan order here is a normal order, which is a different thing from a substitution.
Kickbacks Gastropub
A King Street gastropub in Riverside since 2005, with 204 beers on tap, a Belgian-style basement bar and a steampunk dining room. Its own About page counts 20 TVs, and the events page lists magic nights and a late-night lounge.
Pattaya Thai
The owner's parents opened a small Asian food store with a cafe on University Boulevard in 1989, and by 1990 it had grown into a full restaurant called Pattaya Thai, the restaurant's own story says. Its menu says every curry is made with 100 percent coconut milk.
SENYAI Thai Street Food & Noodle Bar
Nina was born and raised in Thailand and lived in New York City for more than ten years before she opened this Lomax Street spot with her partner Clark. Her aunt Sunee flew in from Thailand to help get the recipes right, and the menu runs from boat noodles to papaya salad.
Sweet Theory Baking Co.
Entirely vegan since 2012, on King Street in Riverside. The distinction that matters here is fully vegan kitchen rather than vegan option, and this is the former.
What these spots are known for
The same over 50 spots, sorted by the reasons people actually pick them.
Origin Stories
Who built this and why?
Rooftops and Patios
Can we sit outside?
The Whole Family Table
Will they be fine with a four-year-old?
Big Groups
Will they seat twelve of us?
Neighborhood Institutions
What has been here forever?
Sports on TV
Where can I watch the game with food and drinks?
Brunch
Where is brunch worth the wait?
Vegan and Plant-Based
Where can I eat with no asterisks?
Community Quotes
Recommendations from real Jacksonville locals, always attributed to whoever wrote them.
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