The former Bread & Board restaurant at 100 W. Bay St. in Downtown Jacksonville. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today
Published on August 29, 2025 at 4:18 pm
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Q: The Bread & Board restaurant and Provisions market in VyStar Credit Union’s Bay Street building Downtown has been shuttered and nearly empty since the eatery announced a temporary closure in May 2024.
At that time, Bread & Board’s ownership said in an Instagram post that it was closing from summer through fall for maintenance and repairs.
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But the post encouraged patrons to check out their converted shipping container restaurant Bread & Burger in the breezeway behind the building and Estrella Cocina on the building’s rooftop.
Since then, the two other restaurants also have closed without a definitive timeline to reopen. Bread & Board co-owner Dwayne Beliakoff told the Jacksonville Daily Record, a Jacksonville Today news partner, on Aug. 23, 2024, that a failure in the original concrete flooring installation at 100 W. Bay St. caused the closure and the restaurant was still expected to open.
With no word in more than a year from the owners, Jacksonville Today reader Phyllis T. wants to know what’s happening with the space.
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“What is the real story behind the closing of Bread & Board? Will anything ever replace it in that location?”
A: Despite initial confidence it would reopen, the Bread & Board, Estrella Cocina and Bread & Burger are closed permanently in the VyStar Building.
Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Matt Brockelman says the credit union, which owns the building and acted as landlord for all three restaurants, is looking for a new restaurant to take over –“sooner rather than later.”
“They will not be reopening,” Brokelman said Thursday. “We are actively working to identify and finalize agreements with new tenants, because, just like the city, we need that space to be activated and want it to be activated. So that’s hopefully something that we’ll have more to share about soon.”
Beliakoff and co-owner/operator Jonathan Cobbs opened Bread & Board, Estrella Cocina and Bread & Burger in May 2021 to great fanfare, with a ribbon cutting ceremony with VyStar CEO Brian Wolfburg, city and JAX Chamber economic development officials and members of Jacksonville’s business community.
VyStar was expanding its Downtown campus, which also includes the adjacent tower at 76 S. Laura St., and began talks with local restaurant chain Bread & Board in February 2019 for a nontraditional cafeteria to fill the 6,760 square feet of ground floor retail space.
Bread & Board closed its Five Points restaurant in 2021 after opening Downtown and has since closed its location at 4413 Town Center Parkway.
Beliakoff did not immediately respond to emails for comment about the restaurant closures, and messages to the Bread & Board’s Instagram account have not been returned.
Jill Corbin, vice president of communications and public relations for VyStar, said Thursday that talks are continuing with potential tenants for all three restaurant spaces.
They could once again operate for the ground floor and rooftop.
“My understanding is that, at least the (former) Estrella (Cocina) space, we would anticipate it — based on the feedback we’ve gotten from the market — (and) we think that others would anticipate that that space would be activated by the same operator that occupies the downstairs space,” Brockelman said.
“As far as the (former Bread & Burger) container, I’m not sure if that would be a separate thing where we’d reach out to the food truck-type community, or even (a) brick and mortar (restaurateur) who would have to want to have a smaller footprint. But I’m not sure if that third space will be bundled in with the other two,” he said.
Brokelman told Jacksonville Today that the current search to replace Bread & Board is broad and could stretch beyond Jacksonville. “I think, generally speaking, we would always look local first. But that doesn’t mean that we would want to exclude others,” he said.
He referenced Pour Taproom and Pizza Dynamo, two Atlanta-based food and beverage operators that Brockelman says are performing well after opening this summer just north of the former Bread & Board in the ground floor of VyStar’s Downtown parking garage at 61 N. Laura St.
City investment
The city’s Downtown Investment Authority has been an investor in the Bread & Board project since June 2021 when its board voted to approve a $371,590 forgivable loan for the project.
The loan contract, which was retroactive to December 2020, shows the money was awarded jointly to VyStar as the landlord and Bread & Board’s operating company, Riverchefs LLC, through the DIA’s Food and Beverage Retail Enhancement Program. The grant award was for only Bread & Board and not the two other restaurant spaces.
The money would be refunded 20% per year over five years starting in February 2022, as long as the terms of the agreement were met.
On Sept. 30, 2024, four months after the closure, DIA CEO Lori Boyer sent a letter of default to Riverchefs LLC and VyStar because the restaurant’s closure did not meet the terms of the incentive agreement, including remaining in operation five years from the loan disbursement date and keeping the business open to the public six days per week.
Bread & Board was given 10 business days to reopen or VyStar had 180 days to fill the space with a substitute tenant.
Online records from the Duval County Tax Collector’s Office show that Riverchefs LLC/Bread & Board owe $109,110.72 in back tangible property taxes from 2022 through 2024. Documents filed with the state Division of Corporations show Cobbs filed articles of dissolution to end Riverchefs LLC in October 2024, citing family reasons.
Brockelman said Thursday that VyStar has kept DIA officials up to date on its efforts to find tenants.
“That’s something that we’ve been committed to from Day 1. That’s a commitment that will keep going,” Bockelman said. “We’re working hand-in-hand with the city on who comes next in the space, because, frankly, the DIA shares a lot of the same goals that we have.”
