For St. Augustine diners, The Floridian’s move has been more than a restaurant relocation. It has been the pause before a much-anticipated next chapter.
After closing its longtime Spanish Street location while its new space was under construction, The Floridian is preparing to reopen soon at 485 Old Beach Road on Anastasia Island, bringing one of St. Augustine’s most beloved farm-to-table restaurants into a custom-built home designed around the way owners Genie and Jeff McNally have always wanted to serve the community.
According to The Floridian, the restaurant has moved on from 72 Spanish Street and is in the final stages of building out the new Anastasia Island location, with an early June opening planned if all goes as expected. The new address places the restaurant about a mile south of the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, giving longtime fans a new reason to head over the Bridge of Lions for lunch, dinner, cocktails, and the kind of locally rooted Southern food that made The Floridian a fixture in the first place.
The new building marks a major evolution for a restaurant that first opened in 2010 on Cordova Street before moving to Spanish Street in 2015. This time, instead of fitting The Floridian into an existing restaurant space, the McNallys have been able to create one from the ground up. The custom-built location is expected to include 120 seats, a side patio geared toward fast-casual dining and bar guests, games and entertainment, and an energy-efficient kitchen.
“Jeff and I have had a lot of time to dream about The Floridian’s future, and this really is the culmination of years of dreaming,” Genie McNally said in a release previously reported by the Jacksonville Daily Record. She explained that while they loved the restaurant’s previous homes, this new space gives them the chance to create a restaurant that truly fits The Floridian’s aesthetic and service standards.
For Jeff McNally, the move is less about leaving the past behind and more about carrying it forward. “This new building is just the next chapter, where we’ll continue to focus on what matters, fresh ingredients, good food and top-notch hospitality,” he said.
That focus has always been the heart of The Floridian. Founded by Genie and Jeff McNally, the restaurant’s guiding idea has remained simple: “Food is Important!” Fifteen years later, the team continues to emphasize fresh, innovative, farm-to-table cuisine in a casual, comfortable setting. The restaurant’s own list of longtime partners includes regional farms, dairies, bakeries, seafood purveyors, ranches, microgreen growers, and artisan producers. A reminder that The Floridian’s menu has always been as much about local relationships as it is about what lands on the plate.
That approach is exactly what diners have come to love. The Floridian has earned a 4.5 rating from more than 2,300 Tripadvisor reviews, and the restaurant has long been recognized by visitors and locals for its fresh Southern cooking, vegetarian and gluten-free options, and casual-but-creative atmosphere. Travel writers have praised the restaurant for making dietary accommodations feel flavorful rather than limiting, noting that The Floridian “caters to various dietary restrictions, such as gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan, without sacrificing flavor or uniqueness.” Another recent dining write-up highlighted the freshness of the seafood and local flavors, calling a peach and shrimp salad “divine” and describing the seafood as “incredibly fresh and flavorful.”
For anyone unfamiliar with The Floridian, the menu has traditionally centered on an inventive take on Southern food, with fresh seafood, local produce, grass-fed meats, hearty sandwiches, seasonal specials, vegetarian-friendly dishes, and cocktails that match the restaurant’s relaxed, Florida-forward personality. VISIT FLORIDA describes The Floridian as a farm-to-table restaurant known for “down-home Southern cooking and light fare” with an innovative seasonal menu and vegetarian options sourced from local growers and producers.
But the McNallys did not exactly sit still while The Floridian was closed.
Instead of using the construction period as a break, the team launched two new Anastasia Island concepts: Bea’s Fine Foods + All Day Café and Jefe’s Fish Wagon. Both were born from ideas that did not quite fit inside The Floridian, but still felt too good to leave behind.
“Jeff and I had all of these fun ideas that didn’t quite fit into The Floridian, but we couldn’t let them go,” Genie McNally said when the new concepts were announced. “That’s how Bea’s and Jefe’s were born. It’s going to be a really fun way for us to experiment with new ingredients and flavor profiles on a smaller, more intimate scale.”
Bea’s Fine Foods + All Day Café, located at 9 Anastasia Boulevard, has been described by Jeff McNally as The Floridian’s “little sister.” Named after Genie’s grandmother, Bea’s offers café-style breakfast, full-service lunch, coffee, supper, natural wines, and a nighttime supper club built around ingredient-driven small plates, farm-inspired entrées, family-style sides, cast-iron pizzas, and low-ABV cocktails. The team has also said that some old-school Floridian favorites may appear as specials.
Jefe’s Fish Wagon, meanwhile, brings a more casual, coastal energy to the mix. Located at 100 Anastasia Boulevard at Hornski’s Brewery, the food truck is inspired by backroad fish camps, seafood shacks, beachside kiosks, and tropical snack bars. Its menu focuses on customizable burritos, sandwiches, salads, and bowls, with guests choosing their protein, setup, sides, and extras.
Together, Bea’s and Jefe’s have kept the McNallys connected to local diners while The Floridian’s new home has taken shape. They have also given the team a chance to stretch creatively, test new flavors, and offer the community something fresh during the wait.
Now, with The Floridian’s reopening on the horizon, the move feels less like a return and more like an expansion of everything the restaurant has been building for the past 15 years. The old favorites, the farm-to-table philosophy, the Southern influence, the focus on local growers, and the easygoing hospitality are all expected to continue — only now in a space designed specifically for them.
For longtime fans, that means the wait is almost over. For newcomers, it is a good time to discover why The Floridian has remained one of St. Augustine’s defining restaurants for more than a decade.
Until the doors open on Old Beach Road, diners can still get a taste of the McNallys’ cooking at Bea’s Fine Foods and Jefe’s Fish Wagon, both just over the Bridge of Lions. And when The Floridian finally welcomes guests into its new Anastasia Island home, it will do so with the same message that has guided it from the beginning: food matters, community matters, and St. Augustine is still hungry for both.
