One plain strip mall on Mayport Road holds a distillery, a taproom that also makes pizza, a MICHELIN-recommended breakfast counter and a tiki speakeasy you can only get into with a reservation. That's how Jacksonville Today captioned its photo of the parcel in a September 16, 2026 guide that called Mayport Road "the Beaches' underrated culinary corridor." Out front, the road is still six lanes of State Road A1A.
That gap between the businesses and the road is closing. In June, the Florida Department of Transportation started a $9.6 million project to turn this part of Mayport Road into a corridor where walking and biking are safe. The timing matters because the strip changed first. Many of the places that now give Mayport Road its reputation are only a couple of years old. The road is catching up with what grew along it.
One Parking Lot, Four Very Different Doors
The parcel in that photo makes the case on its own. Its addresses run in a tight block of numbers, and each tenant draws people at a different hour.
| Address | Business | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 1221 Mayport Road | Grey Matter Distillery | Jacksonville's first craft distillery, founded in 2014, with tours, tastings, trivia and live music |
| 1237 Mayport Road | Reve Brewing | Taproom on the Jax Ale Trail, with in-house pizza from Bones Pizza |
| 1241 Mayport Road | Eggboy | Breakfast and lunch counter on the Michelin Guide's list of Florida's 2026 Recommended restaurants |
| 1261 Mayport Road | Mayport Garden Club | Reservation-only tiki lounge, open Thursday through Saturday |
Grey Matter says it opened its Mayport doors to the public in 2021. Visit Jacksonville lists Eggboy among the Michelin Guide's 2026 Recommended restaurants in Florida. That's a Recommended designation, not a star.
Between the four of them, one parking lot runs from a morning coffee and sandwich to a late cocktail. That's the kind of block where a short walk or bike ride makes sense. The road outside has never been built for that.
A Strip That Grew Up In About Two Years
The cluster spreads well past that one parcel, and much of it is new. When the Jacksonville Business Journal reported on a new restaurant planned for the road in March 2026, it named Zap Cat Coffee, Mayport Brewing Company, Eggboy and the Mayport Garden Club among the places that had opened along Mayport Road in the previous two years.
The dates support that.
- Mayport Brewing Company, 2152 Mayport Road, held its grand opening on April 19, 2024, according to Cre8Jax. Jacksonville Today describes 40 taps, duckpin bowling lanes and a resident food truck, The Burger Galaxy.
- Zap Cat Espresso Bar was reported in April 2025 to be relocating to Mayport Road in Atlantic Beach, and Visit Jacksonville now lists it at 1487 Mayport Road. It pours espresso and pour-over drinks made with rotating specialty beans.
- 1985 Coffee Shop & Events sits at 1985 Mayport Road, Atlantic Beach, and keeps daily hours.
- Spliff's Gastropub is next in line. The city issued a permit on April 1, 2026 for a 4,260-square-foot build-out at 2755 Mayport Road, the Jax Daily Record reported. That report described the restaurant as planning to open and gave no opening date.
Older places anchor the same road. Jacksonville Today notes that Choi's Chinese Food Drive Thru has been a neighborhood staple for two decades, and that VooSwar Restaurant and Lounge has been a gathering spot since 1963. What's new is how much is packed into the stretch between the 1200 and 2100 blocks: coffee, breakfast, a brewery with bowling lanes, a distillery and a speakeasy, all a short ride apart.
What The Road Gives Up, And What It Gets
The city traces the redesign back to safety and traffic-calming discussions that began in 2018, years before most of this cluster opened. Florida Department of Transportation is the lead agency, the City of Atlantic Beach is its local partner, and J.B. Coxwell Contracting holds the contract.
The main change is a lane count. According to the City of Atlantic Beach, Mayport Road goes from three lanes each way to two each way, and the freed-up space goes to people on foot and on bikes. The city lists these additions:
- A wide, buffered shared-use path on one side of the road
- Wider sidewalks on the northbound side, built to ADA standards
- A dedicated bike lane on the southbound side
- Full milling and resurfacing, plus new drainage, curb and gutter, signage, lighting and traffic signals
- Spall repair, cleaning and coating on the bridge and its retaining walls
FDOT's project page puts the path and bike lane between Atlantic Boulevard and Dutton Island Road. A separate resurfacing segment runs from Atlantic Boulevard to Seventh Street. The Mayport Road businesses named above with published street addresses are listed in Atlantic Beach, on the blocks north of Atlantic Boulevard.
On traffic, the city says FDOT's traffic volume studies show the four-lane layout will slow speeding drivers without creating major bottlenecks. Upgraded signals and dedicated turn lanes are meant to handle the points where backups would otherwise form. The city also points to research finding that this kind of redesign cuts crashes by 19% to 47%. That figure describes the technique in general, not a forecast for this road.
The Calendar Running To Fall 2027
Here's the timeline as the city has published it, with the first two milestones already behind us:
| Milestone | Timing |
|---|---|
| Bidding begins | December 2025 |
| Construction starts | June 15, 2026 |
| Estimated completion | Fall 2027 |
That means about a year of construction is still ahead. Most of it is scheduled for hours when the strip is quiet. News4JAX reported that FDOT doesn't allow lane closures on Mayport Road from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Work usually happens at night, Sunday through Thursday, with some daytime work on weekdays. Those protected hours cover the morning coffee run, the Saturday breakfast line and most of happy hour. Thursday nights are the exception. Mayport Garden Club opens that night, and it's also one of the scheduled work nights.
Exact closures change every week. FDOT's weekly road report for October 10 through 16, 2026 lists continuous northbound lane closures at Mayport Road and Atlantic Boulevard for roadwork. It also lists northbound closures at Oceangate Drive for drainage and signal work, and southbound ramp-lane closures at West Fourth Street. The report is published each week, so it's the most reliable way to check before heading out. For project questions, FDOT District 2 names community outreach specialist Meg Ross as the contact at (904) 360-5437.
Florida Department of Transportation's schedule notes that the fall 2027 date depends on weather and unforeseen circumstances.
Where The New Path Leads
The project's northern end is Dutton Island Road, and Dutton Island Preserve I sits at the far west end of that road. It's a City of Atlantic Beach preserve, open sunrise to sunset, according to the Timucuan Parks Foundation.
So the finished corridor lines up a stretch that starts with breakfast at Eggboy or a pour-over at Zap Cat and ends at a city preserve. The trip will run on a buffered path instead of a sidewalk squeezed against three lanes of traffic. FDOT's published plans don't take the path south to Seventh Street or to Beaches Town Center. That part of the project is resurfacing only. Until the estimated completion in fall 2027, the path is a work zone that changes week to week.
If you're watching Mayport Road change and wondering what it means for your block, Holly Reaves follows Atlantic Beach street by street, from new openings to the next FDOT update. Reach out any time to talk about the corridor and what's coming to it.
