When Whiskey Jax Kitchen & Cocktails moved from South Jacksonville Beach to Atlantic Beach in 2022, owner Tom Fisher saw plenty of possibilities.
Two years later, however, he will shut the restaurant and nightspot March 3 after the close of business.
Operating a large restaurant in post-pandemic times proved difficult, he said.
Fisher, 52, moved the restaurant from 950 Marsh Landing Parkway to 725 Atlantic Blvd. in March 2022.
For the past year, he worked seven days a week and filled in wherever needed, he said. He was expediting, waiting tables, making drinks and even washing dishes. Two or three employees not showing up for weekend shifts was common.
Whiskey Jax opens daily at 4 p.m. and features dinner in a more than 4,500-square-foot space that seats about 186. The restaurant features live music on weekends and other entertainment during the week.
Ideally, he would have a staff of 25 to 30 employees, Fisher said. Most of the time he had about a dozen.
“Someone would tell me that they have been waiting 45 minutes for a drink while I was running food, and so at the same time I’d get behind the bar and make the cocktail,” he said.
Fisher said that though it may sound like he is blaming the employees for the restaurant’s demise, the plan just did not work.
“I had plenty of hope, but hope isn’t much of a business plan,” he said.
During the pandemic shutdown, experienced restaurant staff turned to other careers. It left a pool of people new to the industry applying for jobs, Fisher said.
They may have found that they didn’t like it or that they could easily find another restaurant job where a friend may be working or where hours were more suitable.
Fisher contemplated closing for the past year. He has not had a profitable month and has not taken a salary, he said. There were times when he used his personal savings to make payroll.
Also, being at the restaurant every day left him little time to be with his wife and children.
“About the only time I could see them is when they would come into the restaurant,” he said
Fisher said the South Jacksonville Beach Whiskey Jax worked because it better fit the tourist theme as a place to relax and dance. It was next to a Hampton Inn.
In Atlantic Beach, he doesn’t have a neighboring hotel to draw customers. Bands proved to be a blessing and a curse, he said.
People would come to dance and have cocktails but wouldn’t eat big meals. Instead of coming in for happy hour, patrons wouldn’t arrive until the band was about to start. Bands cost $600 to $1,000 per night, he said.
“If the band starts at 8:30, everyone comes in at around 8 o’clock. And so you go from zero to 100 customers in 15 minutes. So that puts pressure on the kitchen and it puts pressure on the servers,” he said.
Also, those who came for the music stayed for a couple of sets or maybe for the whole show, meaning tables weren’t turning.
The original Whiskey Jax at 10915 Baymeadows Road remains open.
Fisher and Adam Fontaine had co-owned the Baymeadows and Jacksonville Beach locations. They split amicably after the Whiskey Jax in South Jacksonville Beach closed in November 2021 and they continued to use the Whiskey Jax name.
Fisher will work at the Baymeadows location coordinating bands and other management duties.
He is preparing to begin a career as a mortgage broker.
Meanwhile, new restaurants continue to open in the Beaches. At the former Atlantic Beach Whiskey Jax location on Marsh Landing Parkway, 1810 Tacos y Tequila plans to open in April.