Almost two years to the day after announcing its plans, Dick Mondell’s Burgers & Fries opened May 13 in Jacksonville Beach.
Property records list the address as 1177 Third St. S. but the building has the street number as 275 12th Ave. S. The streets intersect.
The orange-and-blue, 1,000-square-foot building harkens to the burger-themed restaurants of the 1950s.
There is no inside seating. Instead, there are a few tables outside that seat about a dozen. Customers can walk to the service window, order online or use the drive-thru. It is open daily from 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Culinary school classmates Chris Leckerling and Connor Castelli opened the first Dick Mondell’s in December 2018 at 412 SW Fourth Ave. in Gainesville. They opened the second store, at 1808 S. Monroe St. in Tallahassee, in March 2023.
The Jacksonville Beach location faced some construction obstacles, Castelli told the Daily Record in March.
A self-serve car wash on the site needed to be demolished. Power to operate the kitchen equipment had to be installed and an underground water retention system constructed.
Castelli estimated in March that the restaurant cost about $1 million to build.
Dick Mondell is a fictional character they created.
“We just came up with the name. It sounded like it was established. Somebody told me once to never name a business after yourself. I thought that was really good advice. We don’t want this to be a real personal brand,” Castelli said in a Daily Record interview in May 2022.
The menu includes The Original Big Dick ($10.04) and Dick Junior ($7.53) burgers, salads, fries, chips, sweet potato tots, a veggie burger ($9.40), Impossible burger ($11.92) and chicken burger ($8.78). There are two breakfast sandwiches. It serves soft drinks and milkshakes ($6.27).
To add either American or pepper jack cheese is 62 cents extra.