Blue is the new restaurant taking the Bistro X space in San Marco.
The concept at 1440 San Marco Blvd. will open Oct. 11 with new ownership and a new menu.
James Stuart, 37, and Joel Mesa, 29, bought the restaurant space at the beginning of summer and served the Bistro X menu until Sept. 28.
There have been some changes to the building. There’s new dining room carpet and the windows have new awnings with “Blue” stenciled on them.
The cuisine is meant to be reflected in the name. It will feature seafood and upscale Southern-inspired meals.
“The name will make people curious,” Stuart said.
“What is Blue? To me it is a very fresh color. It’s a fresh cuisine that invokes the ocean. The menu does have a lot of seafood on it.”
“There’s a strong Southern inspiration. But that doesn’t mean that we’re frying chicken,” Mesa said.
“James is classically trained. There are also Italian, Spanish and French influences.”
Appetizers include stuffed mushrooms, ceviche, oysters and charcuterie for two.
There is duck confit pizza and braised lamb pizza. Featured entrees are duck breast, moules frites (mussels and french fries), scallops, braised lamb shank and a fresh catch.
Through Oct. 19 there will only be dinner service from 5 to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is closed Sunday.
The adjoining Blue Bar and Lounge will be open two hours later each night. Happy hour is from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday. The bar program will rely on craft cocktails featuring Manifest Distilling products from Downtown. The beer will be made by Aardwolf Brewing Co. on Hendricks Avenue. Small bar bites will be available.
On Oct. 21, the restaurant will move to a full schedule, operating as a cafe in the front section of the dining room and on the patio from 8 to 11 a.m. daily. Lunch is 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a pared-down lunch menu at 4 p.m. Dinner hours will remain the same.
The cafe will serve coffee roasted by Vagabond Coffee Co. in Murray Hill. Pastries will be made in-house.
Mesa and Stuart described the atmosphere they want to create as upscale casual.
Before this venture, they worked for other area restaurants including Taverna and Oceana in San Marco and Midtown Table at Gate Parkway.
Stuart, who has years of experience as a sous chef, will be executive chef and Mesa will be general manager. Stuart and Mesa declined to reveal the purchase price or cost to open.
Another change will be the dining room’s bar area. The chairs nearest the entrance will not serve alcohol. The four seats in front of the kitchen will be a reservation-only chef’s table.
Mesa said the alcohol-free seats are because younger generations are drinking less and it adds a level of comfort to sober individuals that their non-alcoholic beverages are coming from an area that contains no alcohol.
Mesa said non-alcoholic bars like Kava & Co. in San Marco and Wildcrafters in Five Points "have been blazing the trail for this market for years and we think it’s time for it to break into fine dining."
"With the Blue Lounge being an entire room dedicated to alcohol we thought we could balance it out with the up-and-coming on the other side," he said.
Reservations can be made through the Resy smartphone app, Mesa said.
Mike and Terry Schneider, founders of the Loop Pizza Grill chain, created Bistro AIX in 1999. Chef Tom Gray, owner of Prati Italia and Town Hall and the soon-to-open Electric Dough Pizza Co. in the former San Marco Theatre, was its longtime executive chef.
The Schneiders sold the restaurant in 2014 to the Forking Amazing Restaurants group. Marcello Villani took over in 2020 and rebranded the restaurant as Bistro X.
With Hurricane Milton heading toward Florida’s West Coast and tracking near Northeast Florida, opening a restaurant in the flood-prone San Marco area is not ideal, they said.
“I’d say that our singular trepidation right now is named Milton,” Mesa said.
“We’ll be fine if the Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise,” Stuart added.