Illustration by Harry Tennant
Jacksonville was never a destination on my radar until the birth of my granddaughter. Situated at the top of Florida’s Atlantic coast, it wasn’t a place we drove through on trips from my hometown of Nashville.
Until the fall of 2019 when Gray was born, I had no idea of the St. Johns River that snakes mightily through the city or of its unsung creative history. I didn’t know of the city’s shrimping, banking, and logistics industries, or even the freshly baked breads and pastries that fill its quaint coffee shops.
And then, like any new grandparent, I couldn’t think of a good reason not to travel to Jacksonville. I would drive nine hours to spend a few days with my granddaughter and fill the cooler with sweet, local Mayport shrimp to take home.
Historically, Jacksonville was a Gilded Age tourist destination made possible by railroads. The Great Fire of 1901 destroyed much of the city, so now you have to seek out remnants of the city’s past. In the neatly manicured Ortega neighborhood with palm trees and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, waterfront homes have a country club feel. Many locals send their children to the same schools they attended, and looking at the St. Johns in the distance and the lazy rise of a bridge to let a boat pass, you can see why they remain.
In the early 20th century, 26 movie studios called Jacksonville home, including the “Metro” in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which began where Metropolitan Park, along the St. Johns downtown, now stands. And Jacksonville has birthed bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, known for its Southern rock anthems.
The Jacksonville I’ve grown to love is just as creative, eclectic, and filled with quirky charm. Take Community Loaves, a local bakery situated in the Murray Hill neighborhood, where on a weekend morning, you’ll be among many on the patio scarfing down cinnamon buns and sipping locally roasted coffee. Murray Hill is also where you’ll find locally brewed beer at Fishweir Brewing Company and the cheerful Chancho King restaurant with its Ecuadorian pork sandwiches and housemade agua frescas of blackberry and lime.
A few minutes north of downtown, baker Allison Vaughan turns out lemon-blueberry scones and pillowy milk bread at 1748 Bakehouse in Springfield, the first neighborhood built in Jacksonville after the Great Fire. When feeling adventurous, I drive to nearby beaches—Amelia Island, Fernandina, Atlantic, Neptune, or the tony Ponte Vedra. Historic St. Augustine is just to the south along iconic state route A1A.
Unlike some Southern cities, where development has erased neighborhoods and stories, Jacksonville has retained its charm. Every time I drive here, I feel my blood pressure drop, and I’m hungry to explore. It took decades for me to get to this First Coast of Florida, and now that I’m here, I’m not sure I want to leave.
Anne Byrn is a New York Times bestselling author of 16 cookbooks, including The Cake Mix Doctor, one of Southern Living’s top 100 cookbooks. Her newest book, Baking in the American South, shares 200 recipes and untold stories from 14 states in the South. She lives in Nashville and writes a Substack newsletter called Between the Layers.
This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Southbound.
