The 1927 Building at The Corner Is Getting a Second Story

"Ragtime is very sentimental to a lot of people, myself included," Jeff Grafton McCusker told the Jax Daily Record at the Sept. 30 groundbreaking for Grafton & Fleck's. "Dear friends of mine met here and got married, and our children are close friends. And there's so many stories like that."

That afternoon, heavy equipment was moving debris inside the old Ragtime Tavern, and what was left inside was a shell open to the sky. The building dates to 1927, according to the Duval County Property Appraiser as cited by the Jax Daily Record, and the plan is to keep it and build a second level on top.

Over more than 40 years, the restaurant business at this corner passed through four operator groups. The land stayed in one family the whole time. This time that family chose a Northeast Florida operator, which puts the corner back where it started in 1983, with local owners running a local restaurant.

Four Operators, One Landlord

On paper, Ragtime was a series of owners, and the last two sales came close together.

1. 1983. Ragtime opens at the corner of First Street and Atlantic Boulevard with 12 tables, according to the Florida Times-Union.
2. 1991. Owners Tom and Bill Morton expand, adding a taproom and later what the Times-Union called the area's first microbrewery. The brothers went on to open A1A Ale Works in 1995.
3. 1998. The Mortons sell to Big River Breweries, the company that later launched Seven Bridges.
4. 2020. SPB Hospitality takes over the restaurants.
5. December 2024. SPB sells Ragtime to Kelly Cos. of Southern California.
6. January 2025. Ragtime closes, one month after that sale.

The sign in the window thanked the community for "the last 30+ years," and the Times-Union reported that an employee confirmed the closure. No reason for the closure was given.

The building was never part of any of those sales. In March 2026 the Jax Daily Record identified the owner as Rad Lovett of Southcoast Capital Partnership Ltd. At the groundbreaking, Lovett said the property has been in his family for generations and called River Restaurant Group "an obvious choice for a local operator." McCusker said he and co-founder Bob Fleckenstein heard about the opportunity, built a relationship with the landlord, and designed a concept specifically for The Corner.

Because the owner is a long-held family and not a buyer flipping the parcel, the building is being reused rather than cleared. The next two sections show how that plays out in the plans.

What the Permit Set Showed, and What the Groundbreaking Confirmed

Permits went to the Atlantic Beach permitting department in January 2026. Eight months later, at the groundbreaking, the project team gave updated figures. The two sets of numbers largely match:

The project's public relations representative, Charlene Shirk, gave the 260-seat figure. That is within four seats of what the permit drawings added up to in January. The $6 million covers construction only. The Jax Daily Record noted that a full project estimate wasn't available.

The new rooftop is the biggest change to the corner. All 86 rooftop seats in the January plans sit on the second-story addition, which means dining will move up a level at a building that currently has none above the ground floor. Lovett said, "I think the rooftop element is going to be unique and highly desirable."

The team is all from the region. The March filings list Cronk Duch Architecture of Jacksonville as architect and RDID of Jacksonville as interior designer. The structural engineer is Alexander Grace Consulting Inc. of Jacksonville Beach, the engineer is Jacksonville Beach-based Trusted Engineering, and the general contractor is RLH of Oviedo.

What Stays From the Old Building

The new steakhouse will keep parts of Ragtime. Some elements of the building stay, including the brick partition inside, and McCusker said he might try to bring back a popular Ragtime tuna dish.

That partition has history. In the 1980s and 1990s, Ragtime grew from a small dining spot into a center dining room, Salud, and the Taproom & Brewery. The walls that divided those rooms are part of the 1927 structure the new owners are building on.

Some things will be new. Rebecca Davisson, whose interior design firm is on the project team, described an art deco-inspired interior with "a lot of wood, a lot of high-end marble and granite finishes, a lot of seating types," with intimate spaces and larger ones for bigger parties. The first floor will have a piano bar, and the dining room will have acoustic treatments so people can hear each other on busy nights.

The menu will center on USDA prime steaks, Wagyu beef, shareable appetizers and seafood. McCusker mentioned local fish, lobster and a salmon dish. He described the format as "a simple steakhouse that's high end on the first floor then a little bit more casual on the rooftop."

Who Is Building It, and Their Track Record

River Restaurant Group already runs River & Post in Riverside, plus SAINT and River & Fort in St. Augustine. Fleckenstein called the new project "kind of like the fourth leg in a chair" and said, "It's probably the best location that we can think of in Jacksonville at this time. There's so much activity in this area."

The name follows the group's habit. "Grafton & Fleck's" combines McCusker's middle name with Fleckenstein's. When asked about more restaurants, Fleckenstein said Sept. 30 that he had nothing to announce.

In 2024 and 2025, the last two operators of the corner were a Houston-based hospitality company and a Southern California buyer that closed the restaurant a month after buying it. The next operator runs three restaurants in Jacksonville and St. Augustine and is putting its founders' names on the door.

The Opening Date Has Already Moved Once

Treat summer 2027 as a target. A Sept. 29 preview in the Jax Daily Record said "early 2027." By the next day's groundbreaking coverage, and in an Oct. 2 Florida Times-Union report, it had become summer 2027.

From mid-October 2026, that leaves roughly eight to eleven months to add a full second story to a 1927 building. The March plans did not include a construction timeline. The address can also be confusing. The Times-Union's 2025 closure story listed Ragtime at 207 Atlantic Blvd., while the 2026 permit coverage uses 299 Atlantic Blvd. Both refer to the corner of First Street and Atlantic Boulevard.

The Corner While Construction Runs

The rest of Beaches Town Center is open as usual. North Beach Fish Camp, Flying Iguana and Mezza Luna are across from the site, as the Times-Union noted when Ragtime closed. We found no published notice of street closures or event changes tied to the build.

Parking rules from Beaches Town Center:

• Public parking is paid from 11 a.m. to midnight daily, at $2.50 an hour.
• The first 30 minutes are free.
• Registered Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach residents get four free hours, good for three years from registration.
• Grafton & Fleck's plans to offer valet when it opens.

The Beaches Town Center calendar lists the North Beaches Art Walk on Oct. 15 and the BTC Fall Festival on Oct. 28.

At The Morrow Group, we follow changes like this one at The Corner because a new anchor restaurant at a corner this well known shapes how the blocks around it are used and valued. If you own near Beaches Town Center and want to know how a project like Grafton & Fleck's fits into your home's market position, we're happy to walk through it with you. Request a Complimentary Home Valuation.