Who Is Filling Nocatee Town Center's Empty Restaurant Spaces

Three restaurants at Nocatee Town Center closed in the first half of 2026, and a fourth space, Clean Juice's, has since been promised to a new tenant. By late October, three of the four spaces had a named replacement. Two of those are run by married couples, and the third is a family-owned business. Each new operator either already has a location in Northeast Florida or has moved here to run this one. The fourth space is the old Wendy's drive-thru on Capitol Green Drive, and no replacement was named when it closed.

The closures and the replacements are connected. The spaces that emptied this year are being taken by smaller operators with a closer stake in the area, and the fast-food space is the one that has not been claimed.

Three Closures in Five Months

The closures came quickly. In June, Action News Jax reported that Nocatee residents were concerned as three Town Center restaurants announced closures within a couple of months.

1. February. Dick's Wings & Grill closed after 13 years. It opened in April 2013 and was one of Town Center's original restaurants.
2. March. Wendy's at 103 Capitol Green Drive closed for good. The St. Johns Citizen photographed the closure sign on March 18, and the Times-Union reported it two days later.
3. June 25. Catullo's Italian's expected last day at 100 Marketside Ave. The restaurant had sold the space to a restaurant group it did not name.

Clean Juice's space followed a different timeline. When its replacement was announced in September, Easy Açaí described the storefront as one "currently occupied by Clean Juice."

Catullo's had been in Nocatee since 2023. In a social media video quoted by Action News Jax, the owners said that "with rising prices and the wage increase that just happened again, it's getting harder and harder for small businesses to move forward." Brothers Carl and Dave Catullo planned to keep running their original San Pablo Road restaurant, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Here is where each space stood in late October.

The Catullo's Space Went to Restaurateurs From Alsace

The first space to reopen was Catullo's former suite. The operators did not already have a Jacksonville restaurant. They moved from France to run this one.

Riviera 89 is owned by Emeric and Anthony Roy Perruccenio, a married couple who came to Nocatee from Alsace, France. There they ran a restaurant called Sous un Ciel d'Italie, according to the St. Johns Citizen. Anthony runs the kitchen and Emeric runs the front of house. Anthony bought the Alsace restaurant in 2017 and trained with Michelin-starred chef Christian Begyn and in Italy, the Ponte Vedra Recorder reported.

The Recorder's headline calls the food an "Italian kitchen with French soul." The menu has customizable pasta, Pinsa Romana, and a ciotola, a bowl made from pizza dough. It also has quiche, steak frites, croque-monsieur, French onion soup, charcuterie and pastries. The restaurant opened on Sept. 18. A week later the Times-Union described it as promising "a taste of the Riviera."

Riviera 89's website divides the day into three services:

• Lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Afternoon from 2 to 5 p.m.
• Dinner from 5 p.m. until close, which is 9 p.m. on Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday, and 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

The restaurant is closed Mondays and serves wine, cocktails, beer and coffee. Because it stays open between 2 and 5 p.m., it can serve as a coffee-and-pastry stop as well as a dinner reservation.

Dick's Wings' Former Space Goes to a St. Augustine Grill

The next space down the row went to a restaurant that started in St. Johns County.

Asado Life signed for the former Dick's Wings unit, a 3,415-square-foot space at 100 Marketside Ave., Suite 301, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. The restaurant cooks in the Argentine asado tradition, with live-fire grilling. The founders and owners are Nick and Christie Carrera, a husband-and-wife team, according to the Times-Union. The Daily Record also names Paul Thompson as their partner in the Nocatee expansion.

The restaurant began at 173 Asado Way in St. Augustine and later added a Jacksonville location at 5 Tower Court in the Shipyards. Nocatee will be its third location, between the two.

Regency Centers handles leasing at Town Center. When Asado Life was announced, Regency's senior leasing agent Eric Apple described the kind of tenant the center wants. He was quoted by Nocatee's news site:

"Nocatee Town Center was built to serve a community that values great local businesses, and Asado Life fits that vision perfectly."

As of an Oct. 26 report from WhatNow Jacksonville, Asado Life had not announced an opening date for Nocatee. For now, Asado Life is a signed tenant with work underway, not a place you can book for dinner yet.

The Clean Juice Space Has an Opening Window

The third replacement is the farthest along after Riviera 89.

Easy Açaí, a family-owned business founded by Doug Rowland, is moving into the former Clean Juice space in Nocatee Town Center, east of Crosswater Parkway. According to Nocatee's announcement, the menu will include traditional açaí bowls, Brazilian-style layered bowls, smoothies, juices, fresh pastries and other treats. The company says it sources its açaí directly from Brazil.

The company's own post gives an opening window of late October to mid-November. As of an Oct. 18 report from WhatNow Jacksonville, it had not announced an exact date. The posted window runs through mid-November.

Like Asado Life, Easy Açaí already has locations in Northeast Florida. Its current shops are at 278 Solana Road in Ponte Vedra Beach and at 935 Durbin Pavilion Drive in Durbin Park. Nocatee sits between those two locations.

The One Space Without a Tenant

Riviera 89, Asado Life and Easy Açaí are all run by their owners or by a family, and their menus come from specific places: Alsace by way of Italy, Argentine live fire, and Brazilian açaí. Two already operate in Northeast Florida, and the third moved here from France to open.

The old Wendy's is the one space in this group with no new tenant named. The St. Johns Citizen called it one of Nocatee's oldest eateries. It ran for about ten years at 103 Capitol Green Drive, and the paper's photos showed a closed drive-thru window. Neither the St. Johns Citizen nor the Times-Union named a replacement tenant or a plan for the building when it closed in March.

Fast drive-thru service is the one type of restaurant the three new tenants do not offer, and the building at 103 Capitol Green Drive was built for it.

Changes in tenants at Nocatee Town Center are one of the local factors that can affect a home's value. If you own nearby and want to know where your home stands as fall turns to winter, The Morrow Group can give you a current read based on local data. Request a Complimentary Home Valuation, and we will walk you through it.