GoLO Jacksonville

The Jax Cash Mob is invading San Marco Square Saturday June 30th with a band of mobbers who all want to shop local.

Take your community’s economic future in your hands and demonstrate your support for local small business owners. When you buy local, our community gets more for it’s money. Nearly 70% of the money spent at locally-owned small businesses stays within the local Jacksonville economy.

Pizza Palace is the meetup spot where at 11AM the cash mob site will be unveiled. Mobbers will then head to the location and each spend between $10 and $20 as a demonstration of your support to the buy local movement. Afterwards, post-mob drinks and socializing will be held at Pizza Palace at 12:30pm. Mobbers are free to discover the many wonderful stores that make up the San Marco Square business district.

What is a cash mob?
A cash mob is a group of people who assemble at a local business and all buy items from that business. The purpose of these mobs is to support both the local businesses and the overall community. Think of the cash mob as a “shop local” flash mob created to spur local economic stimulus! The ten dollars demonstrates your personal commitment and effort to support a local independent retailer while having fun doing it as a part of a larger group. Cash mobs also have a social and community-building component as the interaction between community-minded individuals that meet at these events has a multiplier effect that breeds new projects and contacts.

How do I participate?
Here are the rules:
1. Show up at Pizza Palance at 11AM. Pizza Palace is located at 1959 San Marco Blvd.
2. Spend $10-$20 at a local store (we’ll reveal the store at 1pm)
3. Get connected!  Take the opportunity to connect with others in our community interested in Going LO by meeting three new people at the event.

Why cash mob?
When we buy local, from local businesspeople, wealth is both created and retained in the community. Think of what an impact we can all have on our community by simply choosing to shop local. We each do a little. We all do a lot.

~Contributed by MySanMarco.com

Quiches are made fresh daily. photo credit: CariVicarious.com

Bakery Moderne is closed on Mondays, but pastry chef and owner Nathalie Mockler is hard at work kneading bread dough. While Riverside sleeps, she arrives at 4:30 a.m. daily to prepare her signature baked goods and brew fresh coffee from local Bold Bean Coffee Roasters.

Her hand-shaped artisanal breads, from classic French loaves and croissants to contemporary sundried tomato-basil and asiago-cracked peppercorn, are made from scratch with organic herbs from her garden and without preservatives. It’s “a three-hour process just to make a small batch of French bread” and she’s “got some biceps” from the daily workout. The owner/baker takes a quick break to share how she turned her one-time hobby into Riverside’s hip European-style bakery and café.

Originally trained as an architect, the Jacksonville native earned an architecture degree minoring in art history from the University of Miami. For years she helped design educational and institutional facilities such as the Student Union Parking Garage at Florida State College’s Kent campus and the Social Sciences building at the University of North Florida. While completing those projects, she built a dedicated following among family and friends for making delicious multi-tiered wedding cakes part-time for nearly eight years. She admits that lengthy design and construction processes couldn’t compete with “the immediate gratification” of “putting a smile on a customer’s face right away” with cakes. Eventually she pursued formal pastry training at Florida Culinary Institute in West Palm Beach (now Lincoln Culinary Institute), followed by a three-year stint as a pastry assistant at Epping Forest Yacht Club.

Bakery Moderne. photo credit: VisitSouth.com

A Riverside resident, Ms. Mockler scouted local vacancies and soon discovered this light, airy space with its tall glass windows, high ceilings and exposed brick walls at the corner of Stockton and Myra Streets. In December 2009, she opened Bakery Moderne with its art nouveau lettering harking back to her architecture and art history roots. The café is located across the street from the John Gorrie Junior High School, where painstaking renovations have burnished the school into an architectural gem (the couple that spearheaded the effort, Wayne and Delores Weaver, recently stopped into the café after reviewing the project’s final “punch list”). The pastry chef hopes the Gorrie development will further revitalize the neighborhood. Giving back to the community is important to her, and the owner/chef frequently donates baked goods to local organizations, such as the Sulzbacher Center, Riverside Fine Arts and Lender Processing Services’ charity events.

 
At an earlier visit, a lunch-time diner raved to me about the fresh breads and savory quiches. Mockler is especially proud of her Cuban sandwich made with slow-roasted pork and fresh-baked Cuban bread borrowed from her Cuban grandmother’s recipe. But she likes “to keep an open mind” to customer suggestions or ideas for new items. Her husband helps out “a lot behind the scenes” cooking up corn chowder and St. Augustine datil sausage and spicy black bean soups to accompany her fresh breads. With her high-quality standards, one of her biggest challenges has been to find trained staff to help with baking tasks. Admitting that “sweets are her first love,” the chef reminds diet-conscious customers that they don’t have to avoid all pastries. “It’s all about moderation and portion-size,” she says. “Our mini-tarts are all about portion control” and “fresh fruit is good to have.”

Pastry Chef and Owner, Nathalie Mockler, Bakery Moderne

With a busy holiday season right around the corner, she notes that fresh petit fours, dinner rolls, fruit pies and Yule logs will be in demand. The bakery also delivers catering services for special events, including dessert tables, breakfast and lunch platters and custom cakes for client meetings and events. So whether it’s baked goods for breakfast, lunch or a special occasion, be sure to stop by Bakery Moderne, 869 Stockton Street, where flour power rules.

–Bridges delPonte

Chef Eddy Escriba, Executive Chef at Uptown Market, demonstrates how to make a delicious Arugula Roast Beef Salad. A Jacksonville favorite serving breakfast and lunch, you won’t be disappointed with what you taste! http://www.uptownmarketjax.com

Originally posted on HealthSource

Thank you, Southern Living, for highlighting the terrific restaurants, boutiques and galleries of Riverside, San Marco and Downtown in your October 2011 issue. The article is billed as “a neighborhood-specific guide to the best places to eat, drink, shop and socialize in the River City,” and three of the four neighborhoods profiled are right here in our historic urban core.

Coincidence? We don’t think so. These are authentic neighborhoods with great architecture, beautiful public spaces and parks, tree-lined streets and interesting people. Our amazing locally owned, locally operated stores play a huge role in helping preserve the unique character of our compact, walkable communities, and the businesses highlighted in the article all operate at the highest levels of excellence.

Southern Living, we’re sending you some love!

Soups have long been popular comfort foods to help maintain good health or to calm jangled nerves after a hectic day. But at Riverside’s Soup’s On, owner and chef Keith Mullaney has elevated this humble dish to new levels.

King Street cafe tables

Since Memorial Day 2011, Mullaney and the staff at his King Street restaurant have been stirring up fresh takes on classic soups like French Au Gratin with Jarlsberg Cheese. They’re also creating new favorites, such as Sweet Potato & Maple Syrup, Banana Coconut & Lemongrass, and even chilled dessert soups, such as Gingered Carrot & Apricot.  On steamy afternoons, his fresh fruit “soupersicles” offer healthy, frozen alternatives to sugary, calorie-laden popsicles. Patrons can relax at sidewalk café tables or duck inside the cozy restaurant with its open kitchen and tropical-colored paintings. Rows of refrigerated and frozen pints of soup also offer a variety of quick, take-away meals for busy consumers.

A member of a musical and artistic family, Mullaney grew up expressing his creativity through food, and has worked with diverse chefs coast-to-coast.  While managing restaurants, Mullaney discovered he “wasn’t happy with the quality [of soups] I was getting from most of the vendors,” so he decided to develop his own recipes. He first introduced his contemporary approach to soups in university towns in northern and southern California where soup lovers wanted “to stay in shape and fit in their skinny jeans.”  His second Soup’s On shop in Baltimore, MD is still in operation and yielded the inspiration for one of his personal favorites, Maryland Crab in Tomato Vegetable Broth (although he’s also partial to his Potato Leek Kielbasa soup).

Chef and owner, Keith Mullaney, behind the counter at Soup's On

Expanding to Jacksonville allowed Mullaney to be closer to his spouse’s family and to introduce more healthy eating options into the local restaurant scene. He scouted possible locations for six months, ultimately choosing Riverside/Avondale for its proximity to the bustling St. Vincent’s Medical Center (where his Soup’s On truck makes regular deliveries). He also likes the neighborhood’s “eclectic” vibe with “its wide mix of people, young and old, and vegan palates.”  Recently, he was pleasantly surprised to meet his first Soup’s On “groupie”– a Jacksonville customer who previously enjoyed eating at his Los Angeles and Baltimore eateries.

photo credit: Soup's On

Mullaney prides himself on creating his soup stock from scratch and changing up his meat, fish, vegetarian and vegan soup offerings every day. He also offers a variety of freshly made salads and hot and cold sandwiches.  He blends and toasts custom spices for his soups, including traditional and exotic spices obtained from the Jacksonville branch of Penzeys Spices. Through his vendors, he seeks out natural and organic ingredients–especially important for his vegan recipes.  He hopes to work with more local farms and to participate in area farmers’ markets in the coming months.

As with any creative person, he likes to experiment and draws inspiration from those around him, including his customers.  From time to time, patrons ask him to make or add a special twist to their favorite soup recipes.  He notes that if a customer’s recipe “works out well for us” and “is put on the menu, each time we make that soup they get it for free.”  In addition, he has shared his love of soup and healthy eating with local youth groups, hospitals and churches.

As an entrepreneur, he notes that to be successful, “you can’t look at it as work–look at it as something you enjoy doing.” He believes putting “a lot of dedication and heart” into your efforts will positively impact your business—and evidently one’s appearance, as well.  It is hard to believe that the youthful-looking Mullaney has spent nearly four decades in the food services industry.  Perhaps fresh, healthy soup is the true fountain of youth in Florida.

Get your bowl of liquid rejuvenation at Soup’s On, 1526 King Street, order by telephone at (904) 387-9394, or on the web at www.soupsonjax.com.

–Bridges DelPonte