After two years of growing pains, repairs and making accommodations, the locally owned restaurant The Jones Eastside is expanding with a new location in the downtown area.
A bit south and slightly west of the original, the new restaurant will call 203 SW Second Ave. home, where the building’s past two tenants Fyre Grill and Agave Blue only remained a short time. It is slated to open in mid-August.
Maya Garner, co-owner and general manager, said the main reason for the expansion is lack of space and proper infrastructure at the Northeast 23rd Avenue location, which seats about 30 to 34 people.
Co-owner and husband Tree Garner said the new location will seat four to five times more than that, and although the hours may slightly change, the original location will remain open.
The idea of expanding has been in their minds for a couple of years — ever since they were forced to rent extra space on Main Street in order to handle the volume of food going through the kitchen.
In addition to more space and shorter waits, patrons can expect more live music, a full bar and an emphasis on early weekend brunches.
“It will become more of a multipurpose place where you can bring your computer to do work and get coffee, eat lunch or dinner, and then come back later for drinks,” Maya Garner said.
The Eastside story is simple. Six years ago, the Garners set out to build a place that reflected their philosophy on life and food — somewhere they would want their new daughter to eat. What resulted was a restaurant with the goal of providing affordable, local, organic food rather than meeting profit margins and increasing revenue.
“I’m not sure we even know how restaurants are supposed to be done,” Tree Garner said of he and Maya Garner. “There is no one formula fits all, but what we are doing seems to be working.”
Tree Garner said many of their clients are shared with other locally owned businesses and restaurants, none of which he has ever seen as competition. In fact, he wouldn’t mind if there was one giant place all Gainesville’s local businesses could share.
Despite the addition, Maya Garner said this expansion is not about change. “People love The Jones for what it is, and we’re not trying to reinvent ourselves.”
