At the Beach Boulevard and San Pablo Road intersection, three food and coffee addresses have changed hands or filled in during 2026. Starbucks moved across the intersection into a former Wendy's. Dutch Bros is converting the space Starbucks left. Smalls Sliders is placing a shipping-container restaurant on an outparcel at Intracoastal Plaza. Up San Pablo at Atlantic Boulevard, Dutch Bros has a second kiosk permitted at Harbour Village. The plans for Smalls Sliders and for the Dutch Bros in the old Starbucks space show no indoor seating.
That is the pattern on this stretch of Intracoastal West right now. The new arrivals are small buildings on large pieces of ground, and most of that ground goes to lanes, queuing and parking. If you want a table, the newer options are the ones that moved into bigger, older restaurant buildings farther west on Beach.
One Building, Two Coffee Chains
Start on the northwest corner. The building at 14355 Beach Blvd. was built in 1995 on 0.857 acres. It totals 3,396 square feet and is split between two tenants. One of them is FedEx. The other was Starbucks.
According to the Jax Daily Record, Starbucks relocated to a remodeled Wendy's at 14447 Beach Blvd., on the northeast corner of Beach and San Pablo. The paper notes that the chain has been replacing in-line leased locations with nearby stand-alone stores and drive-thrus.
The city issued a permit on June 24 for Dutch Bros to convert the former Starbucks space, at a project cost of $991,632. The plans call for a 1,360-square-foot shop with a drive-thru and a walk-up window, and no indoor or outdoor seating. The site is being reworked so that dual drive-thru lanes merge into one behind the building. Dutch Bros and FedEx will operate side by side next to the Pablo Station shopping center.
The intersection now has two coffee chains on opposite corners. Most of the nearly $1 million going into the old Starbucks space pays for reshaping how cars reach the window. It does not add room inside.
The Long-Vacant Pad at Intracoastal Plaza
Across the intersection on the southeast corner, Intracoastal Plaza at 14444 Beach Blvd. is anchored by Publix and owned by Jacksonville-based Ash Properties. The Jax Daily Record reported in July that Smalls Sliders, the slider chain backed by Drew Brees, is setting up an 800-square-foot restaurant on a 0.7-acre outparcel near Le Petit Paris.
Every Smalls Sliders location is built around a modular shipping container the company calls "the can." Instead of a dining room, it has walk-up windows, drive-thru lanes and an outdoor patio. The Intracoastal Plaza site plan shows one drive-thru lane and outdoor seating, with right-turn-in, right-turn-out access into the shopping center at the outparcel.
The math is simple. An acre is 43,560 square feet, so a 0.7-acre parcel is about 30,500 square feet. An 800-square-foot building covers less than 3% of it. The rest is drive lane, patio, parking and the walk-in cooler and dumpster enclosure the permit describes.
Christian Oldenburg, chief operating officer of Ash Properties, told the Jax Daily Record that the company was "pleased to welcome Smalls Sliders to a long vacant pad at Intracoastal Plaza." He said he expected the tenant to "accelerate the positive transformation of the center."
The project keeps moving through permits. A Jax Daily Record development roundup listed a $90,000 canopy permit for 14452 Beach Blvd. on October 27.
The plaza has another addition coming. The city permitted Tampa-based GTE Financial to build out a 2,848-square-foot branch at 14444 Beach Blvd. The credit union has said it plans to open there in 2027.
The Same Formula at Harbour Village
At Atlantic Boulevard and San Pablo Road, Harbour Village is anchored by The Fresh Market and Crunch Fitness, close to Queen's Harbour Yacht & Country Club. The Jax Daily Record reported that the city issued a permit on October 20 for a 986-square-foot Dutch Bros kiosk at 13475 Atlantic Blvd. The kiosk will have dual drive-thru lanes and a walk-up window.
The building permit carries a $1.3 million project cost. It followed a $700,000 horizontal-development permit for site work issued on September 23, and sign permits were also in review. The landlord, Phillips Edison & Co. Inc., shows the kiosk on an outparcel in the parking lot to the left of the main entrance.
The building and the land show the same imbalance as at Intracoastal Plaza. The permit describes a 986-square-foot structure on 0.61 acres, so the building covers less than 4% of the site. Combined, the two permits total about $2 million for a building under 1,000 square feet.
Farther west on Atlantic in the Girvin area, Lake City-based Ellianos Coffee announced that it opened a drive-thru location on June 3.
The Corridor, Address by Address
| Address | Location | New tenant | What was there | Building size | Seating in plans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14447 Beach Blvd. | NE Beach & San Pablo | Starbucks | Wendy's | n/a | n/a |
| 14355 Beach Blvd. | NW Beach & San Pablo | Dutch Bros | Starbucks | 1,360 sq ft | None, inside or out |
| 14452 Beach Blvd. | Intracoastal Plaza | Smalls Sliders | Long-vacant pad | 800 sq ft | Outdoor patio only |
| 13475 Atlantic Blvd. | Harbour Village | Dutch Bros | Parking lot outparcel | 986 sq ft | Walk-up window, dual drive-thru |
| 14016 Beach Blvd. | Beach Haven, east of Hodges | Cook Out | Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers | 3,355 sq ft | Indoor seating |
| 13529 Beach Blvd., Unit 101 | Hodges Station | Potbelly | Rita's Italian Ice | 1,755 sq ft | 16 indoor seats |
Look at the "What was there" column. Almost nothing on this list is new construction on raw land. Each chain is moving into a space another business vacated or a pad that sat empty. The car-first chains took the corners. The chains with dining rooms took the larger buildings near Hodges.
Why the Buildings Keep Shrinking
The Florida Times-Union explained the economics in September. The coffee chains expanding across Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Nassau and Baker counties share one model: a compact building, often around 950 square feet, with one or two drive-thru lanes and no indoor seating. Less space means less to lease or build and fewer staff to manage.
The paper's count of the regional pipeline at the time:
- Dutch Bros: about five area shops running, with as many as 15 sites in some stage of development
- 7 Brew: roughly five Jacksonville-area stores, with nine planned
- Ellianos Coffee: roughly ten Northeast Florida locations open, with as many as 18 in the pipeline
- Scooter's Coffee: three local shops
The same article cited a National Coffee Association survey that found 59% of Americans who bought coffee away from home in the past week used a drive-thru, an all-time high for the category.
The Times-Union also made the point that matters most for Beach and San Pablo. These small, boxy buildings fit neatly into outparcels near gas stations, car washes and strip retail that might otherwise sit vacant.
That describes Intracoastal Plaza's long-vacant pad and the parking-lot outparcel at Harbour Village. San Pablo/Beach Haven also appears by name on the Dutch Bros list of potential Northeast Florida sites.
Where the Seats Went
Head west from San Pablo toward Hodges and the buildings get bigger.
Cook Out opened its first Northeast Florida restaurant on July 30 at 14016 Beach Blvd., in the former Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers east of Hodges. As News4JAX reported, many Cook Out locations are drive-thru-only, but this 3,355-square-foot restaurant also has indoor seating. Its menu covers chargrilled burgers, chicken, hot dogs and three dozen milkshake flavors, including peach cobbler and Orange Push-Up.
At Hodges Station on the northwest corner of Hodges and Beach, Potbelly Sandwich Works received a $600,000 tenant-renovation permit on July 27 for its second Jacksonville restaurant. It takes the 1,755-square-foot space at 13529 Beach Blvd., Unit 101, that Rita's Italian Ice used to occupy, next to Stanton Optical. The plans show 16 indoor seats.
Compare that with Potbelly's first Jacksonville location in the Deerwood Village shopping center at 9908 Old Baymeadows Road. That space is smaller, at 1,536 square feet, but its plans showed 26 seats inside and four outdoors, according to the Jax Daily Record. Even the sandwich shop planned for the Hodges corner has fewer seats in a bigger space.
Habit Burger & Grill, known for flame-grilled burgers, chicken and tuna, is also on this stretch, at 13559 Beach Blvd. It was the chain's Jacksonville debut, per the Times-Union.
Put together, the stretch from Hodges to San Pablo now splits by building. The larger second-generation restaurant spaces near Hodges are where the new dining rooms are. The corners at San Pablo, on both Beach and Atlantic, are filling with windows and lanes. Dutch Bros has two Intracoastal West sites permitted along San Pablo Road, one at Beach and one at Atlantic, both built around drive-thru lanes and a walk-up window.
We follow these corners closely because they are part of the daily drive for the families we work with west of the Intracoastal. If you have been watching the old Starbucks space or the Intracoastal Plaza pad and want to know what this kind of reuse means for nearby properties, Stephen Williams and the Edgewater Home Team are glad to talk it through. Schedule a consultation, and we'll go over the Beach and San Pablo changes on a map.
