JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — After a quarter century, an iconic Jacksonville dining destination known for sophisticated French-style, Mediterranean and Italian cuisine plans to close at the end of the month.
Bistro AIX, at 1440 San Marco Blvd., will shut its doors on Sept. 28. Also closing that day is Limoncello Ristorante, which opened in December inside the bistro.
Bistro AIX announced the closure Saturday night via Instagram.
"New things on the horizon….Bistro X and Limoncello will be closing on Sept. 28 make sure to join us one last time to celebrate 25 years of great service," the restaurant posted.
No explanation was given in the post for the closure. Nor were any details about what might be coming.
Restaurant officials couldn't be reached immediately for comment.
Dining destination 25 years
Dating back to 1999, Bistro AIX had built a reputation in Northeast Florida as a "go-to" restaurant for special occasions. It has undergone multiple ownership changes and menu tweaks over the years.
The COVID-19 pandemic and lingering aftermath, including the recession and inflation, hit the restaurant and its customers hard. Guests including longtime regulars had drifted away from Bistro AIX, owner Marcello Villani told the Times-Union when he launched Limoncello.
At that time, Villani said Limoncello ― featuring Italian cuisine ― was influenced in part by concerns expressed by customers over the past few years. Many noted that they used to come two or three times a week but since the pandemic, they only came two or three times a month. And "everybody pointed to their pockets" as the reason why, Villani previously said.
"So, I said what can I give back to the community to allow them to go to the same rate that they used to come and visit us without breaking the bank basically," said Villani, noting that unlike other Jacksonville restaurants, they weren't raising their prices.
"We have lowered the price by 25% to 30% at Bistro AIX, and our price point for Limoncello is actually less than 50 percent than Bistro AIX. Our most expensive item at Limoncello is a fish dish at $15," Villani said then.
In addition, Villani said another factor in opening Limoncello was his desire to reach out to less affluent residents of San Marco and neighboring areas to encourage them to "come in and taste our foods."
"We'll have to work harder, but at the end of the day, we are giving something back to the community that supported us during COVID and all these hard times," he said.
This story was first published by The Florida Times-Union.
