Fleming Island's Fall Restaurant News Is Happening Inside Buildings You Already Know

"We still have the stuffed fish," Jesse Jabot told Clay Today in late September. He was describing Whitey's Fish Camp after a ten-day overhaul that he and his partner, Justin Griffin, led with a crew of as many as 50 people working 14-hour days. Southern Rock boxes still hang on the walls. The pool table in the back room is gone. The window tint has been removed, and the lighting is softer.

That one building sums up Fleming Island this fall. The restaurant changes you can actually walk into before Thanksgiving are all at addresses you have driven past for years. Across County Road 220, Mercury Moon is now Encore Fleming Island. At the corner of East-West Parkway and U.S. 17, the old Dick's Wings building becomes a Grumpy's on Oct. 12. The new construction around Village Square Parkway still has no confirmed opening dates in the latest local reporting.

Two Rebuilds Facing Each Other on Swimming Pen Creek

Whitey's and Encore sit across the street from each other on County Road 220. Clay Today covered both remodels in a single story on Sept. 24, 2026, and the paper described both as attempts to win new customers while keeping the regulars.

The bigger change at Whitey's is who owns it. The Ham family ran the waterfront restaurant at 2032 County Road 220 for 63 years. They sold it to Harry's of America, the restaurant group behind Harry's Seafood, Bar and Grille and Casa Reina Taqueria and Tequila in St. Augustine. When the sale was first reported in March, the new owners said they planned to preserve the restaurant's legacy and make subtle changes. The September remodel is what those subtle changes turned out to be.

On the menu, many of Whitey's older recipes stayed. New dishes include jambalaya, seafood queso, Low Country Pasta, Andouille-crusted chicken, beef tenderloin medallions and scampi pasta, and most meals can now be ordered fried, grilled or blackened. Jabot said the kitchen wanted to "pull a little bit away from what we felt was pretty heavy on the fry station." The former pool room is now a dining room for large parties. Outside, there's a new play area for children on artificial grass, with games and seating for adults. The tiki bar and outdoor seating are still there.

Encore went through a shorter but deeper rebuild. The former Mercury Moon Bar and Grille at 2015 County Road 220 closed for a month while crews put on a new roof and redid the interior and parking lot. It held its announced grand opening July 24 and 25. Encore describes its menu as "a focused selection of elevated bar favorites" instead of a full restaurant menu. That includes a Monte Cristo, a stacked smashed burger called The Encore, a "Free Bird" grilled chicken sandwich, and panko-crusted broccoli bites with datil sauce. The drive-up window at the package store stayed.

Here's what changed and what stayed at the two buildings:

If you're planning around the two of them, the details that matter most for a regular week are hours and music. Whitey's posts hours of 3 to 10 p.m. Monday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. The restaurant's FAQ says there's live music every night and all day Friday through Sunday, with no cover charge. You can still come by boat. Dining customers can tie up at the dock off Swimming Pen Creek, boats up to 50 feet are welcome when space allows, and overnight docking isn't permitted.

Encore hasn't published hours in anything we found. Local music listings show Soulful Sarah there at 6 p.m. on Oct. 1 and Karaoke with Ashe at 8 p.m. on Oct. 7.

The Third Building: Grumpy's Opens Oct. 12

The same pattern repeats two miles of familiar road away at 1803 East-West Parkway. Dell Hoard Sr. and Dell Hoard Jr., the father and son who own the Middleburg Grumpy's, spent the summer overhauling the former Dick's Wings. Hoard Sr. told Clay Today that when they put up the temporary Grumpy's banner, passing drivers honked and gave them thumbs up.

The opening date has moved more than once. A Sept. 3 Clay Today story gave Sept. 28. The paper's Sept. 24 follow-up and the Times-Union's Sept. 29 report both put the first day of service at Monday, Oct. 12. The Times-Union reported planned hours of 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.

The Fleming Island Grumpy's is set up differently from the existing locations. It has a full bar. Hoard Jr. said they'll serve specialty drinks such as mimosas and Bloody Marys and still close at 2 p.m. There's a free game room for kids and a party room that holds 20 to 30 people. Size is the biggest difference. Hoard Jr. said the other stores seat 107, while this one can seat 170 to 190 counting the party room. He also said he expects that room to be full Friday through Sunday and hopes church groups and car clubs will book it for morning gatherings.

The breakfast reputation comes with it. Clay Today notes the Orange Park and Middleburg restaurants have been voted Best of Clay for breakfast and brunch eight years in a row. The menu includes oversized breakfast plates, pancakes, waffles, eggs Benedict, chicken and waffles, country-fried steak, chicken pot pie, burgers and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

The New Construction Is Still Waiting on Dates

The island's ground-up projects are moving more slowly than these three renovations. Here's where each one stood in its most recent local report:

• Wawa, 2357 Village Square Parkway. Under construction in April, and Clay Today printed "There is no confirmed opening date as of now."
• Five Below, 1991 East-West Parkway. No confirmed date in May. By July it was taking job applications for a grand opening, still with no date on the calendar.
• Sun and Steam Seafood Pots, Village Square Parkway. Equipment was arriving and the interior was being painted in July. Planned steam pots include Low Country, Oyster Cove, Skipper's and Claudia's Clam Bake. No official opening date had been given.
• Zaxby's, County Road 220. A larger replacement is going up one parcel over from 1525 County Road 220, with no opening date in the May report.
• Parker's Kitchen, U.S. 17 at Creighton Road. Planned, with no construction or opening schedule reported as of March.

We found no August or September report confirming that any of these had opened by the end of September. The only firm change in this group runs the other way. Island Wing Company closed permanently at 1609 County Road 220 in June after about 15 months, and Clay Today didn't name a replacement.

The Same Pattern Reaches Moccasin Slough Park

The county's largest Fleming Island park project this year is also an upgrade to a familiar place. Moccasin Slough Park on Raggedy Point Road opened in 2010 with a paved walking trail, a playground, a pavilion and exercise stations. A $1.4 million project now underway adds a 2,690-square-foot section of boardwalk and an educational pavilion. Construction began in April. Clay County Parks and Recreation Director Justin Pierce says Phase 1 is set for completion in 2027. The full plan includes 6,800 square feet of elevated boardwalk, an observation tower, three overlooks and a Nature Center, built as more funding comes in. Once finished, visitors will be able to reach parts of the 225-acre park that were previously inaccessible for bird-watching and walking.

Until then, the closest dated outing is the Fleming Island Saturday Market on Oct. 3, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Village Square Shopping Center, 2245 Plantation Center Drive. The market's listing describes it as a first-Saturday-of-the-month event. That puts a market morning on Oct. 3 and an early breakfast at Grumpy's on Oct. 12 nine days apart this month.

Many of the families Traci Crawford works with arrive on a PCS timeline. They learn a town through its regular places: the breakfast spot with room for a big group, the creek restaurant you can reach by boat, the park the county is building out. If you're relocating to Fleming Island this fall and want an advisor who keeps up with these changes, Schedule a Strategy Session and we'll go through the island together.