Three months after abruptly closing its Baymeadows location, a nationwide chicken salad chain is planning a new restaurant on the Westside.
Chicken Salad Chick will occupy two adjacent storefronts at Ortega Park, the redeveloped former Roosevelt Square shopping center about four miles north of Naval Air Station Jacksonville.
At an estimated job cost of $350,000, the restaurant chain is building out Units 306-307 ― totaling 2,650 square feet ― in Building E in the Publix-anchored shopping center at 4495 Roosevelt Blvd. Adkins Construction LLC of Jacksonville is the general contractor, according to an Oct. 22 city building permit.
Chicken Salad Chick hasn't announced a potential opening date. Restaurant officials couldn't be reached for comment.
Ortega Park already offers diverse dining and dessert options. Among them are Metro Diner, First Watch, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Peach Cobbler Factory, LongHorn Steakhouse, Cold Stone Creamery, Chick-fil-A and KFC.
Atlanta-based Chicken Salad Chick bills itself as the nation's only fast-casual chicken salad restaurant concept.
Its menu features more than a dozen original, made-from-scratch chicken salad flavors as well as its pimento cheese and egg salads. Also featured are fresh garden salads, gourmet soups, signature sandwiches such as The Chick Melt, seasonal items and desserts.
'Shifting of locations'
The Ortega Park restaurant comes in the wake of the July closure of Chicken Salad Chick's first Jacksonville-area restaurant at 10920 Baymeadows Road, Unit 12.
The Baymeadows restaurant had been in business for nine years.
At that time, Tom Carr, chief marketing officer for Chicken Salad Chick, told the Times-Union that the Baymeadows closure was the only one planned closure in the Jacksonville market, which includes neighboring St. Johns County.
"While we’re closing one we still have three in the market and we’re looking to add one to two in the next 12 months on top of that. So it’s really about looking at broadening ourselves in the market with some new locations that may better fit the needs of our guests than the one in Baymeadows did," Carr previously said.
Carr also emphasized that the Baymeadowdows closure was "basically a shifting of locations" and "the other ones are 100 percent planning to stay open."
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Back then, Carr noted that Chicken Salad Chick was "looking at something which might be in the Ortega Park area."
In addition, the restaurant chain also was thinking of potential locations "more toward Ponte Vedra" but was scouting throughout the whole market," he previously said.