After a decade, 2 Jacksonville restaurants will serve their last meals this weekend

Open more than a decade each, two Jacksonville restaurants are set to close their doors for good on Saturday.

In Five Points, Black Sheep Restaurant is saying goodbye, serving up its last plates of poutine, shrimp and grits and more from its modern American menu featuring fresh, local ingredients.

The restaurant, launched in October 2012 by Jacksonville restaurateur/chef Jonathan Insetta, represented the start of a new era of dining in the historic neighborhood. Its rooftop bar, one of the first in the area, offered sweeping views of the downtown skyline and the rooftops of neighboring century-old homes from its perch atop the modern, three-story triangular-shaped building at 1534 Oak St.

Insetta’s restaurant group operates two other Jacksonville restaurants: Orsay in Avondale and Bellwether in downtown. Bellwether recently debuted its own rooftop dining area.

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Across the river in Arlington, Sid and Linda's Seafood Market & Restaurant will end its 10-year run on Saturday.

Owners Sid and Linda Camacho opened the restaurant at 12220 Atlantic Blvd. in April 2013 after operating Safe Harbor Seafood in Mayport for six years.

"What I'm going to miss the most is our customers, our loyal customers. It's become family to us, really personal. … It's bittersweet, you know. They became our friends, part of our family over the years," Camacho told the Times-Union late last month after making the difficult decision to close. "It's sad but it's time to retire."

The restaurant was known for its Southern-style seafood and fish, as well as conch fritters, fresh Mayport shrimp, fried oysters, crab cakes, clam strips, scallops and more.

Both restaurants cited the COVID-19 pandemic and its lingering effects as contributing causes to their closures.

“The restaurant business ecosystem was extremely tough before COVID,” Black Sheep’s Insetta told the Jacksonville Daily Record. “And now it is unbelievably hard.”

Linda Camacho of Sid and Linda’s sounded a similar tone: "It's getting too overwhelming, especially for the restaurant business. Food prices are skyrocketing. Everything has gone sky-high."

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville restaurants Black Sheep, Sid & Linda's Seafood closing