Drive down East Granada Boulevard past the bridge and you'll see cardboard still taped to the windows of a hundred-year-old building at 58 East Granada. A few blocks west, past the same bridge, a dining room that didn't exist in June is now seating regulars every night. Both are part of the same wave of restaurant activity remaking downtown Ormond Beach this year. Only one of them moved fast.
That gap is the real story on Granada right now, and it tells you something about how this stretch of downtown actually gets rebuilt.
The Fast Clock: Three Months From Renovation to Full Dining Room
In April, Gili's Kitchen closed at 188 East Granada Boulevard. By June 1, the Blanchard family had started renovations. On August 29, New Orleans Original Creole/Cajun Cafe opened its doors, serving shrimp po'boys, charbroiled oysters, beignets and king cakes out of a space that had a completely different tenant five months earlier.
Owner Brett Blanchard moved to Ormond Beach in 2001 and spent years unable to find food from home. His son, Joey Mendez, is the chef, having worked his way through kitchens at Stonewood Grille, The Dish Tavern and Grille, Blau and Madeline's Wine Bar before taking this one on as his own. The family had been hunting for a location before their real estate agent called about the space right after Gili's closed. From there to a working restaurant took about three months.
That's a fast turnaround. It's the version of neighborhood change most people expect: a space goes dark, someone with an idea moves fast, the lights come back on.
The Slow Clock: Four Years and Counting at 58 East Granada
Billy's Tap Room & Grill has been closed since 2022, when Doug and Lillian Rand retired after eleven years running it. The restaurant itself dates to 1922, when a New York hotel manager named Billy MacDonald came south to run a tea room and eventually built one of Ormond Beach's oldest dining institutions.
Local developer Bill Jones bought the building that year for $1.85 million. The original timeline on Billy's own website promised a 2023 reopening. That slipped. A report in the fall of 2025 pointed to a reopening later that season. By March 2026, the target had narrowed to mid-April. As of this writing, Billy's Tap Room's own site still reads "reopening soon," with no firm date attached.
Jones has described the renovation as a full gut job, right down to hundred-year-old iron pipes and cloth-insulated wiring behind the walls. Asked why he takes on buildings like this one, he put it simply:
"I'm your huckleberry," Jones told Hometown News.
Joe Oliva, the restaurateur who already runs Alexander's Prime a few blocks away, will operate Billy's once it opens. He's spent time going through roughly sixty years of old menus, trying to decide which dishes come back, including whether the old relish tray of baby corn, gherkins, olives and a radish makes the cut.
One Name Connects the Projects
Bill Jones isn't a new face on this street. He bought the original Alexander's Cafe building at 123 West Granada Boulevard back in 1987. That space ran as a nightclub for a stretch, became Frappe's Italian Grille in 1997 under owner Meryl Frappier, and stayed open under that name until it closed in the summer of 2022. Jones brought it back in 2024 as Alexander's Prime, an art deco steakhouse, again with Oliva running it.
Jones also owns 31 Supper Club at 31 West Granada Boulevard, a Prohibition-themed spot with live music that's been open since 2014, along with Rose Villa, Ormond Garage and The Grind, all clustered on the west side of the same bridge Billy's sits just across.
Here's what's actually open or reopened along that stretch right now, and where:
- New Orleans Original Creole/Cajun Cafe — 188 E. Granada Blvd, opened August 29, 2026
- Alexander's Prime — 123 W. Granada Blvd, reopened April 2024
- 31 Supper Club — 31 W. Granada Blvd, open since 2014
- Little Italy's Ristorante — 814 S. Atlantic Ave, relocated from Daytona Beach's Beach Street in spring 2026
- Billy's Tap Room & Grill — 58 E. Granada Blvd, closed since 2022, no confirmed reopening date
Two of those, Alexander's Prime and 31 Supper Club, are Jones properties that took years to bring back but have now been running long enough to feel permanent. Frappe's held that same building for two decades before it closed. 31 Supper Club is going on twelve years. If Billy's follows the pattern, the four-plus years it's taken to reopen won't be the headline in 2030. It'll be a footnote before decades of steady operation.
Two Clocks, No Single Schedule
The two restaurant timelines playing out on Granada right now aren't really two versions of the same trend. They're two different clocks. One moved from renovation to opening in about three months. The other, Billy's, has been closed since 2022 and is still awaiting a reopening date.
Jones is in his seventies and has said he plans to keep going, pushing the same kind of restoration work north toward New Britain Street next, mixing in housing with storefronts. Those projects are unfolding on a different timeline from the quick restaurant opening.
Meanwhile, on Atlantic Avenue, Little Italy's Ristorante relocated this spring after a five-year run on Daytona Beach's Beach Street, moving into a standalone building of more than 5,600 square feet that had previously housed Dalmare Italian Chophouse before that restaurant closed in 2024. Owner Mario Recupido had already opened a second spot, Dino's Bar & Grill, in Daytona Beach that February. That's a reminder that the dining changes moving through this part of Volusia County aren't confined to one boulevard. They're happening on parallel tracks, at different speeds, for different reasons.
So the next time you drive past 58 East Granada and see the same cardboard in the windows, it's worth remembering what's happened at other Jones properties nearby, and what's sitting a few blocks away because someone else moved fast instead. Both are true at once. That's what change actually looks like on a street with this much history still standing.
If you're the kind of person who wants to know what's happening around the corner before it shows up on a menu somewhere else, that's exactly the kind of local detail our team keeps an eye on. If you ever want to talk about anything happening in Ormond Beach, from what's opening on Granada to what a particular block or building might be worth down the road, Wendy Schwoerer and the team are always glad to talk it through. Contact us anytime.
