Southern Grounds & Co. — Restaurant in Jacksonville

I really was quite disappointed. We went on Sunday at 11am. 2 Vegetarians. I had the grits bowl, and Blueberry Scone The grits were tasteless, and cool and had shredded cheddar cheese on top. The poached egg was perfect and actually added the only heat to my meal. The scone was cleverly disguised as a large flat muffin before it was MICROWAVED. It was NOT a scone, and certainly did not deserve to be nuked. If this is all fresh and Artisan Baked, I can't imagine why you'd then microwave it. Having British parents, I'm very familiar with scones. This was dry, and light. For some reason there was also cinnamon sugar all over it. My GF had the 3 egg omelette. They must have been the smallest chickens ever, because the omelette was tiny. Somewhat warm and tasteless. The biscuit was incredibly dry and cold and the jam/jelly thing was obviously cheap production from a jar. The one cup of coffe I had was good. Would have liked more, but they ran out of that kind in the urn and did not refill it the whole time I was there. I would have loved to express this to management, but since no one came to check on us, or asked us how the meal was it was clear they didn't care. We then watched as they used single serve Minute Maid orange juice to fill Mimosas. I have a problem with businesses that find it acceptable to be that wasteful, and produce that much trash instead of using a more eco friendly method. But, that was to be expected as we had to ask a few times to be allowed to have my GFs Latte in a glass instead of plastic.

The Bad: Tasteless food, cold food, non-caring attitude, not earth friendly, expensive for poor quality The Good: Coffee is good, place is beautiful.

I would have loved to express any of this to anyone there, but...

The place is cute, it has a pretty great vibe when you walking in. People dining in appeared to enjoy their visit, regulars that walked in also seemed to have good rapport with the staff, it wasn't that for me unfortunately. No one greeted me when I walked in, the menu is large and kind of confusing between the coffee options, food options and then separate dessert options, the person behind the counter didn't seem to want to engage or answer any questions. It was my first time in, I was excited to try out the bakery items, but my experience with the staff member left me feeling out of place and as though I didn't belong. It was a pretty stale experience for a first time, it left much to be desire. The bakery goods were yummy though, I had a Earl Grey cheesecake and a Nutter Butter which I took home to share with a friend. The cheesecake was pretty good, my friend really like it, the texture was nice and the flavor was great, I personally just realized tea flavor and cheesecake aren't it for me. On another note, if you like Nutter Butters, go here, get this, it was delicious, flavorful, sweet but not too sweet, I'd go back just for this. As a side note, the bakery items are from a bakery within the establishment called Blueberry Bakery which will be moving to another location shortly, if your going for the baked...

I’ve tried most of the Southern Grounds in NE Florida and they each have their own unique vibe. I love the quiet vibe of this location. I also love the large patio and string lights this location has. It’s a great place to have a coffee in the morning or evening and watch the sunset over downtown. It’s also great for getting some work done or reading a book. I had to update my initial 5-star review after this weekend at the Neptune Beach location. We ordered two hot salted caramel lattes. We left, took a sip, they weren’t hot, we brought them back and asked if they could make them hot. It wasn’t a big deal. The cashier was friendly. The other two gals behind the bar however were not. They weren’t paying attention to the drinks they were making and were talking about some other customer at the counter. But one of them snapped at us and said they couldn’t put it back on the steamer because we’d already drank out of it. We know that, but you didn’t make them hot so you need fix it. The cashier took our drinks to the back and I think microwaved them? They didn’t tell us what they were doing. We were so confused. They still weren’t hot and honestly they didn’t taste good. We visit this location almost weekly and have never had any issue with staff or the drinks. Hopefully this was a one off and not a problem...