Daily Record FINANCIAL NEWS &
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 253 • Two SecTioNS
Bonus a sticking point in early pension talks
By David Chapman Staff Writer
Medure preparing a fish at his former culinary school.
Matthew Medure
Photo by Maggie FitzRoy
Medure took a chance on Jacksonville's food scene and it paid off
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By Maggie FitzRoy, Contributing Writer
“They told me there was no fine dining in Jacksonville. That it was a meat-and-potatoes and barbecue town,” he said during an interview in his office above Matthew’s, the first restaurant he opened in 1997. If he really wanted to open his own place, they told him, “Go somewhere else.” But, that just fueled him. “We’ll make it,” Medure told them. And make it, he did. Medure served high-quality food, prepared with French techniques. He flew fish in from around the world. His brother, David, was sous chef.
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2 unions skeptical of Curry's first offers
Proving the critics wrong
eople told him not to do it. They told him he’d be crazy to leave his fabulous job as head chef at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, to open his own restaurant in Jacksonville. But Matthew Medure didn’t listen. And he proved everyone wrong.
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After convincing state lawmakers and Duval County voters on the merits of a pension sales tax, Mayor Lenny Curry’s final challenge is to get further buy-in from the impacted unions. It will take a little more bending from his first offers pitched Tuesday to the Jacksonville Supervisors Association and the Laborers’ International Union of North America local chapter. Jason Geiger, president of the supervisors association, paused slightly before answering if the initial offer was in good faith. “It’s not a negative offer,” he said. Ronnie Burris, the business agent for the local laborers’ union, went slightly further. When asked if the city’s offer was a good faith gesture: “Not really.” The two unions comprise half of the General Employees’ Pension Plan organizations. Their offers Tuesday had similarities: Defined benefit plans for new employees would be closed and, in exchange, the group’s employees would receive a range of salary increases and one-time bonuses. The salary bumps are the same. Employees would receive a 4 percent increase starting Oct. 1, another 3 percent in 2018 and a 2.5 increase the year after that. The difference is the bonuses being offered. Employees of the supervisors’ associations would receive a bonus of 2 percent of their salaries. Laborers’ union PENSION
By Karen Brune Mathis Managing Editor
He bought this former bank building for his first restaurant.
Matthew’s was so successful from the get-go that it wasn’t long before the biggest challenge was fitting people in every night. And the brothers have kept investing in the area. Three years later, they opened Restaurant Medure in Ponte Vedra Beach, with David Medure as executive chef. In 2011, they launched their first old-fashioned burger joint, M Shack, in Atlantic Beach, followed by locations in St. Johns Town Center, Riverside and Nocatee. This past July, they opened MBQue
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Circle K plans to build store on Beach Boulevard
in St. Augustine, a lunch and dinner barbecue place where the meat is cooked all night long in a slow cooker. And early next year, they plan to open their eighth restaurant, Rue St. Marc, in San Marco, across the street from Matthew’s. It will be a French diner with indoor and outdoor seating and their first eatery to offer breakfast. It has been a journey Matthew Medure said he has thoroughly enjoyed, especially since it has been the realization of a lifelong dream. WORKSPACE CONTINUED ON PAGE A-7
Circle K might be joining the wave of gas stations and convenience stores expanding in the area with new properties. It already operates about 70 locations in greater Jacksonville, and there are more than 130 Circle K stores within 50 miles of the city, according to CircleK.com. Now it is considering new construction. Circle K submitted an application for an almost 5,000-square-foot building at 8837 Beach Blvd., west of Southside Boulevard next to the Promenade Shopping Center. Ten fuel pumps are shown on the plan. Richard Kingan, real estate development manager, said the project could be the first new construction since Circle K bought the Kangaroo Express stores. “But we are still in the permitting phase,” he said. The St. Johns River Water Management District is reviewing an application for an environmental resource permit. The engineering consultant is Bowman Consulting of Melbourne. MATHIS
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