Former Homestead chef Bo Johns has announced his plans to open the previously closed Homestead Restaurant at a new location this summer in Jacksonville Beach. The Homestead officially closed at the end of December 2010 and their previous location at 1712 Beach Blvd. is now the Taco Lu Mexican restaurant.

Mr. Johns said that the new restaurant will be located at 904 Sixth Ave. S where Parson’s Seafood Restaurant, an area staple for more than 50 years, had closed last year.

Johns said the restaurant menu will be identical to when former owner Steve Macri operated the restaurant. “It will be the exact same menu,” he said, citing fried chicken, grouper fingers and blackened steak fingers as a few of the featured items.

The restaurant will boast at least 150 seats, Johns said, including an outdoor patio. He hopes to have the restaurant opened by the end of June.

The old Homestead Restaurant had a long history with the residents of Jacksonville. The original owner, Alpha Paynter was a prominent businesswoman who for decades, owned the Homestead and the Copper Kettle Inn. After Alpha moved to Jacksonville Beach, she constructed the log cabin that would become the Homestead in 1934. Originally a boarding house, Paynter converted it to a restaurant serving family-style Southern cooking in 1947. She sold the business in 1961 and passed away in 1962.  Under a succession of owners, the Homestead remained a Beaches institution for fifty years.  It hit hard times in the 21st century and closed at the end of 2010.