Bernard Santiago lounges in front of the Just a Pinch Café and Catering’s bar on Fleming Island after being named best restaurant in Clay County.

Just a Pinch Café and catering – Fresh from the island, on the island

Say ‘aloha’ to the best restaurant in Clay County

By Jesse HollettStaff Writer

FLEMING ISLAND – The suites at Village Square on Fleming Island have a bit of a reputation of being competitive. Restaurants there compete in an endless arm wrestle for the lunch rush. The strong survive and the weak are washed up in a stream of mediocre online reviews. Luckily for Bernard Santiago and his fiancé Cleta Greenwood, they already kind of look fresh from a shipwreck.

In the last week, it’s been full sails for Just a Pinch Café and Catering on Fleming Island. The attention comes when foodies caught wind of the 12,000 square foot kitchen that popular food blogging fite, Charleston Food Bloggers, named it best restaurant in Clay County.

In a June 8 blogpost, the bloggers broke down Florida bite by bite and named the best restaurant in each county. Charleston Food Bloggers proclaims itself as the “most followed food blogger in the south” and the numbers are there to back it up. Within the first week, the blogpost, which itself is so long the scroll bar becomes a tic-tac, had amassed more than 100,000 views.

“I’d say 30 percent of people that have been coming in here have been because of this blog,” Santiago said. “It’s great.”

In its eight months on the island, Just a Pinch Café and Catering on Fleming Island has already carved a name for itself among the bowtie crowd and t-shirt crowd as a go-to spot for weekend breakfast and weekday lunch.

Santiago, the general manager and executive chef, breaks down his style of cuisine as 70 percent Southern and 30 percent Hawaiian.

“We definitely win the arm wrestle for the breakfast rush on the weekend Saturday Sunday breakfast and brunch,” Santiago said.

Santiago and Greenwood, co-owners, created their menu in their kitchen at home through a combination of both of their individual styles. Of course, Santiago has the final say on any changes, considering at any given time he is the only chef in the kitchen.

“Some recipes and preparation styles that I’ve done for years, she’s tweaked or changed and made it better and we serve it today in our restaurant,” Santiago said. “It’s a great partnership.”

While Santiago takes care of most of the back end of the restaurant, Greenwood designed the dining room’s décor with the idea of creating a warm and inviting area for guests. Santiago said that she succeeded in that.

The 30 seats in the restaurant help seal in a private, welcoming feel. Santiago said it also helps to have many of his customer’s names and orders memorized.

Those orders might change soon, however. The café plans to launch a new menu on the first of July, keeping the favorites and adding new menu items that Santiago undoubtedly hopes will grow to be new favorites.

Santiago and Greenwood are caterers first. Their café is a subsidiary to their main business Southern Hawaiian Hospitality, a catering business with the capacity to serve weddings or events in access of 500 people.

“That’s why we came here,” Santiago said. “It had a little space for seating so we decided to open up a restaurant too.”

It would be easy to get enamored with their newfound Internet stardom, but, as Santiago explains, he wants to keep that welcoming atmosphere that attracted people to the restaurant in the first place.

“Both the owner and I come from families that believe that the dinner table is the center of family, and that’s what we want to bring here,” Santiago said. “It’s a homey feel here.”