Ashley Street itself formed part of a larger network of entertainment corridors that supported performers traveling through segregated America. Musicians, athletes, comedians, and touring performers passed through LaVilla regularly, appearing in clubs and theatres along the street before continuing to other cities on the circuit. Community memory places figures such as Ray Charles and Hank Aaron among those who spent time at the Roosevelt Grill while moving through the neighborhood. Newspaper references from the 1960s confirm that musicians performed there as well, reinforcing what residents already understood about the restaurant’s role inside the entertainment life of Ashley Street. It was not simply a lunch counter serving theatre crowds. It was part of the corridor that sustained the district itself.
The Hazouri family’s presence on Ashley Street reflected a broader tradition among Syrian-Lebanese merchants who opened groceries, cafés, and retail storefronts throughout downtown Jacksonville during the early twentieth century. In LaVilla their businesses depended on relationships with residents who returned regularly, not just on visitors passing through for an evening’s performance. That relationship shaped how the Roosevelt Grill operated. Church youth groups stopped there after programs. Children stopped there after Saturday matinees. Families gathered there while moving between stores and theatre doors along the block. Performers traveling the circuit passed through its entrance between appearances elsewhere in the district. Over time, the restaurant became part of the neighborhood’s weekly rhythm rather than a destination visited only once.
The story of the Roosevelt Grill also connects the mid-century life of Ashley Street to Jacksonville’s present civic leadership. Rufus “Pop” Hazouri, who helped operate the restaurant during its busiest years, was the grandfather of Mayor Donna Deegan. That connection reflects how closely the history of LaVilla’s commercial corridor is tied to the larger story of the city itself. Families who operated businesses along Ashley Street during segregation-era Jacksonville were not temporary visitors to the neighborhood. They became part of its structure, its routines, and its memory.
The Roosevelt Grill eventually disappeared along with the Roosevelt Theatre block that once anchored this section of West Ashley Street, and today the site is occupied by the LaVilla School of the Arts. Yet even after the building itself was gone, the memory of the restaurant remained vivid among residents who grew up along the corridor. They remembered the crowds moving between theatre doors and storefront windows. They remembered the performers passing through the district. And they remembered the familiar walk home after a Saturday matinee with a paper bag of fries that had to be carried carefully from underneath because the grease rarely stayed inside the paper long enough to reach the next block.
While the Roosevelt Grill is no more, its spirit still lives on at Downtown’s oldest remaining restaurant, the Desert Rider Sandwich Shop on Hogan Street, still operated by Larry Hazouri. | Yelp
Editorial by Jerry Urso. Jerry is a historian for the James Weldon Johnson Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and guest writer for the Jaxson Magazine. Contact Jerry at brojerryurso377@gmail.com