Decline and Industry Challenges
An early 20th century view inside the Jones-Chambliss slaughterhouse. | University of Florida
The 1970s marked the beginning of decline. In 1973, federal price controls disrupted the meatpacking industry statewide. More than 200 workers were laid off across Florida, including 60 from Henry’s Hickory House. In an interview with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Alfred Goedert lamented:
“We can’t get supplies, and when we can, prices are not economic. We’re definitely feeling the price freeze. In the 36 years I’ve been in the meat packing business, this is the roughest I’ve ever seen. We bring in fresh pork bellies to make sliced bacon, but we have to pay seven cents more a pound than we did before the freeze began.”
In 1980, the original 43-year-old brick slaughterhouse was shut down, leaving the 32,274-square-foot Henry’s Hickory House as the sole remaining operation.
Transition to Bubba Foods and New Uses
*Henry’s Hickory House in 1973. | Rick Hebenstrelt *
In 1988, the Goedert family sold the site, including the inactive Jones-Chambliss plant and the operating Hickory House, to William “Billy” Morris for $500,000. In 2000, Hickory Foods, LLC. acquired Bubba Burgers from its founder Walter “Bubba” Eaves, forming Bubba Foods, LLC.
The company produces frozen BUBBA Burgers and BUBBA Hickory Smoked Bacon, distributed throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and through military commissaries globally. By 2001, the Jacksonville facility produced over 31 million pounds of bacon annually, processing 600,000 pounds per week. At its peak, the plant was Florida’s largest bacon producer, employing 140 workers and supplying regional brands such as Tom & Ted’s. Across the tracks, most of the original Jones-Chambliss meat packing plant was demolished in 2002.
In 2010, Bubba Foods, LLC. expanded their Elberton, GA plant and acquired another meat processing plant in Hastings, NE. By the end of that same year, operations ceased at the Jacksonville property after a century of around the clock activity for a century.
A Sweet New Chapter
The former Henry’s Hickory House plant is now the production plant for Peterbrooke Chocolatier. | Ennis Davis, AICP
In 2012, Morris acquired Peterbrooke Chocolatier, a Jacksonville-based chocolate company. Three years later, in 2015, Peterbrooke transformed the 28,000-square-foot abandoned Hickory House plant into its headquarters and production facility, marking a new chapter in the life of this historic industrial site.
The former Jones-Chambliss Meat Packers property on Forest Street in May 2025. | Ennis Davis, AICP
Editorial by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com