Mid-Drive Dive, a new 120-seat concept from East End Market veterans Matt Hinckley and Jacob Zepf, will be moving into the College Park space formerly occupied by Graffiti Junktion (2401 Edgewater Drive in Orlando). February is the target for soft opening.
Hinckley, of Hinckley’s Fancy Meats, will man the kitchen, where comfort food classics and fun shareables will reign. Zepf, whose Freehand Goods shop pollinated the neighborhood not long ago with a new shop, will be running the bar alongside his wife, Brittany. It’s an extra-market foray for the pair, who have enjoyed great success with The Neighbors, East End Market’s upstairs boutique and craft cocktail bar.
“Mid Drive Dive,” Hinckley told the Orlando Sentinel, refers to the spot’s central location on College Park’s main drag of Edgewater Drive.
“It’ll be a neighborhood joint,” says the former College Park resident who’s still quite smitten with the community, in particular its iconic Publix. “I think Mid Drive will have some of that mid-century feel to it, as well.”
The menu is still in development, but it will not be setting any trends.
“I’m more interested in food that was on the plate a hundred years ago than I am in being the next molecular gastronomist,” Hinckley jokes. As for inspiration, “Think Betty Crocker’s cookbook and ‘Joy of Cooking.’ Comfort food, rustic, skin-on-the-vegetables, bones-in-the-meat kind of stuff.”
The 40-seat bar, he says, will have fun plates for sharing. Things like deviled eggs and disco fries. Possibly oysters. But fans of Hinckley’s award-winning sandwiches need not fret. Burgers and fries will have a home here, as well as some hot new handhelds from this multiyear Critic’s Pick in the Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards. Blue Plate Specials, “stuff like meatloaf and pot roast,” he says, will likely be a thing.
For Hinckley, who has worked in and run kitchens from modest to Michelin, it’ll be the first time in years at the helm of his own sit-down restaurant. Dinnerware has been ordered, he says.
“Now we’ll start testing things out and making tweaks.”
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