Atlantic Beach success prompts second Homespun Kitchen location | Jax Daily Record | Jacksonville Daily Record

By 2009, Levine went out on  his own to open two yogurt shops called Happy Cup. One was at his current location in Atlantic Beach and the other was in Tinseltown.

Levine comes from a line of entrepreneurs. He watched his father and grandfather work hard and recalls his father working from his deathbed in 2020.

He learned from their successes and their pitfalls.

“They didn’t have the type of success they would have liked to have had. I didn’t come from wealth. I had the privilege to learn from their mistakes,” Levine said.

The Tinseltown location didn’t last long. He closed it to concentrate on the Atlantic Beach store.

Seeing he was competing against large franchises he decided to implement his idea of serving healthful food, prepared in front of the customers, with an emphasis on a quick and delicious dining experience.

“Yogurt is a compressed market. If you don’t have a unique and diversified product that is first to market it makes it tough,” he said.

Homespun Kitchen still serves frozen yogurt, but that represents only 1% of sales.

However, frozen yogurt is an ingredient in several smoothie recipes, which comprise 15%.

All the while he was envisioning how he could convert the 1,200-square-foot yogurt shop into a viable restaurant space. 

Levine designed it all, from the storage to the kitchen to the serving line. The small restaurant has a few seats inside and on the sidewalk. 

The Five Points location will be larger, seating about 44 inside and another 20 outside.

Like the original location, he expects to hire 20 to 25 employees.

Since rebranding to become Homespun Kitchen in 2016, the restaurant has shown steady growth.

It posted a 20% earnings increase in 2019, broke even in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic and rebounded with an almost 45% increase in sales  last year.

Levine reports that during the first quarter of 2022 the restaurant is 35% ahead of projections. Because it is a private company he declined to provide financial figures.

Levine says he sells two products – healthy food and hospitality.

His business model empowers managers. They understand his methods and his system. 

His 14-year-old daughter, Margot, wants to work at the restaurant. When the time comes, she will apply like anyone else and talk to a store manager.

“I want to be her father, not her boss,” Levine said.

There is one last step before hiring new employees – a 25-page hospitality manual. 

They are told to read it, learn it and be prepared to be tested on it before they are given the job. 

Levine finds that employees who are willing to take the test buy into the Homespun Kitchen culture.

“I believe we pay well and we work in a no yelling environment,” he said.

Those without experience start at $10 an hour plus tips and those with leadership experience start between $11 and $12 plus tips.

He has a goal of his management team earning in the six figures in the next couple of years.

“Our hope was that it would happen at the end of 2023. I won’t guarantee anything but we are on our way.”

Levine attempts to serve as much locally grown, USDA organic, all-natural, non-GMO products as possible. Breakfast is served throughout the day. The majority of the menu comprises bowls and wraps with much of the bread made in-house.

Meat eaters can choose from chicken, ham and turkey.

Being in a tourist town, Levine has had customers from around the country ask when he would expand.

Since meeting Wendy’s owner Dave Thomas when the entrepreneur spoke at UF, expansion has been part of the business plan.

“I want to take on McDonald’s and Wendy’s. I’m not getting any younger.”

Levine wants to have two more locations ready in 2023.

“The plans are to expand, but let’s get this second one up and running first,” he said.