LAKELAND, Fla. — A Lakeland couple have big plans for the old Lakeland Brewing Company building on Lake Mirror, and they're putting those plans into motion.
- Jonathan, Sarah Bucklew own Seventeen/20 furnishings
- "Food Hall" concept will still feature brewery, also multiple eateries
- Idea came from travels across the country
- More Polk County stories
In the last year, six restaurants and two bars have opened in downtown Lakeland.
Jonathan Bucklew and his wife Sarah, owners of Seventeen/20 handcrafted furnishings, plan to continue the trend by opening a food hall in the Lakeland Brewing Company building.
“In the downtown area, I don’t think there’s a better location for this,” said Jonathan.
The place will still have a brewery. They hope to have seven food vendors inside.
“We have not picked them all yet," Jonathan told us. "We have a lot of people who want in and we have limited space."
"We feel very strongly about three or four of them," he went on. "We’re not sure who to put in the other spaces yet."
Bucklew said they got the idea to open the food hall two years ago, after traveling across the country and abroad.
“One of our favorite parts about traveling was experiencing the local food," he explained. "And we kind of became foodies and we began to love the food hall concept and the urban market kind of idea and we wanted to bring that concept here to our hometown in Lakeland."
The couple is still deciding on a name.
There’s a lot of renovation work still to be done, but they hope to have it open in May of 2019.
The total renovation cost will be around $750,000, according to the Bucklews. The Lakeland Community Redevelopment Agency is contributing $250,000 to the project.