You would hard pressed to find a family who’s gone more ‘all in’ on downtown Savannah in the last few years than Michael and Frederika Feketé.  Back in the Spring, they opened Java Burrito, a fast casual Mexican concept and coffee house at the corner of Broughton and Price Streets in downtown Savannah.

Sure, families open businesses here all the time, but the all in part stems from the fact that after almost a decade of living on Hilton Head Island, where their original Java Burrito location does very very well, they chose to sell their house on the island and move here.

 They live in the apartment upstairs above their restaurant. It was all part of becoming part of a community they were attracted to from afar. Now, a handful of months in to their new lifestyle, they are loving life and looking forward to what their end of Broughton Street could eventually become.  I spoke to Frederika last week for our Eat It and Like It Podcast about the transition, the neighborhood and what her vision is for their still somewhat new space at 420 East Broughton Street.

Your building is on a very popular corner.  It was an iconic Mexican restaurant, Juarez for many many years.   Someone told you this, right?

“When we were looking at the building we had people telling us. Firefighters used to tell us Juarez used to be there.  People would eat there all the time. So Michael and I thought, maybe this is a sign that it needs to be Mexican again.  The vibe. The look. It’s all our dream. Now we’ve been able to bring it to Savannah because we’ve moved our family here full time from Hilton Head Island.

Where did you get the idea to do Mexican and coffee?

“Michael and I moved to Hilton Head from South Florida. I had lived there my whole life. I got a job in Hilton Head out of grad school. We just wanted something that was quick and quality.

For those of us that pay attention to this stuff know that after Juarez, the Gaslight Group really cleaned it up and went through a couple of concepts before you guys took over. But what you’ve done is just beautiful. It was a whole building renovation, right?

“Oh yeah. From the basement-which is now our event space-to the main restaurant level to the upstairs apartment, which our family lives in. We are really part of downtown. We are part of the East end of Broughton Street. The basement event space is a lounge that is open during the day for meetings and it is also for rent for private events.  It has become pretty popular pretty quickly.

So, you still have your Java Burrito Hilton Head, but you say you’ve moved here permanently?

“Yeah. We lived there for 9 years, but decided to move to Savannah in the middle of COVID. Everyone had their own little crisis, I suppose.  Being from Miami and living in Europe for part of my life, it was really important to me to be in a cultural place.  A place where you can have experiences everywhere and people everywhere. The arts and food and students and university and education. It just felt like a really good fit for us.

We’ve lived here for 6 or 7 months and we are really enjoying it.  Hilton Head is a beautiful place, we really enjoyed it there, but this is just more. Savannah is just a little more of everything.  The architecture reminds me so much of Europe. The food and the arts remind me of South Florida. The local neighborhood, I had no idea how awesome it was. It’s really core socializing like people used to.

The business owners on that end of Broughton have felt forgotten for many years. Have you had any conversations with other business owners about a revitalization of that end of Broughton Street?

We definitely understand that we need to work on becoming more inclusive to the rest of Broughton Street.   The streetscape project, I am definitely in support of. It’s really going to make the street feel like one and not so chopped up. They are also stringing market lights across Broughton all the way to us. And they are going to stay up all year long. So we are really hoping that those will bring exposure to what I keep hearing about this ‘forgotten end of Broughton Street’

Your immediate neighborhood to include Washington Square near the Brice Hotel, that is one of the prettier parts of Downtown Savannah. Would you agree?

“Oh, it’s unbelievable. St Julian is just amazing. All of these old buildings. And the Brice, I’ve been told is one of the more popular pet friendly hotels. So we have all of these people walking all of the time with their dogs. It’s really a great vibe. A lot of interesting people that live here.”

Have you heard any conversations about the homeless situation downtown?

Yeah. We have. I think everyone is aware of it. I don’t think it’s any secret. It is a situation that we maybe need a plan for. Maybe see how visitors and residents feel on the daily. Walking their dogs or their kids to school.  It’s a big walking city. We need to make sure that people don’t feel uncomfortable. I know it’s not a super popular subject, but I think we all know it is a subject that needs to be addressed. Hopefully we can come up with a plan that works for everybody and take care of everybody.

This article appears in Oct 12-18, 2022.