The 11 Maple Street Sale Fell Through. Downtown Jensen Beach Gained a Second Chef's Table.

The house at 3224 NE Maple Ave. was built in 1905 in the Florida cracker style. Since 1985 it has held 11 Maple Street, which opened with eight tables in one dining room. This fall it came very close to having a new owner. The sale was canceled instead, and the chef who planned to buy it is opening his own restaurant in a downtown plaza on Jensen Beach Boulevard.

Downtown now has both restaurants, and both are small. The new question for anyone who eats downtown is how to get a seat at each, and the two places answer it very differently.

How a Sale Turned Into Two Openings

TCPalm reported on Aug. 27 that Perrin planned to close and sell. The restaurant closed Sept. 26. About a month after that first report, Perrin and the buyer, Irish chef Mark Jones, agreed together to cancel the deal, according to TCPalm. Manager Ixa Gutierrez told the paper that the restaurant had been on the market for about a year before Jones agreed to buy it. She said Perrin liked Jones as a successor because Jones planned to leave the building largely untouched.

That point explains where things stand now. In TCPalm's Oct. 28 report, Perrin still plans to retire and sell, but only to someone who commits to preserving the house. Until that buyer appears, he keeps cooking. Jones, meanwhile, moved a version of his plan into a smaller space. TCPalm reported Oct. 9 that GRÁ will serve some of the dishes he had planned for his reimagined 11 Maple Street. The difference is that GRÁ will offer them as a set menu for a small number of guests each night, not as the à la carte menu he had described in August.

The same plan for a restaurant was never going to run in both buildings at once. The canceled sale is the reason downtown now has two chef-driven rooms.

11 Maple Street Comes Back the Way It Left

The reopening date was Oct. 29. According to TCPalm, 11 Maple Street returns with the same name, menu and decor, plus a few new dishes that Gutierrez called secret. Perrin taught himself to cook. He is a former marine biologist who took inspiration from Alice Waters, and his menu has always changed often, built on organic, locally sourced ingredients, farm-raised meat and wild-caught seafood.

The real limit on getting in is demand. Gutierrez described the last weeks before the September closing to TCPalm:

"We had four pages of people on the waitlist."

The restaurant has asked diners to be patient around the reopening and not to flood the staff with reservation calls right away, according to TCPalm. The phone is the only way in. 11 Maple Street isn't on OpenTable's booking network, and OpenTable tells diners to contact the restaurant directly.

The restaurant's website lists these hours:

• Dining room open Thursday through Saturday, 6 to 9 p.m., with limited seating and reservations recommended
• Wine and beer bar open from 5:30 p.m. on those same nights
• Takeout orders from 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, picked up at the side entrance

Takeout and the bar are the easiest ways in while the reservation book refills. Neither one needs a dining-room table, and on a busy week that's the hard part to get.

GRÁ Is Smaller Still

GRÁ, pronounced "graw," is the Irish word for love. Its OpenTable listing describes a 23-seat chef's table. Five of those seats are at a counter where guests watch each course being plated, and the rest are tables plus one booth. The walls hang work by local artists. The listing describes a single set menu that changes with the seasons and uses local Florida ingredients cooked in a refined European style. It says Mark Jones owns the restaurant with his wife, Shayla, a Florida native, and calls GRÁ a love letter to the town where they met.

Jones grew up in Dublin. TCPalm reports that he was a junior sous chef at One Pico, a Michelin-recommended Dublin restaurant, from 2021 to 2022. He also helped teach culinary arts at Centennial High School in Port St. Lucie, whose team won the most awards at the 25th Annual ProStart State Culinary Competition this past February.

TCPalm's Oct. 9 report gave no exact opening day. It said October 2026, based on the restaurant's Instagram, and said hours weren't available yet. The GRÁ OpenTable page now lists dinner Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 2 to 8 p.m. It also lists a price of $50 and over and business casual dress. Treat those listed hours as the latest posted, not as a confirmed opening schedule, and check the booking calendar before planning a night around them.

Some of the menu items and "Experiences" on that page appear to come from Jones's earlier plan for 11 Maple Street, so they may not match what GRÁ serves on its set menu. GRÁ's own Instagram is where TCPalm has been following its updates.

The Space GRÁ Is Moving Into

Unit 2 at Pineapple Passage was Broth, the handcrafted-soup shop that opened May 21, 2025, and closed Aug. 31, 2026, just over a year later, TCPalm reported. The plaza sits between Crawdaddy's N'awlin's Grill and Raw Bar and the historic Jensen Beach Inn. Discover Martin's business directory lists Celtic Creamery next door in Unit 1, JoJo's Kitchen at the same address, and Tide & Bean, a coffee-and-breakfast food truck that parks at Pineapple Passage.

A set menu served at a five-seat counter is a long way from a soup counter. GRÁ adds an evening sit-down dinner to a plaza whose listed neighbors serve ice cream, Tex-Mex and morning coffee.

Matching the Night to the Room

The listed schedules overlap on only three nights, which makes planning simpler than it first looks.

1. Wednesday. If GRÁ's listed hours hold, it's the only one of the two serving dinner. Book through OpenTable.
2. Thursday. Both rooms are open, and it's also Jammin' Jensen night. Discover Martin lists the event on Thursdays from 6 to 10 p.m. at 1912 NE Jensen Beach Blvd. Upcoming dates are Nov. 5, 12 and 19. There's no event on Thanksgiving Day.
3. Friday and Saturday. Both rooms are listed as open. Call 11 Maple Street early in the week.
4. Sunday. GRÁ lists afternoon hours from 2 to 8 p.m. 11 Maple Street's website lists no Sunday service.

On a Thursday, the street-party crowd and the dinner reservations share the same few blocks. 11 Maple Street seats at 6 p.m., which is when Jammin' Jensen begins. An early bar seat or a takeout pickup at the side entrance puts you ahead of the crowd. Nov. 19 is the last Jammin' Jensen Thursday before the Thanksgiving break, and expect both small dining rooms to fill quickly that week.

In late August, the 41-year-old restaurant was set to change hands. Downtown is now heading into the season with that room back under its founding chef and a second chef-run room going in on the boulevard. Between them they have a few dozen seats, and each one books through its own channel.

If you're thinking about the streets around Maple Avenue and Jensen Beach Boulevard as a place to live, talk to a local waterfront expert at The Quinn Group - Anne Warner & Sean Quinn. We follow downtown Jensen Beach week to week.