Journeys Restaurant, the award-winning Longwood restaurant, is moving. Owners Bram and Geraldine Fowler will announce today that they are moving the business to Alaqua Country Club. The restaurant will be known as Journeys Restaurant at Alaqua.

“We’re actually moving as we speak,” Bram Fowler, who is also the chef, told the flog this morning. Journeys was on a summer break last week and the restaurant was closed. It will stay closed and reopen in the new location (pictured here) on August 4.


Journeys will take over the restaurant in the Alaqua Country Club, 2091 Alaqua Drive, Longwood, about four and a half miles from the present location in the Longwood Village Center on State Road 434. Both the Alaqua golf club and Longwood Village are owned by John Ritenour. Fowler said Ritenour knew he was looking to relocate and offered the restaurant space at Alaqua.

Journeys will go from about 45 seats to a maximum of 120 in the new dining room. There is also a patio for outdoor dining and a bar, which will allow the restaurant to serve full liquor for the first time. The country club also has a private dining room for special functions. It will be open to the public.

Fowler did not know what his staffing needs would be with the larger restaurant. He said he will be retaining some of the staff in the restaurant that currently occupies the golf club.

This is not the first time that Alaqua has offered an upscale restaurant to the public in its clubhouse. In 2005 chef Massimo Fedozzi opened Harvard at Alaqua. It received critical acclaim for its cuisine (at least from me) but the surroundings were a tad tawdry.

But the original clubhouse was razed about a year ago. Fowler said the new building is beautiful and will need little redecorating. He said he and Geraldine will add some of the world travel photos that gave the original Journeys its name, but he would not have to repaint. “I’m not going to go for the yellow,” he said of his six-year-old restaurant. “I’m through with the yellow.”