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First Coast Foodies: Downtown deli serves up flavorful Mediterranean cuisine

Their downtown diner is located on the first floor of the Blackstone building and is known for its slow-cooked corned beef.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — If you live or work in the downtown area, you've most definitely seen the D and G Deli & Grill located on E Bay Street. It's impossible to walk by and not notice the larger-than-life pictures of mouthwatering food all over their front windows.

Daniel Isa and Gilbert Rexhepi are the faces behind D and G Deli & Grill and have always had flair for cooking up delicious Mediterranean inspired bites.

The two brothers are from Albania, where they both started out in the restaurant business as teenagers, working their way up from just about every position.

“Kitchen, dishes, everything, mopping floors anything that needed to be done,” Isa said.

After learning their way around the kitchen they opened up their own full-service dinner restaurant and bar in Detroit. After a few years though, they decided to trade the snow for sunshine and move south.

“We were looking around, looking around, shopping around and we liked downtown, we saw potential in downtown the place was growing,” Isa said.

“We had family and we realized we wanted to move to Florida to enjoy the sunshine, working from breakfast to lunch, to make it a little easier to have a family,” Rexhepi said.

Their downtown diner is located on the first floor of the Blackstone building and is known for its slow-cooked corned beef.

“Fresh homemade corned beef, we cure it in house, we season it, we marinate it and we slowly oven-roast it and we bring it out to the slicer and we slice it fresh,” Rexhepi said.

The stir fry dishes are also a hit.

“Fresh cut veggies, sauteed, marinated with seasoned garlic herbs, rice, chicken, you can do shrimp, you can do steak, you can add salmon, whatever you want,” Isa said.

If you’re looking for something on the healthier side, you can’t go wrong their Greek salad or fresh juice blends.

“Protein shakes, we make fresh fruit smoothies, juices fresh, we go to the farmer’s market three to four times a week," Rexhapi said. "We bring back fresh veggies make it on house carrots apple beets celery ginger all that good stuff.”

 D and G Deli & Grill is located at 233 E Bay St, Jacksonville, FL 32202  

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