Gold Star Restaurants
This annual list features top-notch, locally owned eateries that are favorites of Arbus staff, friends, and readers. Our list is based on more than the quality of food—it is service, consistency, atmosphere, hospitality, and value. Places that make you smile with their sense of community, indefatigable restauranteurs, and excellent food. All are worth visiting for an exceptional meal and a unique regional...
35 Years of Art Ventures at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida
By Laura Jane Pittman If you have visited the Jacksonville REI lately, you may have admired the North Florida park posters displayed near the check-out counter that are modeled after 1930s-era national park posters of old. These are the brainchild of Kathy Stark, a local artist who was recently recognized with the 2025 Ann McDonald Baker Art Ventures Award by The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. ...
Enhancing Education With The Arts
The arts play a pivotal role in education. Involvement in the arts supports a student’s social and emotional learning and empowers them to succeed inside school and out. Not only do arts programs motivate children to come to school, but they also help reduce stress, sharpen communication, and fuel social and emotional development. Jacksonville is fortunate to have a wealth of arts education programs across all art forms that allow our...
Success in Love & Art How Creative Couples in Jacksonville Achieve Both
Compiled by Cinda Sherman Love and marriage are two of the most perplexing subjects ever debated in human history. For instance, the Greek philosopher Plato declared, “At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” Yet the curmudgeonly English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “The most happy marriage I can picture would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.” So, what makes a relationship work? The answer, to most, is...
2025 Shop Local Gift Guide
Here are ways to make shopping for gifts this holiday season feel super festive. Our beloved independent local businesses need our support. In thinking of things to make your dearest people smile, let’s try to shop our values and make our community smile as well. Each year, Arbus Magazine presents our Shop Local Gift Guide so that you can see what locally owned businesses are offering and be inspired to enjoy shopping for gifts. Enjoy...
Storytelling in Words & Paint
By Jim Draper My earliest childhood memories find me sitting in a stuffy, smoke-filled, mid-Mississippi living room. Lining the walls sitting on a hodgepodge collection of brought-in chairs was a collection of ancient relatives. Over the pings of silver forks on china plates and the clanks of ill-fitting teeth on caramel cake, I listen to their stories. The tales were mythic, colorful, dramatic, and sensual. Good bulls and big trees,...


