Selim Algar
Selim Algar brings a hard-news reporter’s discipline to the local food and dining beat at St. Johns Citizen, treating restaurants, grocery chains and markets as business, development and civic stories rather than lifestyle features. His food coverage focuses on how openings, closures and relocations reshape the county’s commercial landscape, often grounded in permitting details, square footage, investment plans and ownership structures. He draws on more than two decades in general assignment and investigative reporting to frame the St. Johns County food scene within larger legal, economic and corporate narratives.
Restaurant openings, closures and relocations
Algar’s core food work tracks the lifecycle of local restaurants, with a steady stream of stories on new concepts, closures and moves across St. Johns County. He reports closely on openings by chains and independents, including the arrival of a sandwich chain with local roots in Nocatee and a European fusion restaurant announcing a grand opening, highlighting not just menu style but location and timing. His coverage of “Dak, Dabo and Drew: Here’s when star-powered Walk-On’s restaurant will open in St. Johns County” links the debut of a sports-themed restaurant to its investor roster and regional footprint, situating a single opening within a broader chain expansion story.
Closures and relocations receive the same granular treatment.
In a piece on Dick’s Wings closing a State Road 16 restaurant after nearly a decade in business, he notes the length of operation and places the shutdown in the context of the corridor’s changing commercial mix. His report on a popular St. Augustine Mellow Mushroom location moving after a decade and its property going up for sale details building size, acreage and listing price, tying a restaurant move to real estate dynamics and brand continuity plans.
The anchor article on Catullo’s successor in Nocatee fits this pattern, revealing replacement concepts when a known restaurant exits and explaining how the swap will reshape that specific dining corner.
National brands, grocery chains and food retail
Algar devotes significant attention to national food brands and grocery players entering or reshaping the local market. His story “Trader Joe’s planned for first St. Johns County location” focuses on site selection and the significance of a first store for area shoppers, emphasizing timing and local impact rather than product hype. In “Sprouts Farmers Market coming to St. Johns County,” he traces the company’s origins from a California fruit stand through its evolution into a multi-state grocer, then anchors that corporate history to the specifics of the planned county location.
Chain restaurants receive similar treatment. He covers Ford’s Garage considering a Beachwalk location, noting the contemplated site and the chain’s expansion calculus. A piece on the nation’s top chicken chain eyeing a site on the St. Johns/Duval border runs through proposed square footage, road intersections and municipal review, showing how a single drive-through affects traffic and land use at a county line.
His report on nationwide Starbucks closures hitting St. Johns County illustrates how national corporate decisions play out in local storefront losses, reinforcing his focus on the intersection of global brands and neighborhood retail.
Destination projects, zoning and market infrastructure
Beyond individual restaurants, Algar treats food as part of a wider development and zoning beat, frequently covering complex projects that combine dining, entertainment and retail. In “Owners of Prohibition Kitchen propose 6-acre craft rum distillery and restaurant for St. Johns County,” he details acreage, square footage, planned uses and Planning and Zoning Agency decisions, capturing how a destination-style distillery complex moves through the county approval pipeline. His story on the proposed St. Johns Fish Camp restaurant with live music and docks outlines parcel splits, building size and performance space, stressing the early-stage nature of the project and the approvals still required.
He also writes on market infrastructure, as in “Dazzling new waterfront location remakes popular St. Johns County farmers market,” where he documents the shift of a longstanding farmers market to a waterfront venue, including operating hours and host site specifics. These development pieces often note what a project is not - such as clarifying that a new fish camp proposal has no connection to an existing chain - underscoring his attention to ownership and branding detail. The cumulative effect is a map of how food-related venues, from farmers markets to destination complexes, plug into land use, tourism and local economic planning.
Food at the edge of crime, controversy and hard news
Algar’s broader newsroom background shows up in food stories that intersect with crime, legal disputes or public friction. He has covered the death of Grumpy’s co-owner Justin Milliken at a St. Johns restaurant, treating the incident as a hard-news event rooted in the dining world. In crime coverage, he has reported on illegal harvesting of a valuable Florida berry that drew arrests statewide, including in St. Augustine, linking natural resources and enforcement with local consumption and commerce.
His food-adjacent work extends to civil litigation and public meetings. A piece on a food pantry visitor suing a church over a sidewalk fall tracks an injury claim connected to a site that combines social services and food access. Another story describes a Baptist preacher with dozens of grandchildren nearly removed from a meeting during an anti-alcohol broadside, capturing the clash between religious activism and local beverage policy in a setting tied to hospitality and dining. These stories reflect a consistent approach: food is not only about where to eat, but also about the legal, cultural and political disputes that arise around restaurants, markets and alcohol policy.
Alongside his local work, Algar is a veteran journalist who launched St. Johns Citizen and serves as one of its publishers, after previously working as Florida bureau chief for a major tabloid and covering education and federal courts in a large metropolitan market. His reporting has appeared in national and regional outlets including major newspapers, magazines, sports platforms and city dailies, and he has co-authored a nonfiction book on a long-running justice case.
That broader background informs a food beat defined by precise documentation, attention to legal and planning detail, and a habit of connecting restaurant news to larger structures of power and commerce.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.