From Garage to Three Restaurants, Asado Life Grills Its Way Into Nocatee

Asado Life has signed a lease for its third Northeast Florida restaurant, taking over a 3,415-square-foot space at 100 Marketside Avenue, No. 301, in Nocatee Town Center. The Argentinian-inspired grill concept, known for communal fire cooking and scratch-made ingredients, is moving into the former Dick's Wings space near the intersection of Nocatee Parkway and Crosstown Parkway.

The Nocatee lease marks a fast-moving third act for a brand that started as a backyard grill-fabrication business, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. Nick and Christie Carrera launched Urban Asado out of their garage in 2014 as a live-fire grill company before eventually opening their first brick-and-mortar Asado Life restaurant in St. Augustine in 2022. Eric Apple, senior leasing agent at Regency Centers, said Asado Life has become a true Northeast Florida favorite and that Regency Centers is thrilled to welcome it to Nocatee Town Center.

Asado Life's rise from a garage operation to a three-location group didn't happen overnight. The Carreras built their custom grill-fabrication business, Urban Asado, using stainless steel and North American materials, according to The Local Palate, hosting pop-up demonstrations in fields and parking lots before eventually landing a permanent restaurant home. That grassroots start eventually grew into the Chef's Collaborative, a 2018 series of weekend live-fire pop-up dinners in St. Augustine that Nick Carrera ran with local chefs including Michael Lugo and Matthew Brown, building a loyal following that carried through to 2022, per Loving Our Town St. Augustine.

A Grill Design Rooted in Argentine Tradition

The technique behind Asado Life traces back further still, to Carrera's childhood watching his father build asados in Entre Ríos, Argentina, a tradition that shaped the brand's approach to wood-fire cooking, according to a 2025 Food & Wine feature that spotlighted Nick Carrera and Asado Life as leaders of an emerging Florida Asado movement. The custom-fabricated parrilla grills at the center of that concept use V-shaped grates that channel grease away from the fire into a collection drip pan, preventing flare-ups while letting cooks baste meats over clean-burning embers, per CanvasRebel Magazine. Brasero fire baskets separate raw logs from the cooking embers, a design detail also noted by Food & Wine.

That live-fire approach has earned the original St. Augustine flagship national recognition. In May, Asado Life's location at 173 Asado Way was named a Recommended Restaurant in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide Florida, according to the St. Augustine & Ponte Vedra Visitor and Convention Center, marking the first time Michelin inspectors expanded recommendations into Northeast Florida. The Carreras and partner Paul Thompson also purchased the 1.2-acre waterfront St. Augustine property outright for $6.8 million in May 2025, transitioning from lease tenants to permanent landowners, per the St. Johns Citizen.

Downtown Jacksonville Location Just Opened for Lunch

Weeks before the Nocatee lease became public, Asado Life opened its first Downtown Jacksonville location for lunch service, with dinner service training set to begin in the coming weeks. That location sits inside the Jacksonville Shipyards marina support building at 5 Tower Court, overlooking the St. Johns River, and seats about 140 guests across indoor and patio seating, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record's reporting on the buildout. The building sits near the future Four Seasons Hotel & Residences and EverBank Stadium, and the site was announced by Iguana Investments — Shad Khan's development company, which owns the Shipyards development — per Daily Record reporting from September 2025.

The Downtown location was built with sports and entertainment crowds in mind. It features a dual-sided central bar, luxury booths, liquor lockers, and a riverfront patio designed for game-day tailgating tied to EverBank Stadium and Daily's Place events. The Jacksonville Jaguars and the City of Jacksonville held a ribbon-cutting for the adjacent $2 million, 78-slip Met Park Marina on August 12, tying the restaurant's arrival directly to the city's broader riverfront revitalization push, as reported by the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Filling a Long-Vacant Nocatee Storefront

The Nocatee space Asado Life is taking over has its own local history. Dick's Wings & Grill occupied the 3,415-square-foot unit for 13 years as one of Nocatee Town Center's original 2013 tenants before closing this past February amid a wave of restaurant turnover in the development, according to Action News Jax's reporting, which also noted that long-standing eatery Catullo's Italian departed the Regency Centers-owned shopping center around the same time. Nocatee Town Center spans 21 acres with more than 106,000 square feet of commercial space, and the area's draw for expanding restaurant groups is easy to understand: Nocatee ranks among the top ten best-selling master-planned communities in the country, with a three-mile radius around the town center posting an average household income above $126,000, per The Jaxson.

Asado Life's arrival adds to a string of new dining and retail signings in the fast-growing area, following Chick-fil-A's recent Nocatee filing and a wine bar's big Nocatee bet earlier this year. Menu specifics for the Nocatee location haven't been detailed publicly, though a sample menu for Asado Life was included in Downtown Investment Authority documents tied to the Jacksonville location, featuring chef's cuts, sausages, fresh catches and grilled vegetables cooked using the brand's traditional Argentinian-inspired methods. Nick Carrera owns Asado Life, with Christie Carrera as co-owner.