During evenings in Birmingham’s Mountain Brook Village, Ben Kirk was plating roasted quail and composed dinners in the kind of upscale kitchens where precision was paramount. These days in Flagler Beach, the work might look simpler from the outside — fresh bread, fillings, a wrap of paper — but the instinct hasn’t changed.
At Vessel Sandwich Co., there’s just enough of something extra in every bite — a sharper balance, a cleaner finish, a detail you can’t quite place — to tip you off that this is no ordinary sandwich shop.
Whether for its sweet, spiced “chicken feathers” — pulled and flash fried to perfection — or its “grown-up” grilled cheese with aged cheddar, fontina and house-made apple-apricot mostarda, the shop has built a decade’s worth of buzz among foodies who know where to look.
Now 10 years in, Vessel Sandwich Co. isn’t slowing down — it’s sharpening its edge. Through internal upgrades and streamlined operations, the eatery is proof that staying power and progress can go hand in hand.
Who is behind Vessel Sandwich Co.?
For husband-and-wife-owners Ben, a Tennessee native, and Haley Kirk, of Jacksonville, Vessel was never just a sandwich shop; it was a reset along the same stretch of coast where they had vacationed — a turning point that traded Ben’s 80-hour weeks as head chef of multiple concepts for something more sustainable, giving Haley back the birthdays, holidays and weekends she’d long spent holding things down at home.
Since he was 16, Ben had always gravitated toward restaurants — their rhythm, pressure and the quiet choreography of a busy service all coming naturally to him.
He later attended culinary school in Asheville, North Carolina, where his classical French training built a foundation on knife skills, sauces and time-honored techniques.
“(Cooking) went from just being a job to being what I wanted to do for my life — for my career,” he said, setting his sights on Nashville, where his skills quickly stood out.
He went on to open multiple concepts alongside a local restaurateur in Nashville and Birmingham — where he met his now wife, Haley, a classically trained soprano working as a hostess during her senior year of college.
They married in 2011, soon trading the late nights and crowded kitchens they once knew for the calm of coastal Florida.
“We saw a lot of potential … because it was this small, quaint little town — very residential with a lot of classic beach bar food but not a lot of different cuisine,” Haley explained, noting the unsustainable, on-call nature of Ben’s career made the move inevitable.
“We were just like, if you’re going to work that hard, it might as well be for something that we can build ourselves,” she continued. “… So, we sold our house in Birmingham, and this was the restaurant that we found online.”
10 years of Vessel in Flagler Beach
While artfully assembled sandwiches and seasonal soups anchor the menu, Vessel’s enduring 4.9-star reputation speaks to a resilience built behind the scenes.
In its early years, the shop weathered back-to-back blows from Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, before the pandemic upended operations, reducing service to takeout only.
Then came construction of the Compass Hotel by Margaritaville, indefinitely shutting down the shop’s one-way road and sending sales sliding for the better part of two years, the couple said.
“We’ve pushed ourselves through all of these hard times because the feedback is always good,” Haley said. “… So, it just kind of gives you hope to keep going, because you know you have something special and it’s only a matter of time before you reap the benefits.”
As regulars have steadily returned and new faces trickled in, the Kirks have turned their attention toward the future — defining what growth looks like in a new era of dining.
Growth is on the menu at Vessel
“What it took to run a successful restaurant pre-Covid and what it takes to have a successful restaurant now is completely different,” Ben said, noting a shift toward expanded reach and delivery, higher lunch volumes and strategic equipment upgrades — including a roughly $20,000 investment in a proper hood system.
The addition not only broadens what the kitchen can cook from scratch but elevates the overall dining experience by venting otherwise lingering smoke from the small space.
“We had always shied away from doing a lot of marketing, because I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to handle the volume and keep things at a certain level of quality,” he continued.
With new commercial equipment and a more efficient kitchen taking shape, the couple is now gaining the flexibility to push production and their chef-driven menu even further, potentially to include fresh fish and more emphasis on refined techniques like chicken sous vide — vacuum-sealed and cooked gently in a temperature-controlled water bath, yielding an even, juicy cook from edge to center.
As operations evolve, their commitment to quality remains unchanged.
That standard shows up in 5 a.m. drives to Jacksonville for bread from The French Pantry, house-made lavender sweet tea, and recipes developed over weeks. Case in point: their lemon dressing — known to convert Kale salad skeptics — made from the rind of 30-day, salt-preserved lemons.
That same attention to detail will shape the restaurant’s next phase, with several of its house-made dressings — like Alabama White BBQ and Datil Pepper Sauce — slated for retail.
“We’re very much of the mindset — and we’ve tried to stay true to this — that a lot of restaurants have a million things on their menu … but, it’s a lot of just OK things. What we have is the best that we can offer, but we also keep it unique,” Haley said.
This summer, the couple is planning an aesthetic refresh as part of a larger business goal.
“I think we can take some of the things that we do that are what Vessel really is, and I think it’ll work anywhere; I really do,” Ben said, noting plans to expand with more Vessel shops, locally.
“If they work and are successful, then we can start franchising,” he continued. “That’s the ultimate goal.”
Vessel is located at 213 S, 2nd St., Unit 4, in Flagler Beach. For information or to place an order, call 386-693-5085 or visit vesselsandwichco.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: After 10 years, this Flagler Beach restaurant is only getting better
Reporting by Helena Perray, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
