The storefront at 1025 Park Boulevard has been quiet since Jam packed up its griddles and moved one block north. Its next act is now in motion, and it comes from a name Massapequa Park already trusts with its Saturday nights: the Bivona family, the owners of Mercato Kitchen & Cocktails, are bringing their third restaurant to the space, and state records show the project moved a step closer this week.

Ten years on Merrick Road, and a next chapter

Mercato sits in the Southgate Shopping Center at 4958 Merrick Road, and for a neighborhood Italian restaurant it has an origin story worth retelling. Brian Bivona was managing the restaurant and working its bar when he met Keleigh, then a server there. The two married, took ownership of the place in 2015, and brought in Brian's brother Matt to run the kitchen. The menu they built together leans Italian and American at once: handmade pastas, wood-fired flatbreads, seasonal entrees, and a bar program that earned the second half of the restaurant's name.

A decade in, the family has been on a roll. The Chamber of Commerce of the Massapequas cut a ribbon at Mercato last fall to mark ten years of the Bivonas at the helm. In March, the restaurant unveiled a top-to-bottom renovation: a redesigned 20-seat bar, new booths and wood-paneled walls in the 90-seat dining room, layered lighting, the works. The redesign came from Beth Donner Design, the firm behind rooms at The James in Babylon, Arlo in Northport and One10 in Melville.

The family described the renovation at the time as the start of a next chapter, and said the same thing out loud that the village had been wondering: a third restaurant was coming, at 1025 Park Blvd., in the space Jam left behind. Mercato was their first. Beginnings, their waterfront spot in Atlantic Beach, was the second. Park Boulevard makes three.

What happened to Jam

If you grew up on Jam's pancakes, nothing bad happened to them. Jam, the no-reservations breakfast and brunch spot, announced in spring 2025 that it was relocating one block north to merge with The Good Life, the English pub at 1039 Park Blvd. The two now share a roof: Jam's full breakfast and brunch menu is served there daily from 8:30 in the morning until 2:45 in the afternoon, and the pub's menu takes over from midday, so the village kept its pancakes and gained a place to linger past noon.

What it also did was leave 1025 Park Blvd., one of the best-trafficked storefronts in downtown Massapequa Park, sitting empty for more than a year. The address is a short walk from the Massapequa Park train station, in the middle of the village's walkable stretch of Park Boulevard, which is exactly the kind of spot that does not stay dark for long.

A block that keeps changing

Park Boulevard has quietly become one of Nassau County's more interesting restaurant rows, and the last year has only accelerated it. Foleys, the Smithtown late-night bar, took over the old Woody's corner in September and packed it on opening night. Wonder, the delivery-first food hall company, put a Park Boulevard address on its map. Add the Jam and Good Life merger, and nearly every notable storefront on the street has changed hands, changed shape or changed names since last summer.

The Bivonas' arrival raises the stakes. Mercato carries a 4.7 rating across roughly a thousand OpenTable reviews, and the family has shown it can run two very different rooms at once, a polished Italian dining room on Merrick Road and a beach-town restaurant in Atlantic Beach. A third room, steps from the train station, puts them at the center of the village's dining life.

What we know, and what we are waiting on

The family has not yet announced a name, a concept or an opening date for the Park Boulevard restaurant, and the March announcement said only that it was planned for this year. The records that surfaced this week point to a full-service restaurant rather than a quick-serve spot, which fits both the space and the family's track record.

For now, the takeaway for anyone who drives Park Boulevard is simple: the corner that fed Massapequa Park breakfast for a decade has its next tenant, and it is the family that spent ten years turning a Merrick Road storefront into a neighborhood staple. When a name and a date land, expect to hear them from the Bivonas themselves, likely with a line out the door to follow.