Where to Eat near JAXPORT Cruise Terminal

The original 1992 Metro Diner on Hendricks Avenue, before the chain existed

Order: The meatloaf, which is what put this room on television, or the fried chicken and waffles if breakfast is the point.

Pro tip: Open 7am to 3pm every day of the week, which is exactly the shape of a boarding-morning breakfast. The queue at 9am on a Saturday is real, so come at 7.

Daytime breakfast and lunch on Riverside Avenue, open at 7am seven days

Order: Pancakes or an omelette, and juice from the press — it is a straightforward breakfast that arrives fast, which is the whole requirement on a boarding morning.

Pro tip: It closes at 2:30pm, so this is breakfast or an early lunch and nothing else. Of everywhere on this list it is the closest good breakfast to the road out to Dames Point.

A San Marco sandwich counter and beer hall that has been feeding Jacksonville for four decades

Order: A deli sandwich each and a shared plate of fries — the menu is long enough that a fussy eater finds something without a negotiation.

Pro tip: Open 10am to 9pm every day, which makes it the reliable answer when the better-known rooms are shut on a Monday or not serving until four.

Small plates from across Southeast Asia in Five Points, built for a table that cannot agree

Order: Roti canai to start and then four or five plates in the middle of the table — the format solves the problem of one child who eats noodles and one who does not.

Pro tip: Open seven days from 11am, which makes it one of the few genuinely good rooms available for a late lunch before an afternoon boarding. It runs until 11pm on Friday and Saturday.

A European café in the building Bistro AIX occupied for 25 years, doing pastries in the morning and wood-fired pizza at night

Order: Wood-fired pizza in the evening, and the pastry case in the morning if you are staying in San Marco.

Pro tip: If you are looking for Bistro AIX at this address, it is gone — Café San Marco took the room and says so on its own site. Closed Monday, and Tuesday is daytime only, closing at 2:30pm.

Downtown's steakhouse, in a restored 1902 building at Bay and Ocean with a rooftop above it

Order: A dry-aged steak, which is what the room is built around and the reason to spend the money on the night before rather than the night after.

Pro tip: It is closed Sunday and Monday and does not open until 4pm the rest of the week, so a Sunday sailing means eating here two nights out or not at all. Reserve — the rooftop fills first.

A French bistro in Avondale that has been the city's special-occasion room for years

Order: The bistro end of the menu rather than the ambitious end — this is a kitchen that does the classics properly, and the wine list is where the depth is.

Pro tip: Closed Monday, and dinner only from Tuesday to Friday — it does not open before 4pm on a weekday. Saturday and Sunday it opens at 11am, which is the only way to eat here on a boarding morning, and by then you should be driving.

Riverside dining room with a rooftop bar looking back across the St. Johns at downtown

Order: Seafood, and a seat upstairs. The rooftop is the reason to choose this over the several other good Riverside rooms.

Pro tip: Open seven days, and the only one of the upscale rooms on this list that serves lunch from 11am Tuesday through Sunday. Monday it opens at 4pm.

Riverside roastery on Stockton Street that opens at 6:30am on a weekday, earlier than anywhere else worth going

Order: Whatever single origin is on the pour-over bar, and something from the pastry case to eat in the car.

Pro tip: This is coffee and a pastry rather than breakfast, so treat it as the stop on the way rather than the meal. The San Marco branch is closed, so Riverside is the one to aim for.