When Chef Jonathan Cox talks about Seaboy in Cornelius NC, it’s not just a restaurant he’s describing — it’s a place built from personal history, friendships, and a lifetime spent imagining the perfect dining room.
Now, that dining room lives in a little white cottage on North Main Street in Cornelius, where ferns sway on the patio and the inside holds just 10 tables, a chef’s counter, and a bar.
Cox didn’t plan to land here. “I was actually trying to open a restaurant in Charlotte for quite some time,” he said. Landlords weren’t taking chances on a first-time owner. Then, a friend from culinary school called — that friend’s mother had just bought a building in Cornelius. Cox drove out three times in a single day. “It just felt right,” he says. Seaboy opened in March.
Inside, Seaboy feels personal because it is. Friends chose the small table accents. A good friend makes the hand soap. The daisy-printed bathroom wallpaper nods to Cox’s beloved dog, Daisy. His mother helped hang the artwork.
While any seat is a great one, those who snag the chef’s counter are treated to more than dinner — it’s theater. On a Tuesday night, the room was at capacity, with Cox and two other chefs moving with the quiet choreography of professionals who know exactly where the other will be before they arrive. Plates are polished, garnishes placed with precision, and the service is in harmony with the kitchen’s rhythm.
The modest scale is deliberate. “I always longed for a little smaller space where I could ‘have people over’ and take care of them,” Cox says. “I can’t see myself expanding to much bigger restaurants after doing this.”
A Chef’s Vision Finds Its Harbor
The menu changes often — daily, even. Expect North Carolina produce from Harmony Ridge Farms and Boy & Girl Farms with the most seasonal seafood Cox can source. Some menu items are staples, like oysters and cocktail shrimp or crab and shrimp croquettes. Others, like an ahi tuna over warm potato salad with pickled celery or a Southeast Asian-inspired scallop toast are more unexpected. The bar follows suit, with playful drinks like a pineapple chamoy margarita and plenty of classic cocktails as well.
What doesn’t change is Cox’s approach: “I didn’t want to cook food that was hard to understand,” he explains. That doesn’t mean it’s simple — only that every dish is rooted in freshness, clarity, and purpose.
In a region with an appetite for new construction and sprawling dining rooms, Seaboy offers something rare — a tightly focused space where every plate, every table, and every guest matters. As Cox puts it, “Everyone here loves hospitality… when you go really ‘big,’ it’s easy to lose this vision and forget some details.”
That vision is alive here, in a small-town setting where even a Monday night feels like an occasion.
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