Beyond the pub: John Webb’s other ventures
Roxy’s isn’t Webb’s only act. Public records and news archives show a small empire of ventures around the 300 block of Clematis — and the corporate paper trail behind them is even more interesting than the bars.
The Wine Dive (319 Clematis St, 2012–2017). A wine bar two doors down from Roxy’s, identified by Broward Palm Beach New Times in 2012 as “an impressive array of vino in a casual-chic setting from nearby Roxy’s Pub owner John Webb” [37]. It opened around the end of 2011 [38] and left Clematis at the end of May 2017, with its manager citing rents jumping to about $50 a square foot [39]. It said it would reopen nearby; no source shows it ever did, and Yelp lists it permanently closed [39][18]. The entity, Wine Dive LLC, was fronted by Sandra Lawson and shared PO Box 2649 with Webb’s Wallisville Corporation; it was administratively dissolved in 2020 [18]. No scandals surfaced — just rent economics.
Top of the Rox and Vault 313. Top of the Rox (the rooftop pool venue) is Webb’s, covered above. But the Vault 313 nightclub was not a Webb venture: it occupied 313 Clematis before he bought the then-vacant building in 2022 [9]. Worth keeping straight, since the buildings are now lumped together in the foreclosure.
Austin Republic (West Palm Beach and North Palm Beach, 2023–present). Webb’s barbecue play. He partnered with chef James “Jimmy” Strine (ex-Café Boulud, Buccan, The Breakers) on a Texas-themed “authentic Austin barbecue” concept — Boca Raton Magazine reported in June 2023 that Strine “has partnered with John Webb” [47], the Palm Beach Post in January 2025 called him “Austin Republic owner John Webb, who also owns Roxy’s Pub” [48], and Stet News described him as “John Webb, owner of Roxy’s Pub in downtown West Palm Beach and a Texan” [49]. The first location opened around April 2023 at 4801 S. Dixie Hwy in WPB’s SoSo district, operating from a converted shipping-container mobile kitchen; that closed April 6, 2024 for a permanent build-out [50]. The brick-and-mortar kept slipping — a March 2025 target came and went, and as of July 2025 the site was still in permitting, serving only as the smoker/commissary; along the way it did get West Palm’s first stacked lift-style parking (30 cars in 10 spots) [48][49]. Meanwhile a second location — licensed with the state as “Austin Republic #2” — opened July 26, 2025 at 661 US Highway 1 in North Palm Beach, in a former Ruth’s Chris, with a 120-seat dining room and 60-foot oval bar [49][51]. Webb told Stet that “working with the Village of North Palm Beach proved much easier than West Palm” [49]. Scandal-wise, the record is thin: a pre-opening DBPR inspection warning in July 2025 (renovations made without an approved plan review, including a removed hand-washing sink), corrected within days [51]; and a note posted on the NPB door in May 2026 saying it was closed for renovations until August 15 [49]. A Palm Beach County court party-name search for “Austin Republic” returns zero cases [52]. Whether the WPB brick-and-mortar ever opened is unconfirmed — Yelp currently lists it as closed [50].
So who owns Austin Republic on paper? No Florida entity carries the name [53] — it runs on fictitious-name (DBA) registrations, and the state’s fictitious-name registry resolves the whole chain. “Austin Republic” and “Austin Republic Food Truck” (both registered January 10, 2023, mailing address PO Box 2390, West Palm Beach — the same PO box used by Webb’s Von Esselborn and RP Palm Beach) are owned by Plantain Partners I LP [54], a Florida limited partnership filed July 29, 2019 whose registered owner address on the DBA filing is in Austin, Texas (6836 Bee Caves Rd), whose principal address is the restaurant site itself (4801 S. Dixie Hwy), and whose registered agent is Timothy Grice of 319 Clematis St. — Webb’s other long-time registered agent [55]. The LP’s general partner is BK Development Inc., whose sole listed director is Thomas Wilkinson [56]. “Austin Republic #2” (registered August 19, 2024) is owned by Plantain Partners II LLC, principal address 661 US Highway 1, North Palm Beach — the restaurant — with the same manager (Wilkinson) and same agent (Grice) [57]. Two things stand out. First, Webb’s name appears nowhere on any of these filings, despite three news outlets identifying him as the owner — consistent with his post-2011 pattern of keeping his name off operating entities (Florida LPs don’t disclose limited partners, which is where a silent owner would sit). The hard paper link to Webb is the PO Box 2390 mailing address on the original DBA filings. Second, Thomas Wilkinson is no stranger: he was deposed in the Perez-Valdivia trial run-up and is a named defendant in the NBL SPV IV foreclosure [34][36].
Webb the landlord. Von Esselborn sued its own tenant, Young Guns LLC d/b/a Release Nightclub, twice — a landlord-tenant action in 2005 and a contract suit in 2007 — meaning Webb’s company spent the mid-2000s as landlord to a nightclub [45].
The smaller and stranger entities. Sunbiz shows a constellation of other Webb companies: 115 South Olive Enterprises LLC (2005, dissolved 2024 after multiple lapses) at 115 S. Olive Ave [41]; Coral Reefers Restaurant Inc. (2009), which never filed a single annual report before dissolution [42]; and Longhorn Valet Inc. (2014–2021), a valet operation [43]. Then there’s the structural oddity that says the most: a Florida-registered “309 Clematis LLC” was voluntarily dissolved on November 17, 2020 — and an Alaska LLC of the identical name registered in Florida the very next day, November 18, 2020, with the same address, PO box, and registered agent [44]. Combined with the Nevada Roxys Pub LLC (2011) and Alaska RP Palm Beach LLC (2016), the pattern since 2011 is consistent: operating entities organized out of state, with Webb’s name replaced by Small Time Restaurant Group LLC — a holding company that has no Florida registration of its own and surfaces in the foreclosure as a Delaware LLC [40][14][36]. Court records also reveal a family thread: the “Sandra Lawson” who fronted Wine Dive LLC and the Nevada Roxys Pub LLC appears in the 2019 lawsuit’s party list under her full name — Sandra Webb Lawson [46]. And one more relationship-mapping nugget: UTEX94 LLC, an otherwise obscure entity, was sued alongside the whole Webb stack in 2019 and defended by the same attorney, marking it as part of the network [46].
A corporate vehicle older than Webb’s ownership. Von Esselborn Inc. was filed in 1989 — the very year Roxy’s moved into the Comeau Building — and old cases show it doing business as “Comeau Bar and Grill” (1991, 1998) and “Roxy’s Bar & Package Store” (2007) [45]. That means the corporation predates Webb’s 2005 purchase of the bar and was apparently the Wagner-era vehicle that came with it; today Webb is its sole listed officer [13].
The full court file: 32 cases and counting
A party-name sweep of the Palm Beach County docket (“Von Esselborn” and its co-parties) returns 32 cases from 1991 to 2026 [45]. The shape of it:
The Perez-Valdivia case wasn’t a one-off. It was the third negligent-security suit against the bar: Deedra Hunter sued Von Esselborn in 2016, Brad Eichbauer sued Roxys Pub LLC in 2020, and the Perez-Valdivias filed in 2021 [45]. Add Angela Chancey’s 2002 negligence suit against “Von Esselborn Inc d/b/a Roxy’s Restaurant” and Hardy Prado Briones’s 2022 negligence case against RP Palm Beach, and patron-injury litigation spans a quarter century [45].
The 2017 underage-drinking video scandal did become a lawsuit: Vaughn v. Webb, Case No. 50-2019-CA-006646 (filed May 20, 2019), brought by Bailey Vaughn and Audra O’Neill against Webb personally, five of his companies (Von Esselborn, Roxys Pub LLC, RP Palm Beach, Small Time Restaurant Group, UTEX94), Sandra Webb Lawson, five named individuals, and six “unknown employees” [46]. It ground on for five years through a fourth amended complaint before the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed it with prejudice on May 10, 2024 [46]. (A with-prejudice voluntary dismissal often follows a settlement, but the docket doesn’t say — no public record of terms.)
Money cases bookend everything. Construction and vendor suits cluster around Webb’s two big build-outs: Intrepid Electric sued Webb and Xpert Elevator sued Von Esselborn in 2010 (the Sky 309 era), and the rooftop-pool era brought Coast 2 Coast Engineering (2021, twice), Skyworks LLC (2025), AVT Lifts (2026, open), and IAT Insurance Group (2025, open) [45]. Webb punches back, too: small-claims suits against ADT, FPL, and A1A Architects in 2007–08, a business tort against Robert Cutcher in 2011 — and most tellingly, Webb v. Newtek Small Business Finance LLC (Case No. 50-2025-CA-012858, filed December 11, 2025, open), in which Webb sued the small-business lender connected to his construction loan a month after the alleged default and five months before NBL SPV IV filed to foreclose [45]. Even the bar’s 1990s era is in the file: a 1997 eviction and contract suit by 319 Clematis Associates against Von Esselborn — the same year Roxy’s decamped to 309 Clematis [45].
Where things stand (June 2026)
Roxy’s is open. The judgment that nearly cost Webb the building is settled. But the $5.1 million foreclosure is live, the merchant-cash-advance arbitration is proceeding, two vendor suits (AVT Lifts and IAT Insurance Group) remain open, Webb’s own countersuit against lender Newtek is pending, and the Austin Republic expansion sits half-built in West Palm and “closed for renovations” in North Palm. The entities behind it all — an Alaska LLC managed by a Delaware LLC, a Nevada LLC dissolved by revocation, a 1989 holding corporation, and a Texas-flavored limited partnership fronted by an associate who’s also a foreclosure defendant — are all now matters of public court record. For a bar literally born from a federal bust in 1933, it’s an oddly fitting second act.