Satchel's Pizza

04/20/2026

Here's one most of you haven't seen.... Anyone know where this sign comes from? People give us the coolest stuff. We can't always find a place for everything but this big sign found a new home in our breezeway between buildings. Who will be the first to guess this? I'll give you a free T-shirt. To the Dusty that brought it -- you get a free shirt anyway so don't answer.
Looking for old timers here. 😜

04/18/2026

Hey folks. We just awarded $3000 in grants to local charities. You can read about who got the money on our blog.

Also we will continue to sell the delicious Original Sunshine gluten free bagels frozen in a 6 pack. We have plain, everything, and I even saw a 6 pack of sesame.

Thanks for your business. We are able to give back to the community because you keep coming in. We appreciate it.

SATCH CARES 2026 Q1 Grant Recipients The Giving Committe selected Four Local Nonprofits as reci...

04/04/2026

We still have Original Sunshine Gluten Free plain bagels for sale frozen by 6 pack. Everything bagels coming next week. Great gf bagels your gluten living partner won't even know.

03/05/2026

March 7th will be our 23rd Anniversary of Satchels Pizza. It's been eventful to say the least. What I thought would be a small pizza joint on the edge of the Eastside industrial park has turned into an art project and a family the size of the county and beyond. The staff and so many customers have become personal friends and my heart overflows with joy that I'm helping to create something that people respond to so positively.

We've endured 2 fires, a pandemic, and lawsuits. There were a couple lawsuits where someone got hurt and needed to cash in. Our insurance handled those cases and it doesn't feel good when someone gets hurt.

Early on there was a little girl who fell and broke her arm on our playground. It was the family's first visit to us. That family took her to get her arm mended and they never sued us over it. I even signed her cast later. She just fell wrong and it was a different time. I was always so in awe that the family didn't sue us. We were such a new business I'm not sure we would've survived it.

The latest case was quite a surprise. A federal lawsuit that our insurance doesn't cover, over ADA website compliance. Before the papers were even served we were figuring out how to make a website more accessible to the disabled. You see there's an industry of lawyers seeking to defend us which tipped us off early that something strange was afoot.

My intention from the start was to make the site compliant. I figured that would make it available to people who were visually impaired and it would help us win the lawsuit. I learned that sometimes businesses are sued twice over ADA website compliance so I knew that fixing the website would be goal #1.

We quickly learned there's no clear guidelines. It can also be subjective. If a blind person gets confused that can be part of the lawsuit but maybe sighted people get confused also. For example this last lawsuit claimed that the LSE link on our site was confusing. What does that mean?

I told myself I would keep it brief and here I go getting myself into the weeds...

I called an attorney friend who recommended I contact a local first amendment lawyer Gary Edinger. He answered my call and he was so pleasant to chat with right away. I decided then and there I would rather fight the lawsuit and give this nice man my money. Soon I found out if I lost the case (which supposedly I would) I would have to pay the opposing counsels fees as well, likely more than doubling my costs.

Brief Satchel, brief. I could write so much but I want to cut to the chase.

The case was dismissed. I can't say why. I don't really know why. They say it's because we killed the link to our third party delivery website that wasn't working for the blind tester. Maybe that was enough to drop it? Maybe there's more we don't know. My wife thinks maybe they were afraid a judge would rule in our favor and create a precedent the other side wouldn't want. It's good to fight over principle and win.

But winning costs more than settling and it's not the fault of my attorney. My attorney was so kind and gentle with the bills. He really believed in this case and you could tell when he billed me. It was an expensive and extensive case to litigate but he was really really cool about it.

And winning still cost me months of struggle, many hundreds of emails, and frustration over the process. It's funny to call it winning but it still feels good.

Thanks for this community that cares, thanks for the many of you who reached out to help. Some of you really made an impact and some I never got around to connecting with but your offering to help was noticed and appreciated. I want to say so much more but I always ramble on so long.

Eshanda in Jax you were an inspiration. Brandi from Camp Run a Mutt --- just Wow. Janice Gerry well I don't even have words for your deep involvement and help. I mean, I have words but I'm really trying to keep the word count below 5000.

Gary, Nazar, Wade, Ellen, Scott B, Lillian, Seth --- there's just too many people who helped in this small but mighty victory to name. (Mostly because my memory is bad 😜)

23 years come Saturday y'all. Let's keep it going. I'm having fun still and enjoy seeing y'all having fun. My lawyer called me the "toughest kid on the block" in an email where he told me we won. I'm not that tough. I'm a softy. But I do intend to speak up when I see something wrong. I hope you do too. We're all the better for it.

Love y'all ♥️
Satch

Other owners settled with three local cases ongoing.

03/02/2026

I don't know what the effectiveness is on signing petitions, but when this one came to me I had to sign it. A small florist shop in Orlando was sued over their website and they are trying to effect change. I get it. I figure we might as well attack it from all sides so I'll share this to help them with their goal of 1000 signatures.

I've got 2 local podcasts interested to chat about it. Thanks for those of you who have helped me in my struggle through this. I'm all for the blind enjoying our website which is why we've worked so much making sure it's ADA compliant. But these lawsuits don't go away when the website is compliant, they only go away when we pay up... Whether the website is compliant or not --- doesn't matter.

Maybe the Florida Bar should look into the ethics here 🤔

Protect FL Small Businesses from Predatory ADA Lawsuits — Demand Grace Period Compliance

02/24/2026

I'm still fighting my lawsuit. It's already costing more than the settlement fee and the lawsuit might go on all year. Imagine what it will cost for my lawyer alone? Now imagine if I lose and have to pay the other lawyer. But why not just do what everyone else does and pay the settlement? Because for me it feels wrong to pay the extortion. My website is compliant and making it compliant is my goal here. I want a judge to see this case, to read my responses to the complaints, and if I pay the settlement fee I just ensure this sort of thing will continue.
Write to Kat Cammack and tell her to act. We need reform in Washington for this. We need a cure period that warns a business before they can sue. We need language in the bill that only allows litigation for substantial defects in a website, not any little thing they want to point to.
You can file a complaint with the Florida Bar. This is drive-by litigation. Can the attorney prove that all of the lawsuits are resulting in compliant websites? Or once she gets the fee the lawsuit goes away and the website isn't significantly better? Is suing small businesses around the state the way to increase website accessibility? Or just a way for an attorney to make millions of dollars?
Anyone know of any podcasts that are popular and may want to take up this story? Bigger news outlets? The more we can spread the word about this the more chance we have to fight it successfully.
As a small business owner I know firsthand how these lawsuits affect a business. It's easy to pay and move on and put it in the rearview mirror. I get it. I may wish that's what I did by the end of all this. But I can't stop thinking about all the businesses that will be hit if we do nothing. This will keep going and going until action is taken and enough people complain.
If the government wants my website to have a certain level of compliance they should send me info on how to make it so and what the standard is. Most businesses have no idea this is even a thing they need to do. There is no standard for compliance. There is no test you can run to ensure your website is up to s***f. A lawyer can always point to one little thing even if it's subjective. "My client was confused and felt frustrated by such and such."
I know there's a lot of problems in the world today and this one can seem trivial. But when I see something that's wrong and affects small businesses around me I can't just say "Oh well." I still want to get the word out there and keep after Kat Cammack in Gainesville and John Rutherford in Jacksonville.
The plaintiff supposedly lives in Gainesville. I wish I could sit with her and go through the website together to see what barriers she finds. The ones listed on my lawsuit have all been addressed. But the lawsuit continues. That's how these things go and why people are forced to settle. My attorney says he's hard pressed to find a case where the business wins. The judges look at the law strictly and so any small defect means I can lose, even if I've tried exhaustively to fix any little problem.
We can no longer link to 352 Delivery for pizza delivery. The plaintiff supposedly found problems with their website in trying to order. My attorney says we should not be liable for another website. The opposing attorney says any link we have must link to compliant websites. That's not a battle I'm willing to fight. So we don't link to delivery now. I'm sure that makes it much easier for blind people. I know it makes it more of a pain for the 100% of our customers that actually want to get delivery and visit our website for that service.
We may end up with no website at the end of this. If I lose I will not be forced to pay the tens of thousands of dollars only to keep my website up and be a target for this again. Yes, sometimes businesses are sued multiple times by the same attorney, or different attorneys.
Imagine that nobody gets to see information on a website because one person who isn't really a customer says there's something inaccessible? Are we living in a crazy world?
I wish I could go visit this blind person and sit with her at her computer and go over everything. I wish I could pick her up and bring her to my restaurant and walk her around and sit with her over a meal to discuss all this. I'm not mad at her but I'm mad at a system which allows this.
Ok. There's my rant.. Sorry to bring all this back up but to be honest I've been dealing with this every day in some form for 3 months. It's not fun but I can't let it go. Once I sink my teeth into a project I just take on the problems as they come. Projects like Satchels Pizza bring a lot of problems but also a lot of joys. The staff and and the customers make all the difficulties disappear in a way. This lawsuit hasn't brought me any joy yet but I still believe we might see change one day.
😎

For nearly a decade, Jacques Klempf has owned Cowford Chophouse in downtown Jacksonville, but nothing prepared him for a federal lawsuit over his website.

02/05/2026

♥️Gluten Free people this is for you!
I've discovered the most wonderful gluten free bagels you've ever tasted. This California company figured out how to remove the gluten from wheat and you'll never know that these are gluten free. For a limited time we will offer these for you to try, in frozen 6 packs, for $15. We have plain and everything. No mixed half dozen though. Drop what you are doing and come buy the best gluten free bagels in town. If the gluten free folks buy these I might be able to make it a stocked item.

02/01/2026

This was such a great show last night. You can watch our shows on our YouTube page. Falllift for the win! ⚡

Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/satchelslive

01/03/2026

In 2003 I opened on a shoestring budget and just went with cash only to keep it simple. People often had to go to a nearby convenience store to get cash.

Then a guy named Chris came in and offered to place an ATM in the store. He said we could charge whatever we wanted over the $1.50 he would collect to manage the machine. Well I didn't want to charge any extra but I asked him to please keep the fee at $1.50 so that it was a more affordable way to get cash.

He got more and more into the ATM business and eventually decided to gift us our ATM, the first one he had placed. He taught us how to fill and troubleshoot and we donated the $1.50 per transaction to a different charity each month.

Years stacked on years and the fee kept funding local charity projects. To think about it one way: instead of us giving Visa/Mastercard 3% of our business, our customers were regularly giving out over $20k a year to charities, $1.50 at a time.

I was hesitant to accept credit cards because I didn't want to stop having that way to fund local charities, but I also understand that people want the convenience of credit cards. So during the pandemic we changed over to accepting credit and tap to pay. We ask at the register if you will round up your change for charity.

Satchel's Pizza also funds grants to give from our own profits but having access to so many transactions, rounding up is a way for us to fund even more local good works. We have to choose which charities get funded by reading grants, researching charities, and choosing what might do the most good locally. It's a blessing and a responsibility to make these choices. I wish we could fund all the projects.

When you round up at the register I want you to know that everything we collect is given to charities and then recorded to our blog site. It's important to me that you see where the money you give is going. The money we're giving is linked there also.

I realize that many places ask you for tips and to round up for charity. I know that it's expensive to eat out and you might not always trust where the round up money goes. That's why we have a sign at every register that tells you what organization is getting the money you are rounding up for, and there might be a few sentences about the specific project they are funding. Every little bit adds up so please, if you can, chip in those extra coins for a good cause.

We are still involved in the lawsuit regarding ADA compliance of our website. Many of you have come forward with information and help in fighting vexatious litigation. Because of that story on Main Street Daily News, people have come forward to get organized and send documentation of the problems with these suits to State and Federal elected officials, and the Florida Bar Association. Thank you. Some of you got heavily involved and we believe it's meaningful work that could help other businesses in the future. These sort of shakedowns should not be legal. A few smart people with incredible research skills are making progress in figuring out the best way to stop this.

But when we talk about actually helping folks with disabilities, its local projects like Alachua Conservation Trust EcoRover that can make a real difference in the lives of people with disabilities. The EcoRover project is an all terrain vehicle that will allow people with disabilities to access trails and outdoor terrain. Follow the link on our page below to see more about this very cool project that you will help fund by rounding up when you pay at Satchels in January and February.
Thanks for reading this, for paying attention to the details, and for your continued business and support. Happy New Year!

Pizza profits at work in our community...

12/21/2025

🍕Open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday this week and the following week. Come on in! 🍕

12/15/2025

I enjoy the reporting from our local sources. They can cover issues that don't get noticed otherwise. This story gives us more information about an important local issue and what happens behind the scenes. How many of you knew that businesses in Gainesville are getting sued left and right, with federal lawsuits that cost us big bucks to engage with?
When I got sued and called Lillian at Main Street Daily News, I didn't know much about all this. This reporting shines a light on this dark practice.
I want blind people to enjoy my restaurant. We have things to smell, taste, hear and feel at my restaurant. We've had blind customers that I've interacted with.
I think the website should also be accessible and we've made it so. But this isn't about accessibility, it's about extorting small businesses.
If you are so inclined, please contact Kat Cammack's office with the headline ADA compliance scam and tell them to address this issue. I'm waiting to hear back from her scheduling team now. I've been waiting for a little while...
Whatever she can or can't do won't help my situation anyway. This is about stopping these frivolous lawsuits from harming small businesses in the future. Somebody has to say:
Stop all this? What's going on? This isn't right.
I'm probably naive to think our representatives can help. But until a big law firm says they want to step in and fight this whole thing pro bono, I'll be waiting for the email from Kat Cammack's scheduling team. One step at a time, sweet Jesus 😎

Owners forced to settle or spend after dozens of mirror suits.