Le Mans Kitchen sounds like a marketing gimmick until Blake Campbell breaks down the math. The restaurant sits inside Sarasota Ford, a dealership with more than 100,000 customers, and the only way in for most people is to bring a car in for service, any service, down to a flat tire, and collect a voucher that covers a full meal, not just an entry ticket. Campbell manages the restaurant and walks through how it grew from a cramped 13-seat cafe selling Reuben sandwiches into a full concept after the ownership group visited chef Jose Martinez's Michelin-starred Meson Blanc on Longboat Key and decided, half joking, to open their own Michelin-level restaurant inside a car dealership.
Martinez, who earned his star at a restaurant in Paris, now curates Le Mans Kitchen's menu as a consulting chef while executive chef Joel Casas, who came up through the Oaks Club and Heritage Oaks, runs day-to-day service. Campbell's own path to the job ran through the Ritz-Carlton, Salvago, and a stint managing operations at the supplement company Steel Supplements before Sarasota Ford's ownership recruited him to build the restaurant from the ground up. The concept extends past the dining room: guests waiting on their cars can use a massage room or an 11-seat movie theater with a 156-inch screen, and the restaurant staff, which Campbell calls buyer ambassadors, notify customers when their vehicles are ready.
Loyalty, Not Rent Campbell is direct about the business logic: Le Mans Kitchen was never meant to turn its own profit as a standalone restaurant, since it does not pay rent and exists to drive service and sales loyalty, which he says already sits above 80 percent among Sarasota Ford customers. The dealership currently ranks second among all Ford locations in a region of more than 100 dealerships, and Campbell says the goal is cracking the top 1 percent nationwide. He previews a coming seasonal menu shift that will add fettuccine and a fresh seafood dish to a lineup that already includes 16-hour braised short ribs and a hand-breaded fried chicken sandwich.
On Sarasota's roundabouts, Campbell, who lives 40 minutes outside the city, calls them a mixed bag that at least keep functioning without power during hurricanes, while the hosts swap a story about a driver stopping mid-roundabout to yield, nearly causing a rear-end collision near Clark Road. Campbell closes by pointing to Jason H at Steel Supplements and Mario Difiori, the longtime general manager at Salvago, as future guests worth having on the show.
What you'll take away
- Le Mans Kitchen sits inside Sarasota Ford and gives any service customer a voucher covering a full complimentary meal, not just admission
- Michelin-starred chef Jose Martinez, of Meson Blanc on Longboat Key, curates the menu while executive chef Joel Casas runs daily service
- The restaurant exists purely to drive service and sales loyalty rather than to turn its own profit, helped by paying no rent
- Sarasota Ford ranks second among more than 100 Ford dealerships in its region and is aiming for the top 1 percent nationally
- A seasonal menu update will add fettuccine and a fresh seafood dish to the current lineup
“It is a free meal.”
“The goal is loyalty, so we can work on any make, any model.”
Places mentioned: Sarasota Ford, Longboat Key, UTC, Clark Road