Food
Downtown Finally Feeds You After Midnight
SaraSocial just opened on Main with Southern coastal comfort food and a kitchen that keeps cooking when the rest of downtown goes dark. Waffle bites at 1 a.m.? I checked my calendar twice.
Okay, raise your hand if your ideal downtown night has ever ended with a gas-station sandwich and a tiny wave of regret. Mine. More than once. Which is why I'm mildly obsessed with the newest kitchen on Main.
SaraSocial opened Sept. 15 at 1990 Main St., Suite 112, in the old Fork & Hen space. Owner Bobby Khush and executive chef Yamzey Gonzalez (Le Cordon Bleu, plus stops at STK Miami, The Cheesecake Factory and Chaz 51 in Venice) are serving Southern coastal cooking with cocktails, music and outdoor hookah — and, crucially, food that sticks around past bedtime on the weekends.
The "please feed me at 1 a.m." menu
Here's the plot twist downtown has been waiting for: on Friday and Saturday, SaraSocial plans to stay open until 2 a.m., with the kitchen cooking until 1:30 a.m.. The after-hours board includes waffle bites ($9), hot honey chicken-and-waffle sliders ($15), burger or poblano barbecue pulled-pork sliders ($8) and Parmesan-truffle potato wedges ($9).
I am calling this the Gas-Station Sandwich Escape Hatch. When your night out (or your night shift) peaks and every other kitchen has already gone home, you get actual hot food instead of a sad triangle of mystery mayo. Gonzalez even told Sarasota Magazine the late kitchen is partly for downtown workers who finish after everyone else stops serving. Respect.
Daytime is no slouch either
Before the disco lights kick in, the dinner menu runs Gulf-to-Carolinas comfort: fried green tomatoes ($14), blackened Gulf crab cakes ($18), hot honey cornbread ($8), Southern wings ($12 / $18 / $32), a Southern roasted peach salad ($16), Sarasota shrimp and grit cake ($28) and Carolina Citrus Duck ($34). Weekend brunch brings hot honey chicken and waffles for $19. Prices and dishes are from that same Sarasota Magazine write-up — I'm not inventing a single honey drizzle.
Hours, so you don't get stood up
Closed Mondays. Lunch, dinner and after-hours Tuesday through Sunday, with brunch Saturday and Sunday. Call (941) 955-9555 or check sarasocialfl.com before you Uber over, because opening weeks love a plot twist.
I'm already building a personal itinerary that ends in waffle bites and zero fluorescent lighting. Gas-station sandwich, you've been replaced. Nicely. Warmly. With hot honey.
— Marina