Kouign-amann, buttery ham and cornichon baguettes and croque monsieur are coming to North Tamiami Trail, where French-born chef Gregory Desvenain and co-owner Cemantha Crain are preparing to open Comptoir: The Counter Café.
The café is taking over the former Shelf Indulgence Used Book Café space at 2805 N. Tamiami Trail, across from Ringling College of Art and Design. Desvenain and Crain hope to open by Oct. 5, with daily hours from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The name Comptoir means “café” or “shop counter” in French. It’s where customers order, eat, drink and trade neighborhood gossip or news. At Sarasota’s Comptoir, a large front counter will display pastries and desserts while serving as the café’s espresso station.
The menu will follow the model of a French “point chaud”: an approachable, all-day stop for coffee, bread, pastries and quick meals. Customers can expect crêpes, quiches, soups, salads, smoothies and baguette sandwiches, along with French baked goods and espresso drinks.
Desvenain says the location helped shape the concept, citing Ringling College and nearby Bay Haven School. The goal is food that’s casual and affordable enough for students and neighborhood regulars, with most dishes priced below $20.
Comptoir is going into the former Shelf Indulgence book store on North Tamiami Trail.
One of the menu’s signature sweets will be kouign-amann, an exceptionally buttery laminated pastry with a crisp, caramelized exterior. Comptoir plans to serve a classic version and another filled with caramelized apples.
For lunch, Desvenain is particularly excited about Le Petit Vendôme, a sandwich inspired by a Parisian restaurant near Place Vendôme. Comptoir’s version layers sliced ham, Normandy butter and cornichons on a soft baguette, served with salad or homemade soup. It’s expected to cost roughly $15.
Croque monsieur sandwiches (a hot French ham-and-cheese sandwich topped with béchamel and melted Gruyère cheese), pains au chocolat, cookies and other baked goods will fill out the daytime offerings.
But the café’s French ambitions won’t end when the espresso machine powers down. Desvenain also plans to offer take-home dinners such as duck confit, beef Burgundy and blanquette de veau—a classic French stew. A beef Burgundy dinner with fresh pasta from a local pasta maker is expected to feed two and cost about $22 to $24.
“We’re going to do our own marinara sauce, our own pesto,” Desvenain says. “Every dish will come with a special sauce.”
Wine will follow. Drawing on his background as an importer, Desvenain plans to offer a compact, rotating selection from France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Bottles will be available to drink at the café or take home, and themed wine dinners could spotlight regions such as Burgundy or the Rhône Valley.
Comptoir is primarily Desvenain’s vision, Crain says, and its roots stretch from Provence to Sarasota.
Desvenain grew up in Provence, where his father was a builder and once owned a small vineyard. He operated restaurants in St. Martin as a young adult and later opened another in Breckenridge, Colorado.
He moved to Sarasota in 2010 and founded Wines of Provence, an importing and distribution company born partly from his belief that the area needed more good rosé. When the pandemic cost the business many of its contracts, Desvenain shut it down and returned to construction and home improvement work.
That’s how he met Crain.
“We met when he was doing home improvements and I needed home improvements,” she says. “So, in a way, doing this project and getting the space prepared is kind of taking us back to how we met each other.”
Desvenain later helped build out the Lakewood Ranch location of downtown Sarasota’s popular C’est La Vie café. After leaving that project, he returned to France to visit his family and began sending Crain photos of food and café concepts he encountered in Provence and Paris.
“Greg got so excited,” Crain says. “He was seriously sending me picture after picture of all of these different food concepts. I thought he needed to develop his own menu and have an opportunity to explore some of these other types of dishes.”
Inside Comptoir, the former bookstore’s shelves and reading areas have been replaced by café tables, counter seating and an eight-seat chef’s table in the front window. Crain says the design takes cues from Art Nouveau, with a framed French flag dating to 1903 serving as a focal point. The café will seat about 24 people inside, with about 20 more seats planned for outdoors.
The couple plans to begin with a soft launch and build Comptoir’s social media presence once the café is producing its own food. Crain says she doesn’t want to promote images that don’t reflect what customers will actually find at the counter.
“Let’s have a good experience in real life first,” she says, “and then we’ll start documenting it and broadcasting it.”
For now, Sarasota’s newest French arrival is putting the food before the fanfare—which, for a café built around the counter, feels perfectly à propos.
Comptoir is located in the Indian Beach-Sapphire Shores neighborhood, in Indian Beach Plaza, at 2805 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Click here for updates or email: [email protected]
Dining and Cooking