Downtown Sarasota’s newest restaurant wants to feed you at lunch, impress you at dinner and rescue you from regrettable late-night food decisions.

SaraSocial opens today, Sept. 15, at 1990 Main St., Suite 112, replacing Fork & Hen on Main with new ownership, a new chef and a broader vision that combines Southern coastal cooking with cocktails, music, outdoor hookah and food served into the early morning on weekends.

The restaurant is owned by Bobby Khush and led by 40-year-old executive chef Yamzey Gonzalez, a Le Cordon Bleu graduate making his Sarasota debut after working at STK Steakhouse in Miami, The Cheesecake Factory and Chaz 51 Steakhouse in Venice, where he helped open its Bird Bay Plaza location.

Although SaraSocial is a rebranding of Fork & Hen, Gonzalez says it should be understood as a new restaurant. The ownership and chef have changed, along with most of the menu, though the kitchen retains its Southern comfort-food foundation and two members of the former restaurant’s staff.

SaraSocial’s website calls it the “same kitchen” with the “same heart.” Gonzalez’s version: Southern cooking dressed up with the French techniques he learned in culinary school.

“There’s form, there’s different textures, there’s different flavor profiles,” Gonzalez says. “The more you bite and the more you chew, it’s just unraveling these layers of flavors.”

Those show up most clearly in his Carolina Citrus Duck ($34), a crisp-skinned duck breast served with sweet potato mousseline, rainbow carrot confit and an orange-bourbon gastrique. The dish, he says, comes closest to explaining why he became a chef.

Gonzalez was born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, and raised partly by his Puerto Rican grandmother on a farm in Arcadia, where the family kept goats, chickens, cows, pigs and roosters. She taught him Spanish, farm life and the flavors that stayed with him.

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook like her so that I could regurgitate those flavors and pass them down to my children,” he says, “and they would be able to taste the flavors that made me the happiest when I was a child.”

The current dinner menu draws a loose line from the Gulf Coast through the Carolinas. Starters include fried green tomatoes ($14) with whipped goat cheese and tomato-pepper relish, blackened Gulf crab cakes ($18) with Cajun remoulade, hot honey cornbread ($8) and Southern wings ($12 for six, $18 for 10 or $32 for 20) tossed in hot honey or poblano barbecue sauce.

Gonzalez recommends three dishes as an introduction to SaraSocial. The Southern roasted peach salad ($16) combines mixed greens, roasted peaches, charred sweet corn, whipped goat cheese, candied pecans, pickled red onion and cane-syrup vinaigrette. The hot honey cornbread ($8) arrives warm from a skillet with whipped honey butter. The Sarasota shrimp and grit cake ($28) places blackened Gulf shrimp over a smoked Gouda grit cake with wilted spinach, tomato-pepper relish and tomato-butter pan sauce.

Vegetarian dishes include truffle mushroom gnocchi ($22), a mushroom-and-grit cake ($21) and a vegetable pot pie ($20) tucked beneath a golden crust.

Lunch pares down the idea without abandoning it. The menu includes a signature burger ($18) with poblano barbecue sauce and Parmesan-truffle potato wedges, crispy hot honey chicken ($17), a steak-and-greens bowl ($22), blackened mahi ($23) and truffle mushroom gnocchi ($18).

Weekend brunch brings hot honey chicken and waffles ($19), shrimp-and-grit-cake Benedict ($21), filet mignon and eggs ($29), citrus duck hash ($23), a truffle mushroom omelet ($17) and banana-raspberry French toast ($16).

But the most unusual part of SaraSocial may begin after many downtown kitchens have closed.

The restaurant plans to transition into a lounge at night, with music, cocktails, colored lighting and hookah service on its front and rear patios.

SaraSocial’s compact after-hours menu includes waffle bites ($9), hot honey chicken-and-waffle sliders ($15), burger sliders ($8), poblano barbecue pulled-pork sliders ($8) and Parmesan-truffle potato wedges ($9). On Friday and Saturday nights, when the restaurant plans to remain open until 2 a.m., Gonzalez says the kitchen will serve food until 1:30 a.m.

That’s partly for guests drinking at the bar, but also for downtown employees, including police officers and hospitality workers, who finish shifts after most restaurants stop serving.

“They can come in and grab something that’s fresh,” Gonzalez says, “and they don’t have to rely on getting a sandwich from a gas station or something.”

During the day, the dining room has dark walls, warm wood, banquettes and a long bar illuminated in blue. Gonzalez says nighttime will bring disco lights and a livelier, day-club-style energy. The restaurant also plans to display work by local artists.

He hopes to make rounds through the dining room once opening-week pressures subside, asking diners what they tasted first and what they think should come next.

"I’m excited to get that feedback from the community,” he says.

SaraSocial is located at 1990 Main St., Suite 112, Sarasota. It’s closed Mondays and serves lunch, dinner and an after-hours menu Tuesday through Sunday, with brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Friday and Saturday it's open until 2 a.m., with the kitchen open until 1:30 a.m. Call (941) 955-9555 or visit sarasocialfl.com for more.