South Tampa entrepreneur turns from used cars to barbecue

At Lynn Love's new restaurant, little remains to remind customers they are eating barbecued ribs in his former used-car showroom.

After 23 years of selling Buicks, Toyotas and other late-model, low-mileage vehicles, Love now is driven by a different livelihood, and the only cars on the lot are those that diners have steered to his Artifacts Bar & Grille.

"We moved from metal to meat," he likes to say. As with so many things in recent years, his transition was necessitated by the distressed economy, exacerbated by a proliferation of used-car sales on the Internet, and Big Three automakers touting zero-percent interest.

"It did start to deteriorate," Love said of what had been a solid business, providing a good life for two-plus decades. "Bigger guys than me fell."

Pondering the inevitable while gazing at MacDill Avenue through his showroom window, Love made a decision. He would convert the building and re-invent himself as owner-operator of a restaurant and bar.

"It was cozy, but open," he said of the 4,100-square-foot Love's Auto Sales showroom just south of Gandy Boulevard. "It just felt like it would make a good place."

That was May 2008, and the tricky transition would require more time, red tape and money than anticipated by the car dealer who eventually would need instructions on how to light a gas stove.

During the interim, Love, 52, evaluated his location and menu by selling lunch and dinner from "a food wagon" on the half-acre lot. "I was hedging my bets," he said, adding that he knew little about the restaurant business. "It was a good test market," and ribs, at $12 a slab, "were a home run."

He expanded his menu to include chicken sandwiches, collard greens, sautéed spinach, sautéed mushrooms, and more.

Love's reincarnation as a short-order cook passing food through the window of a mobile kitchen on a used-car lot drew attention. It seemed natural to Love, but it piqued the curiosity of many. "People would come up to me in the window and just wanted to talk to me," Love said with a chuckle. Then, perhaps feeling obligated, they usually would buy food, he said.

Local newspaper and television coverage of Love's transition drew attention beyond the Tampa Bay area. Soon Katie Couric was introducing the enterprise for a CBS Evening News "Money Matters" segment. Other TV networks followed, including National News of Denmark, which dispatched a crew to Tampa from its Washington, D.C., bureau.

"The angle was people reacting to a failing economy and re-inventing themselves," Love said of the televised reports about his food wagon. "It generated a lot of interest. I got calls from all over the world."

Nearly two years after it was conceived, the restaurant debuted March 1 - not counting the previous two weeks while, awaiting his liquor license, Love gave away beer and wine to diners who ordered it.

The restaurant's eclectic collection of tables, chairs and decorative items stems from Love's seven years as an antiques dealer and restorer of old picture frames and furniture, a business once located next to the showroom.

Swords, daggers, surveying equipment, copper pots, license plates and even a World War I Army uniform complete with helmet are displayed on walls. Shelves exhibit everything from an old Bubble-Up soft drink bottle to antique vases and beer steins.

Aesthetics and creativity aside, Love draws on business experience and what he said was his good reputation as a car dealer.

"Service - that's my No. 1 priority. It's obvious you've got to have good food. But it is the hospitality business," Love said. "If you came to my house, I'd try to give you the best I have," the finest cut of meat, the freshest vegetables, which is what Artifacts strives for, he said. "If we can maintain that, we'll win."

Eric Head has transitioned from buying meals at the food wagon to enjoying ribs and draft beer inside the restaurant. "It's the epitome of ingenuity, imagination and adaptability. It's awesome; I hope he makes it work," said Head, who lives close enough to Artifacts to walk there.

"There's nothing else like this in the immediate neighborhood. I think this area has been dying for something that isn't a chain restaurant, not that I have anything against chain restaurants," said Head.

The restaurant is offering everything from fresh fish to pork chops and prime rib, plus its full-liquor bar attracts "an eclectic mix of people, including many from the neighborhood," said the 51-year-old customer. And there's entertainment, including an acoustic trio on Saturday afternoons and jazz on Saturday evenings, which Head said he prefers to the din of a sports bar.

"I was told," said Love, "this is a very, very hard business. Whoever said it was right. It's a ton of work. But I feel good about it. It got me out of a business that was falling and failing. It's given me hope and given me an opportunity to make a comeback," he said.