Rick Case Honda Dealership Includes Wedding Chapel, Barber Shop

DAVIE, Florida —  Rick Case Honda is a time-crunched shopper's dream. Tucked near the 2014 Honda Accords and Civics, the 600,000-square-foot dealership also has an on-site barber shop, a café and a Broward County clerk of the court's office, where a customer might pay a traffic citation, get a marriage license or even get hitched in its wedding chapel.

The idea, dealer owner Rick Case told Edmunds, is to make it convenient for people, so they may avoid driving to downtown Fort Lauderdale, searching for street parking and losing at least an hour out of their day. The dealership, in effect, has become something of a town square.

Case, who owns 15 dealerships in Florida, Georgia and Ohio, offered the county the space rent-free 12 years ago and he foot the bill for the remodeling they required to make the move to the western part of the county.

"It brings traffic in the dealership but it's all about our customers — and that's everybody in my mind," Case said. "How can you help the customer have their life better and more convenient? That is what we're all about."

The Honda dealership has become a community center of sorts. Groups like the Cub Scouts and neighborhood associations use the dealership's meeting room that accommodates 150 people.

"It's used seven days a week," Case said. "A lot of people call our general manager ‘the mayor.'"

At voting time, too, Case clears out the showroom of vehicles to accommodate voting booths for both national and local elections. They get about 3,800 voters per election.

"Any time my customer is happy, things are going well," he said.

Edmunds says:  Building bridges to the community keeps traffic flowing into the dealership, one happy dealer finds.