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SOUTH BEND, Ind. – South Bend Chocolate Co. and its owner, Mark Tarner, have filed a motion for preliminary injunction in St. Joseph Superior Court seeking to block the St. Joseph County Airport Authority from handing over South Bend International Airport’s food and retail concession contract to a South Dakota-based competitor.
The lawsuit, filed April 27, asks the court to stop the airport authority from allowing Sky Dine to assume control of the airport concession operation, terminating South Bend Chocolate Co.’s lease and requiring the company to forfeit approximately $1.6 million in leasehold improvements and equipment bought and installed during its cumulative 12-year tenure.
“This isn’t about sour grapes,” Tarner said at a press conference on Wednesday. “This is about a company that has over-performed. This is about accountability and doing things the right way. There hasn’t been fairness in this process and maybe it was predetermined before we even started.”
South Bend Chocolate Co. has operated as the airport’s sole concessionaire since May 2014, providing food, beverage, retail and vending services in the terminal. Its current lease expires May 31. The airport concession represents roughly 25% of the company’s total revenue.
When the airport issued a Request for Proposals in September 2025, South Bend Chocolate Co. submitted a bid projecting revenue growth from $4.3 million to $12.9 million over 10 years, with 18% of food sales revenue going to the airport — compared to Sky Dine’s proposed 16%.
Tarner said the company grew airport concession sales from under $900,000 in 2014 to $4.6 million, a 372% increase he described as “probably the largest increase of any retail concessions in North America.”
The company also proposed opening a University of Notre Dame-branded retail store in the terminal, to be named “The Four Horsemen” and designed by L2 Brands, the Philadelphia firm that recently redesigned Notre Dame’s campus bookstore. Tarner said South Bend Chocolate Co. is Notre Dame’s oldest licensee and that the university had long wanted a larger airport presence.
“Notre Dame is a world-class attraction,” Tarner said. “I don’t think Dunkin’ Donuts screams God, country and Notre Dame.”
Despite that proposal, the airport authority awarded the contract to Sky Dine at its Feb. 26 board meeting. The authority’s selected proposal includes two full-service, post-security locations of The Lauber restaurant, two Dunkin’ locations, a Jimmy John’s, a new burger and beer concept and expanded retail featuring local vendors.
The airport authority pushed back on the characterization of the process. It also noted that South Bend Chocolate Co.’s lease is not being terminated — it expires on May 31 — and said it has filed a motion to have the case dismissed.
“SBN conducted a formal, fair and transparent request for proposals process to reimagine and expand concession offerings that would best serve the traveling public,” the airport authority said in a statement.
The motion alleges the decision was tainted by false information. According to the filing, airport staff, Executive Director Mike Daigle and board members were told before the vote that Sky Dine had an existing purchase agreement with South Bend Chocolate Co. to sell its products at the South Bend airport and other Sky Dine locations nationally. South Bend Chocolate Co.’s suit claims no such agreement was ever discussed. The filing further alleges Sky Dine used South Bend Chocolate Co.’s brand names and logos in its proposal without permission.
Tarner also alleged that other vendors submitting proposals were privately told the authority wanted Jimmy John’s and Dunkin’ Donuts concepts included — information he said his company never received.
“There were three other proposals and they were all multi-airport operators,” he said. “You’ll notice in all the other proposals there’s a Jimmy John’s and a Dunkin’ Donuts, and there’s not in ours. That information was off the proposal request.”
The company also alleges the selection committee retaliated against it for reporting incidents of verbal abuse, discrimination and intimidation by certain unnamed airport employees during the lease period. It claims board members never reviewed the full proposals — only a biased summary presented by the committee.
“We made repeated efforts to better understand how the decisions were being evaluated,” Tarner said. “We tried to get access to the information and were denied. It was delayed. It was limited. It was unclear, and it created doubt about the integrity of the process itself.”
The plaintiffs argue the award violates Indiana Code provisions requiring contracts to go to the most advantageous offeror, limiting evaluation criteria to those specified in the RFP and guaranteeing fair treatment to all bidders.
Tarner said the lawsuit was ultimately triggered by a dispute over equipment.
“We have a purchase agreement where we purchased equipment from the prior concessionaire and the airport authority. They started saying we can’t have it,” he said, calling the attempt to retain that property “criminal conversion.”
If the injunction is not granted prior to a hearing on the full suit, South Bend Chocolate Co. may have to vacate the airport by the end of day May 31.
“If you take money off the table, it’s just justice and fairness that I want.”
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