Readers share memories of old restaurants

In Sunday’s a la carte section, we ran a story about old restaurants and readers responded with some of their own memories.

Harold Frankel wrote:

“Oh, do I remember the ‘old’ time restaurants?
“When I first came to Lexington one of the main places I supped was The Golden Horseshoe on Main Street. I had my first tossed salad there. I lived in an apartment with two other fellows and we ate out a lot, especially Hall’s on the River. Several of us would join several of our friends and dates and journey down there. We never used a menu. A couple of us would go in the kitchen and look around and say, ‘Give us a couple steaks, a couple chops, some fish, and of course, the banana peppers.
“Those were the DAYS.”

Angela Peyton Walters said:

“When I was growing up in Lexington my parents were a lot older than my friends’ parents, but it never bothered me. I had so much fun telling my friends about restaurants that they never went to. My parents took me to the Little Inn on Winchester Road and I remember the atmosphere was dark in there and there were not a lot of kids there, just a lot of old people, but I loved it anyway. The waitresses always treated me like a princess and that made me feel so good. I would order liver and onions (which surprised the waitresses) or some kind of seafood. Then at the end I would get, of course, dessert that was made just for me. The workers knew me by name and spoiled me rotten. When they closed down I cried, plus memories flooded my head.

“Now I will tell you of my experience at The Coach House. Every New Year’s Eve until I was 14 years of age, was a big thing in my life. My cousins and my parents and I would go there and we would all order different things and then we would pass the plates around and everyone would try them, even the desserts.

“My favorite thing was the prawns that were so good there. We stopped going there because my cousins passed away, but I remember it so well and always will.

“Both of my parents are gone now but I have those memories that makes them still here with me in my heart and soul.”

From Whitney Pannell:

“One memory I have of (The Oriental Inn) was when I was 16. It was my prom night and the first time I had eaten Chinese food. We ordered the pupu platter and I remember sticking food into the burning Sterno. Well, unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the fork got very hot from the Sterno and I badly burned my tongue. Ouch! The pupu platter was delicious however.”

Jessica Boone said:

“I miss the New York Steak House. It was in Fayette Mall, where New York and Co. is now. They had the best roasted chicken. Nothing I’’ve ever had compares. I would love to find out who owned it, if it was a chain, and if anyone knows how they made that chicken.”

Ann Medaris of Hazard wrote:

“I have often thought that downtown Lexington started dying when the Canary Cottage closed. It was right in the middle of Main Street and you could drop in for a Coke or lunch or dinner. I first went there when I was an out-of-town high-schooler about 70 years ago, and continued my acquaintance while a student at Transy and, during the War, living in Lexington and working at the Signal Depot. It was the meeting place downtown. I have a menu someplace buried in a scrapbook. Heaven knows where. The menus had a place on the back where you could address it and it would be mailed.

“The food was great. Filet of Sole $.35, Shore Dinner, $1.00. They had Hot Browns made with ham and turkey topped with a mushroom. The fried chicken came in a basket with a card saying ‘Pick it up, Sir, Pick it up, Ma’am, You are at home in the Canary Cottage.’

“I don’t think we were very big on salads; they were presented on a tray and you could choose. Every entree came with vegetable and salad. Of course, you could get a chicken salad plate or tomato en surprise (tomato aspic with cottage cheese and olives). My favorite dessert was peppermint ice cream rolled in pecans with chocolate syrup.

“The restrooms were labeled ‘fillies’ and ‘colts’ but too many out-of-staters didn’t understand, so the labels were changed to something more prosaic.

“The service was excellent. The decor was subdued. There were about four rooms, so it was cozy, and the booths as you came in were highbacked and private. The bar was way back and had a door opening on the Phoenix Alley. If you wanted to place a bet, a bar-waiter would run it over to the Phoenix. ‘Fish’ Wheeler was the owner, and it was said he lost interest in the Cottage after his son was killed in a horrible wreck that took the lives of four other children of prominent families.”

Martha Jane Stone also remembered Canary Cottage:

“I remember the chicken croquettes with cream sauce in particular. They were cone shaped.”

The Golden Horseshoe also was a favorite. “They had live music.”

“Tavern, 333 S. Lime, home of snappy cheese. Theirs was great. This was the first restaurant, or at least one of the first to have snappy cheese. This name was changed to snappy beer cheese, and finally became beer cheese.”

“Wings Chinese Restaurant. Upstairs at the southwest corner of Main and Lime. Probably the first Chinese restaurant in Lexington. Popular place for lunches and great place to take a date in the evening. The booths were separated by freestanding walls about 8 or 9 feet tall. After Old Wing died the restaurant moved to North Lime and was run by Wing Lee.”

Steve Demaree wrote:

“Being a native Lexingtonian, I love to read nostalgic articles about Lexington. Here are a few thoughts about some of the eateries of my past.

“Back in the 1950s, my mother, my dad, and I would head to Rogers Restaurant each Sunday after church. Back then, Rogers was located at the corner of Main Street and Jefferson Street. Whether we ordered fried chicken or whatever, Rogers delivered good food each week. All the waitresses knew us and took time to visit with us on each visit. One Sunday, I was around 4 at the time, our pastor and his wife went with us. We had just been served our drinks. I had trouble saying my ‘L’s’ in those days, and I turned to our pastor and said, “Brother Bill, may I have your wemon?” Needless to say, I cracked up our table.

“Another place of days gone by that brings back pleasant memories was Purcell’s Cafeteria, later to be known at Phil Bacon’’s Cafeteria, on West Main Street, next to Purcell’s Department Store. Several times each week, my mother and I caught the bus downtown, went to Purcell’s to eat, then ambled off to the Ben Ali, Strand, or the Kentucky Theater to see a movie or two. I can still remember the long walk up the center aisle at Purcell’s. As I walked by the diners on the way to the two cafeteria lines in the back, I glanced at people’s plates to see what Purcell’s was offering that night.

“Anyone who graduated from the real Henry Clay, the one at the corner of Main and Walton, had several choices on where to eat lunch each day. Those of us who were gifted in the area of choosing the right foods rushed across the street to Clay’s Restaurant. Each day the place was packed with people who could not yet vote. Even though we were too young to vote, we knew one thing. We knew that the most popular thing on the menu, and one of the best tasting, was French fries and gravy. No one who had a choice of Clay’s French fries with gravy ever reached for a ketchup bottle.

“In the early days of Parkette, every now and then my mother, mother, my dad, and I would jump in the car and head to Parkette. Back then, Parkette could be reached only by a gravel road that ran off of Liberty Road. As a child who was too small to see where we were headed, I sat in the back seat and listened to the sound of the gravel as we neared some more of that good Parkette food.

Harold Ackerman said:

“Thoroughly enjoyed your article in this Sunday’s Herald. However you missed a very popular restaurant of the 40s. The Golden Horseshoe on Main Street. I was a student At Transylvania from 47 to 50 and I believe sometime during 1948 I worked there for several months. I worked part-time in the kitchen (on the 2nd floor). Mt memory was that the Golden Horseshoe was very, very busy and was also very, very expensive.”

Bill Hanna of Lexington wrote:

“Don’t forget the old Thoroughbred restaurant on Leestown Road, left side going out. In the 60s and 70s our Herald-Leader lunch group (Mills, Hanna, Hornsby, Adams, Moores, Buckner) enjoyed Mrs. Shuck’s chili, unequaled in Lexington, and her burgoo in racing season, equaled only at the Keeneland track kitchen. The 90-cent martinis gave us wonderful appetites. I think Mrs. Shuck and her son Tommy owned the place.”

Joberta Wells of Yosemite said:

“I was reminded of another old Lexington restaurant … It was Nelly Kelly’s in the Lansdowne Center. They had a spinach salad with a creamy Parmesan dressing that was to die for. I wangled the dressing recipe out of them but it made about 50 gallons. I was never successful in getting it down to a pint that tasted the same as in the restaurant.

John C. Wolff Jr. of Lexington wrote:

“Many, many years ago I had a date and we went to Levas’ for dinner. I ordered each of us a glass of Greek wine. John Levas was kind enough to come over to the table and ask if we had ever had Retsina before. We answered ‘”no” and he then asked us if we liked turpentine. After one glass I sort of developed a taste for turpentine and drank both my glass and hers. It didn’t hurt my macho image one bit.”

Roland McClain of Louisville wrote:

While a student at the University of Kentucky in the 1950s, he “ate many dinners at a restaurant named, I believe, Clays. It was across the street from Henry Clay High School and served basic, ‘home’ cooked meals at a price that a college student could routinely afford.

Also, my girlfriend at the time introduced this country boy to Chinese food at a restaurant named Wings. It might have been on Limestone, just north of Main. I loved the food and ate there whenever her’s or my budget could afford. Although having since traveled throughout the world and searched every Chinese restaurant in Louisville, I have never found Chinese food as well prepared and taste pleasing to me as what I remember at Wings.”

Mary Huntsman of Somerset said:

“My parents’ first official date was at the Saratoga in 1956, when they were both students at UK. Mom’s younger brother, who is 6′4″ and a very large person overall, once got stuck in the phone booth there. I asked her if it was a fraternity prank of some kind, but it wasn’t. He got in to make a call and simply became wedged inside.

Mom’s Uncle Dan lived at the Springs Inn well into his eighties. When I was a little girl, we’d make the hundred mile trip to Lexington from Greensburg to see him a couple of times a year. He always made sure that the kitchen fixed peppermint ice cream rolled in pecans for my mother, even though it wasn’t a regular menu item there anymore. I think of Uncle Dan and the ice cream every time I drive past the Springs.

Amatos holds a special place in my memory as the place my friends and I went once before a formal at UK. We were all as poor as church mice, but a little research had turned up the fact that we could actually afford a nice “tablecloth” meal there. It was such a nice atmosphere for what little money we had at the time.
Here’s the story that ran Sunday:

A restaurant manager runs off with the register receipts; another ­restaurant’s namesake gets arrested; feather boas and polyester suits catch on fire (a bad bananas Foster incident); and a notorious rogue cop gets shot on the steps of an upscale restaurant.

A few legendary stories came to mind when we found a box of old Lexington restaurant menus, but they also brought back fond memories of special occasions at places like ­Rogers Restaurant, The Little Inn, The Saratoga, Bungalow, Executive House and Columbia’s.

The old menus — some still in their leatherlike covers, others discolored by age — were located after a request from cookbook author Regina Charboneau of Natchez, Miss., who came to Lexington earlier this month as part of a book tour. She is collecting old and new menus for the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (www.southernfood.org).

”I think menus are a great way to archive food history. Restaurant menus really tell a story and give a time line for the popularity of ­ingredients and trends,“ Charboneau said.

Museum curator Elizabeth Pearce agreed.

”Menus are by their nature ­ephemeral, as restaurants change them daily or seasonally, printing them on material not meant to last,“ she said. ”People rarely save menus, unless they are marking a particularly important, celebratory meal. This is unfortunate as menus are often the only physical remains of a restaurant’s past.“

We decided to take a trip down memory lane and ask a few readers about their favorite restaurants of the past. If this sparks a recollection, we’d like to hear from you, too. We plan to write an occasional series about ­Lexington restaurants. E-mail your story to swthompson@
herald-leader.com.

”Hearing the name of a restaurant can have the same effect as a song you hear for the first time in ages. It transports you back in time to a really memorable day or moment, and the details come flooding back for just a few seconds,“ said Gayle Deaton of Beattyville.

The Bistro in Chevy Chase

”Restaurants have always been an integral part of the horse scene and wannabes. That’s where the ­entertainment is,“ Donna Potter said.

Potter who owns Catering by Donna, once was a partner in a downtown restaurant called Capers. While attending the University of Kentucky, Potter worked at many of Lexington’s hot spots in the ’70s, including the Bistro at 829 Euclid Avenue in Chevy Chase.

”That was an entertaining place to work,“ she said. ”There was a lot of money flying around in town in entertainment. People were spending. It wasn’t unusual for me to get $500 in tips a night, and sometimes more, during Keeneland. When the high rollers in the horse business would have a big win — or anyone who had won a lot — they’d be throwing money.“

The little French bistro was the place to see and be seen for about eight years, until owners Sandy Fields and Louis Cease parted ways.

David Larson, who owned The Pampered Chef around the corner on South Ashland Avenue, (it was formerly The In-Between) recalls the Bistro’s glory days. ”When I pass by that location today, I laugh and think two things: If only those walls could talk, and if you could somehow harness all the energy expended in that building during those years, you could light ­Lexington for decades,“ he said.

When Cease left, Fields kept the Bistro and hired Georgia Feeney, who had worked at the Bungalow and Le Café Chantant, 137 West Vine Street. Cease went on to open La Brasserie at 210 West Main Street in the old Rick’s Place. In ­November 1988, Cease opened C’est Si Bon at East Main Street and South Ashland. which has housed many restaurants including The Stirrup Cup, Le Café Français and Furlongs.

After Fields closed the Bistro, she joined a la lucie owner ­Lucie Slone in a new venture, The Rosebud, in the former site of The Bungalow, 121 North Mill Street.

The Bungalow

The Bungalow was where downtown movers and shakers ate lunch and dinner, and it had a lively bar crowd. ”The food was ­fabulous when John Ferguson and Joe Woosley were there,“ Potter said. Her first bartending job was at The Bungalow. ”I made a killing there, but I never knew what I had.“

Ferguson went on to open Fleur de lys at 216 East Main Street in the old Plaza Café location in ­February 1987. It was destroyed by fire a few months later, and he moved into the old Gabby’s Gourmet Grille spot at 127 South Upper Street.

At that same time, French-born Alain Rochelemagne opened Acajou at 265 North Limestone, a building renovated by Tim Mellin and his brother James. When Rochelemagne left Acajou in 1990, he opened Le Café Français Restaurant and Piano Bar at 535 East Main Street. Tim Mellin, Lynda Hoff and Dale Holland turned Acajou site into Atomic Café in 1992, serving a Caribbean menu.

Rogers Restaurant

Rogers Restaurant, founded in 1923, was Lexington’s oldest eatery when it closed in July 2004. The first time Deaton went to Rogers Restaurant was in the ’60’s; she was 17 or 18 and coming home from the Sweet 16 tournament in Louisville with a friend, a recent UK grad who ”was practically drooling by the time we got there,“ she said.

Deaton had fond memories of being on a double-date at The Cork & Cleaver, 2750 Richmond Road, (now Columbia’s) after attending UK football games in the ’70s.

”There was a fire in the fireplace near our table, and we had really great steaks, with candlelight to eat them by, and their famous mud pie for dessert. The restaurant was romantic and beautiful and a perfect place to end an autumn Saturday,“ she said.

The Little Inn

The Little Inn, 1144 Winchester Road, opened in 1930 as a Prohibition-era roadhouse just outside Lexington’s city limits. It was considered the first restaurant between Lexington and the mountains.

In January, 1989, The Little Inn moved uptown to Chevy Chase to the former site of the Bistro, which had closed in fall 1988. It was a popular spot until August 1989, when a sign was hung on the door that read: Closed for vacation. It never reopened. In January, 1990, the original Winchester Road building was razed.

”It was a very special time, date, to go to The Little Inn on a Friday night for one of their delicious steaks,“ Mary Jane Davis of Winchester said. ”The first time I went, I was dressed to the nines and remember thinking or praying I would use the right utensils. It was crowded and noisy and, yes, dark.“

The Little Inn was known for its prime rib (a large painting of a prime rib was on one side of the building) — as well as baby-beef liver, frog legs and lamb fries.

The Saratoga

The Saratoga, 856 East High Street, was a Chevy Chase landmark and best known for its characters: bookies, college professors, socialites and city hall types.

Totsie Rose opened it in 1953 and named it after the famous Saratoga Race Track in New York. Ted Mims owned it from 1977 to 1989. He bought it from Ed Whitlock, who had bought it from Rose. Rob Ramsey and Joe Reilly, co-owners of Ramsey’s Diner, owned it for a short time.

A Toga menu, served from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday, featured Mrs. McKinney’s snappy beer cheese ($2.95), fried bologna ($2.50), cold meatloaf on white ($4.95) and fried egg sandwich ($2.50). The hot plate special for a Derby weekend was chicken and dumplings for $6.95.

Festival Market

In the late 1980s, Lexington’s restaurant landscape really began to change.

When Lexington Festival Market opened with a flourish in 1986, it brought Jay’s Seafood, Charlie & Barney’s (now Sawyer’s), and Scores Sports & Stakes Restaurant & Bar. Scores, on the top floor of Festival Market, was owned by David L. Gayheart and Richard M. Noonan. Menu items included Joe B’s trout, filets à la Roy Kidd, ­Sutton’s steak, and steak Claiborne.

Amato’s

In February 1986, former Mayor Jim Amato and friends opened an upscale Italian restaurant at 535 West Second Street, in the renovated West Jefferson Place. The menu featured Italian dishes prepared from recipes collected by Amato and his kitchen manager, Mary Parlanti. Amato’s was sold to Tracy Farmer in 1988; two years later, Amato’s moved from Second Street to Chevy Chase Plaza, and in 1992 it was bought by Geraldo Favaro, who closed the doors in 1993.

Stanley Demos’ Coach House

Demos opened the four-star restaurant in 1969 at 855 South Broadway, and sold it to his daughter, Tootsie Nelson, when he retired to Sarasota, Fla., in 1989. In 1992, Demos’ daughter Tootsie Nelson and her husband Sam sold it to John and Marsha DuPuy. The Nelsons and master chef Tony Seta had opened Tootsie & Tony’s Restaurant and Bar in Hartland Shopping Center in September, 1991.

Tootsie & Tony’s specialties were wood-grilled pizzas, steaks and salmon cooked in a brick oven imported from France. They introduced Lexington to potato rags, thinly grated fried potatoes covered with ranch dressing, cheese, bacon and green onions.

1880 Restaurant

In 1989, Mesut Sakar, who was maitre d’ at Stanley Demos’ Coach House for nine years, opened 1880 Restaurant & Bar at 270 South Limestone. In 1991, Sakar was featured on Bluegrass Crime Stoppers for bilking Lexington banks out of several thousands of dollars.

Allman’s and Hall’s on the River

Johnny Allman opened his first restaurant in the late ’30s on the Kentucky River, and it was there that he used his cousin Joe Allman’s recipes and created a home for beer cheese and fried banana peppers.

The restaurant flooded many times and burned down twice — or maybe three times.

It was Johnny Allman who started a tradition that the Hall family inherited. George and Gertrude Hall started Hall’s on the River in 1965. Hall’s on the River has seen thousands of regular folks drop by as well as former Govs. Martha Layne Collins and John Y. Brown Jr.; Hollywood legends Lily Tomlin. Lee Majors and Raymond Burr; and members of the British royal family.

The Halls’ son, Steve bought the business from his family in 1981 and in 1983 opened Hall’s on Main at North Ashland Avenue and East Main Street in Lexington, where Furlongs is now.

The early chains

As Lexington continued to grow, chain restaurants began to take over the suburbs. In the early ’70s, Lexington was a test market for chain restaurants, and some of the first on the scene were Ireland’s, Steak ‘n Ale, Mississippi River Co., T.W. Lee’s, and W.W. Cousins.