Lexington restaurant that served UK fans, office workers for 35 years isn’t returning
Another downtown Lexington dining fixture isn’t coming back, at least in the same location.
Sawyer’s Downtown Bar and Grill, known for its hearty burgers and chili, is not reopening at Main Street and Broadway, according to owner Jim Sawyer. It had been there for almost 35 years before the coronavirus pandemic forced the Kentucky restaurants to close.
The restaurant served basketball fans headed to Rupp Arena for Wildcat games and for the Sweet Sixteen high school tournament as well as downtown office workers looking for a quick and tasty lunch.
But it had been closed since May. Sawyer posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page then that he planned to reopen in September when major events resumed at Rupp Arena and downtown foot traffic picked up.
But that didn’t happen.
Sawyer said that he’d decided that he “won’t be going into the downtown location anymore” but he is looking at several potential spaces downtown to reopen.
“That’s where I want to be,” Sawyer said in a message. “I’ll probably know more by the end of this year.”
The restaurant has been in the space since 1986 but it opened as Charlie & Barney’s. Sawyer dropped the franchise in 1997.
The popular dining spot had been a ground floor mainstay of the renovated office building now called Triangle Center and once known as Festival Market, which opened in 1986 as a shopping mall developed in a partnership between Dudley and Donald Webb and the financially doomed Kentucky Central Life Insurance Co.
In 1992, the building became The Market Place and switched to outlet stores. The property was sold at a court-ordered auction in 1994 and renamed Triangle Center.
Farra Alford, managing partner of building co-owners First Lex Co., did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether a new restaurant might move into the space.
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Lexington restaurant that served UK fans, office workers for 35 years isn’t returning."
