South Limestone’s new arrivals: Poke, Kung Fu Tea, Selma’s sandwiches and more coffee

Downtown Lexington’s South Limestone has long been a hot spot for foodies. Its unique assemblage of locally owned and operated eateries and bars draws crowds of college students and Lexingtonians alike.

Now, a new crop of restaurants is opening and calling South Limestone home.

Much of the recent growth seen in the South Limestone restaurant scene is in conjunction with large-scale construction projects like the Hub On Campus Limestone, a student apartment complex near the University of Kentucky medical campus, and the UK Cornerstone Exchange facility — part parking garage, part esports lounge, part food hall.

The Limestone Hub location is the second such off-campus student housing near UK; construction on it began after the earlier Hub opened in August 2019.

While the first location boasts a Target on the ground level, the newest Hub’s retail space has been mostly vacant since the complex opened, but there are plans to put in some eateries in late summer 2021.

Coming to Limestone Hub

Lily Mai, director of communications for the Hub’s project management company, Core Spaces, said two new dining options will be coming to the Hub soon — coffee shop Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii and boba tea chain Kung Fu Tea, which has a special connection to UK.

“Franchise owners of Kung Fu Tea, Duc Tran, and his brother, Duy Tran, both University of Kentucky alumni, wanted to bring a little bit of their Asian culture to Kentucky, where they both grew up,” Mai said. “They decided there was no better way than to open a boba tea shop.”

Mai also touted the Hub’s close proximity to campus as a plus for these incoming businesses. “Hub Limestone is the perfect location as it is centered right in the heart of Lexington and the University of Kentucky campus,” she said.

New to UK Cornerstone

Another Limestone landmark welcoming new dining spots is the UK Cornerstone Exchange. Since fall 2020, UK has been expanding the existing parking structure and adding a state-of-the-art esports facility and a food hall offering eats from several local vendors.

UK executive director for strategic analysis and policy Melody Flowers has been spearheading the Cornerstone project for the university. She said that, despite COVID, the first two phases of the project were completed on time, including an additional 900 parking spaces and the new esports and innovation facility.

The third and final phase of the process is the retail space, some of which has already been leased out. Restaurants that are currently open include A Cup of Common Wealth coffee shop, Ethereal Brewing and Rolling Oven pizza. Each of these vendors has other locations (and, in the case of Rolling Oven, a food truck) around Lexington.

Local pizza joint Rolling Oven has moved all of their carry-out from their National Avenue location in Mirror Twin Brewing to the Cornerstone. They also offer delivery through third-party apps like Grubhub, UberEats, Postmates and DoorDash.

Short-term street parking spots directly in front of the Cornerstone are available for people picking up carry-out pizza.

Two additional vendors are coming soon: Miyako Poké Bowl and Selma’s Kitchen. Miyako Poké Bowl, which has one other location off South Broadway, offers Hawaiian rice bowls with vegetables and sushi-grade fish, tofu and other proteins.

Selma’s Kitchen, owned by local catering company Selma’s Catering, will serve sandwiches, soups and salads. According to Flowers, these two restaurants will be opening as soon as they receive their certificates of occupancy from the local and state governments.

Although the Cornerstone’s target audience includes UK students, faculty and staff by virtue of its close proximity to campus, the space is open to all.

Guests are able to park on the street or in the Cornerstone parking garage, which is free from 7 p.m. Friday to 10 p.m. Sunday. During the week, parking costs $2 per hour during the week.

Unlike other UK dining facilities, the Cornerstone restaurants do not accept payment through meal plans; they do not have service contracts with the university like other vendors do, such as Atomic Ramen and Taylor Belle’s ice cream in the dining hall the 90.

As a result, Flowers said that UK did not handpick the local businesses in the Cornerstone, instead working with a private development and retail partner, Signet Real Estate, to lease space to individual businesses.

However, Flowers said that the partnership between UK and Signet has produced an assemblage of local vendors in the Cornerstone, which was the goal.

“We have an alignment of focus,” she said. “We both agreed very early on that we thought having a local and regional focus to the offerings in there was going to be successful, so you’re not going to see national chains.”

Flowers said the Cornerstone locations have been thriving. “They tell me that week over week, business just keeps getting better for them,” she said.

She also said that the Cornerstone space gives its restaurants the ability to host events and co-brand with other vendors. “I know Ethereal has started playing around with doing trivia nights at the Cornerstone,” Flowers said.

Cup of Common Wealth open

Zach Joseph, director of administration at A Cup of Common Wealth, said the local coffee chain is enthused about their new location at the Cornerstone, open since November 2020. “It was just a really exciting opportunity for us to be a locally-owned coffee shop that close to campus, to be a part of this new space that’s going to have a lot of other cool restaurants,” he said.

Although opening during a pandemic slowed their start initially, Joseph said business has been steady since. “I’m not sure exactly what the restrictions are going to be at UK, but it sounds like a lot more students will actually be on campus again, hopefully,” he said. “So our hope is really by August, this place will pick up quite a bit.”

Joseph was excited about, and perhaps a tad envious of, the hangout space the Cornerstone offers UK students.

“I went to UK as a college student years, years ago, and it almost makes me jealous because now a college student could go in on a Friday night and get coffee and then go get pizza and beer, and then you go around the corner and you can play video games on their really nice computers,” he said, laughing. “I think it’s exciting, especially when students are really able to fully be back in that space.”