COVID casualties: Two longtime downtown Lexington lunch spots won’t be coming back
The COVID pandemic’s toll on Lexington restaurants include two longtime downtown lunch spots that won’t be coming back, the owners confirm. Both had been closed since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Greentree Tearoom, a fixture for elegant, delicious but unfussy lunches in the historic cottage at 525 W. Short St., will not be reopening, said co-owner Gay Reading.
The tearoom opened in 2000, with John Martin in the kitchen and Reading out front. It quickly became known as one of the best places in town for lunch, particularly for hot fresh scones served with Fayette cream. The menu changed monthly with seasonal variations.
“Strangely it was originally conceived as a place people could have business lunches,” Reading said. “Because we had a set menu, they didn’t have to order.”
But it found an enduring clientele among the “ladies who lunch, who sort of took it over,” he said.
Over the decades, the tearoom became a place where people could celebrate important occasions, hosting “Sweet 16” parties, bridesmaids lunches and the birth of children.
Reading said they hosted a number of actual weddings and many gatherings after memorial services. “We were cradle to grave,” he said.
But the coronavirus pandemic forced them to rethink.
“We finally had to make a decision. We’ve been doing it for 20 years and of course we couldn’t adjust it to operate as it needed to during the pandemic,” Reading said.
So they decided to move forward with their antique business, with a new space connected to L.V. Harkness, a fine gift store.
They are looking to lease the tearoom space.
If someone wanted to take it over, he said, “we would be delighted.”
Sunrise Bakery Cafe closed
The other longtime restaurant that isn’t reopening also is a downtown mainstay: Sunrise Bakery Cafe.
Co-owner Kristy Matherly said that her husband, Steve, plans to continue wholesale bakery sales for now but she doesn’t plan to restart the cafe at 111 W. Main St. that was popular for almost two decades with downtown office workers at lunchtime and with farmers’ market shoppers on Saturday mornings.
“For me, I did it 17 years, and it’s been wonderful and we’ve had lots of support, and I’ve met the most beautiful people through the bakery,” she said. “But maybe I’m being pulled somewhere else, through COVID.”
During the pandemic, she has been cooking for several community organizations including The Nest, Nourish Lexington and FoodChain and taking care of family members in poor health, she said.
“I want the bakery to continue on, it’s just making those steps to hand this box over and let someone else do it,” she said. “We’ve got to start somewhere and put it out there.”
Her husband, she said, “enjoys the meditation of making the bread,” she said. So the bakery will continue making bread and other goods that are sold around town and served in many restaurants.
She isn’t ruling out entirely a return of some kind for her cafe, perhaps as pop-ups at the farmers’ market.
“I’ve got to follow my heart ... so for now it’s a no, but it’s day by day,” she said.
