Popular Lexington restaurant closing. What’s next for ice cream, hot sauce, building?
After more than a decade serving West African favorites, a popular Lexington restaurant is closing.
But there’s still time to get a bowl of peanut goat or a platter of boffa tilapia before the Sav’s Restaurant and Gourmet Ice Cream closes for good.
Owner Mamadou “Sav” Savane said he is planning to close the restaurant at 630 E. Main St. on Aug. 27.
Until then customers can come by during regular hours, 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and he’ll serve what he can as long as the food holds out.
Savane said he gave his employees the news Sunday night. “It was very emotional, they’re just like my family,” he said.
“I know it’s gonna be a disappointment for a lot of customers, but we’re very grateful for everything this community has shown for us. But everything has an end. It’s been 14 years,” he said. “It’s a time for me to try to simplify a bit. I call myself lucky because I have the other products I can expand when I have more time on my hands.”
He will continue wholesales of his Sav’s Chill ice cream, as well as the ice cream trailers, and sales of his Sav’s Piment hot sauce and Sav’s Vinaigrette salad dressing. The products are available for sale at a variety of stores and restaurants around Lexington including Good Foods Co-op, Wilson’s, Zim’s Cafe, Epping’s and Coles, Chocolate Holler, Martine’s, Kenwick Table and Goodfella’s Pizza, which mixes his hot sauce with ranch dressing.
Savane said Monday that the building at 630 E. Main St. has been leased to a new restaurant tenant: The owners of La Taquiza Taqueria are expected to open a second location there soon.
Sav said Monday that the decision to close the restaurant wasn’t easy but seemed like the right one after he and Rachel weighed options. Their children have all graduated and the time seemed right, he said.
The struggle of the pandemic, hiring and now higher prices “made us realize maybe its time to take a break,” he said. “We’re going to have a time to see what else we can do and slow down a bit. ... It’s bittersweet. I do love my customers ... I’m lucky I have other options.”
Savane first opened his restaurant on South Limestone in front of the UK Samaratian Hospital in September 2008. His African dishes such as fufu, cassava and even goat quickly drew a following. He added an ice cream shop across the street in 2012.
In June 2013, while stirring a giant pot of his popular peanut sauce, he accidentally spilled boiling liquid all over his body, causing second-degree burns. He was in intensive care for five days while his wife, Rachel, and three children watched anxiously.
Friends and fans rallied around, raising more than $50,000 to help offset the medical costs and other expenses. Eventually he was able to resume work at the restaurant.
Then in 2019 he closed Sav’s Grill and moved into the East Main Street location, next to what was then an A&W restaurant but is now Biscuit Belly.
Like many restaurants, Sav’s struggled during COVID in 2020 but was able to keep going with takeout and after adding an outdoor dining space dedicated to his late friend, Jake Gibbs.
La Taquiza has agreed to keep “Jake’s Garden,” Savane said.
A native of Guinea in West Africa, Savane and his wife, Rachel, met when she was a Peace Corps volunteer there in the early 1990s. They moved back to Lexington and married in 1993. She began making jewelry and opened Savane Silver on Broadway and Short Street.
