Longtime UK campus bar, restaurant for sale again after shopping center sold
A popular University of Kentucky bar and restaurant that’s been a fixture for generations of students watching UK basketball games while eating O’Round burgers is for sale again.
The move comes after the shopping center near UK’s campus that houses the bar was recently sold.
University Plaza on the corner of Woodland Avenue and Euclid sold, according to NAI Isaac, which handled the sale of the 14,875-square-foot shopping center built in 1972. Tenants of the shopping center include Big Daddy Liquor, Lynagh’s Pub, Subway, Great Bagel Bakery, Kentucky Wildcuts Barber Shop, and more.
According to the news release, the new owners, who were not named, have plans to renovate the center and have retained NAI Isaac to lease and manage the property.
Most of the tenants will be staying on, but one is for sale.
Lynagh’s Irish Pub at 384 Woodland Ave. is for sale, according to Al Isaac, president of NAI Isaac, which will be handling the listing.
Is Lynagh’s closed?
The sale comes after the bar and restaurant were cited by the Kentucky Department of Alcohol Beverage Control for selling a Bud Lite to a 19-year-old who was working with ABC officers.
In May, the Kentucky ABC settled the case with Lynagh’s and moved to suspend the bar’s liquor licenses for 70 days. Lynagh’s paid a fine of $3,500 instead, satisfying the terms of the agreement, according to documents obtained by the Herald-Leader under the state’s open-records laws.
Lynagh’s has been closed this summer, according to Isaac.
Amy Messer, owner of Lynagh’s, declined to comment in June. On Tuesday Messer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the restaurant being for sale.
Messer, a University of Kentucky adjunct sociology professor, bought the bar and restaurant in June 2017 after owner Robert Swan, who also co-owns Great Bagel, put Lynagh’s on the market at the end of 2016.
Swan bought Lynagh’s in 2014. Lynagh’s began life in 1979 across the street on the other corner of Euclid Avenue but has been in its present location since the late 1980s.
The restaurant and bar was known for years for its massive O’Round burgers, sandwiches and cold beer.
For decades, Lynagh’s was a mainstay for two things: Watching UK basketball games, especially at tournament time, and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
For a time, Lynagh’s also operated a live music venue in the same shopping center; that spot is for lease with NAI Isaac.
