Another Lexington restaurant at Hamburg closing. You have time for a last Bambino
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Big City Pizza’s Hamburg location will close Feb. 28 after lease renewal failed.
- Owner cites rent hike; other Big City Pizza sites in region will remain open.
- Closure is among multiple recent Lexington restaurant shutdowns this month.
It’s a grim week for the Lexington dining scene, with another locally owned restaurant set to close.
The Hamburg location of Big City Pizza, at 2312 Sir Barton Way No. 110, will be closing at the end of the month. Saturday, Feb. 28 will the last day to place orders.
It’s at least the fourth Lexington restaurant, and second in the Hamburg shopping area, to close this month. Joella’s Hot Chicken closed Feb. 15. Two other restaurants — Sam’s Hot Dogs in Lexington Green and Columbia Steak Express on Southland Drive — also closed the same weekend.
Big City Pizza’s Hamburg location opened in February 2021. The restaurant built a following for its hand-tossed and deep-dish style pizzas, with the Big Bambino as its signature item. The 28-inch pizza is Lexington’s largest, nicknamed for Yankees baseball player Babe Ruth.
Demand for takeout boomed when the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020, and the giant pie, which can feed 10, was always popular.
“We’ve been in business for 12 years and this is our first closure,” owner Brooke Hunt said. She and husband Johnny, along with Curtis and Brittany Gordon, started Big City Pizza in 2014 in Nicholasville and expanded to Lexington, Richmond, Danville, Somerset, Mt. Sterling and Georgetown.
“We’re sad about it,” she said.
All of the other locations, including the first Lexington location on Chinoe Road, will remain open, she said.
“We came up for lease renewal and the new owners of Hamburg Pavilion were increasing our rent to an amount we couldn’t do,” she said. “We were prepared to stay, we tried to negotiate, and it didn’t happen.”
She said they are looking for new locations, but haven’t found anything that fits their model yet.
“It’s awful for small local businesses right now,” Hunt said. “We’re asking for y’all to support local businesses. Not just us, everybody.”
Hamburg Pavilion, the 106-acre development along I-75 and Man o’ War Boulevard, sold for $135 million in October 2024. Fairbourne Properties in Chicago purchased the store buildings late last year from HAP Investment, which bought Hamburg in 2014 for a record $185.7 million for two parcels.
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 3:27 PM.
