Meadowthorpe Cafe owner plans to reopen

The owner of the Meadowthorpe Cafe, one of Lexington's legendary locally operated restaurants, plans to reopen the venerable spot. Its latest operators closed recently.

Sara Ely, who owns the building with her sister, said she's remodeling and cleaning the interior and hopes to open again with new operators in a few weeks.

She said it's taking longer than she had hoped because she lives in Atlanta and is traveling to supervise the work.

"It'll have the same kind of feel that it had before," she said.

Ely's father, Gene Cottrell, owned the building during the restaurant's heyday.

The cafe came under different operators last year.

"They just didn't work out," she said. "I want to get the right person in there. ... I want someone who will be real solid, because I don't want to go through this again."

The most recent operators could not be reached for comment.

The Meadowthorpe Cafe, located at 1415 Leestown Road, was well known locally for its Southern cooking and comfort food. It had been operated by Brent Porter and Tom Polites since the mid-1990s, but the pair decided to hang up their aprons and retire in 2009.

Ely said she has received numerous calls from people interested in operating the restaurant, including a couple from the Meadowthorpe neighborhood.

"I've had so many people calling who want to keep it the way it was, with the family cooking," she said. "I'm going through the process of qualifying people and getting the best people in there."

This story was originally published June 9, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Meadowthorpe Cafe owner plans to reopen."