This Central Kentucky restaurant and bar will focus on locally grown ingredients

Versailles will soon welcome its first microbrewery by the end of the year. Versailles Brewing Co., set to open Dec. 29, is headed up by real estate agent Gary Jones and Woodford County farmer Curtis Congleton.

The bar is scheduled to have about 25 beers on tap, including local craft beers from Lexington-based breweries Country Boy Brewing and West Sixth Brewing. Eventually, the microbrewery is expected to phase in its own beer when the brewery gets running about April.

Jones and Congleton said they want all of the food ingredients to come from Woodford County or Central Kentucky. This includes pork and vegetables from local farms, such as Bluegrass Aquaponics. The brewers will try to use ingredients from Woodford County farms, including barley from Congleton’s 300-acre farm.

“All of our beef and all of our pork are from Woodford County,” Jones said. “All of our greens, our leaf lettuce, our spinach, kale, things like that. All that is coming from Woodford County.”

The bar’s owners also intended to serve liquor and wine.

The restaurant and bar will be in the Lexington Road Plaza on Marsailles Road. It previously housed Advance Auto Parts and China Buffet, which was equipped with a kitchen that will now be used by the brewing company. Renovation hadn’t been completed as of Dec. 19, but the owners said they’re confident that the restaurant will be ready to open in time for the University of Kentucky football team’s Music City Bowl game.

Jones said the restaurant will boast a full menu. Restaurant manager Manny Bowling will head the food portion of the business. Bowling’s previous experience included being the former executive sous chef at Carson’s Food and Drink.

“We’ve got appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, flatbread pizzas. We’ve got seven or eight good entrees, ” Jones said. “Chicken, pastas — we’ve got some vegan meals. We’ve got rib eye steak, New York strips, and we have kid meals, so we’re trying to be family-friendly.”

Bowling said the menu will change with the seasons, with more salads being available in the warmer months. Jones said prices weren’t yet set, but he wanted them to remain “reasonable.”

The restaurant and bar will employ about 35 people. The space will be about 10,000 square feet, including a dining area, a bar in the middle, a space for live music, and a room for parties or business meetings.

It’s scheduled to open at 11 a.m. Friday for the Kentucky-Louisville basketball game.

This story was originally published December 27, 2017 at 1:19 PM with the headline "This Central Kentucky restaurant and bar will focus on locally grown ingredients."