Sidebar Grill and future Break Room owners, Lisa and Jonny Cox
Two established entrepreneurs on Lexington’s food scene are expanding this summer into the city’s re-emerging Distillery District, with separate ventures aimed at giving their patrons a reason to enjoy the area’s reinvigorated atmosphere.
Mark Jensen, owner of the Fork in the Road food-truck business, plans to open his new brick-and-mortar restaurant, middle fork kitchen bar, in space currently under renovation in the former Pepper Distillery building. At the same time, Jonny Cox, who co-owns Sidebar Grill in downtown Lexington with his wife, Lisa, will open a new summer bar, called the Break Room, in an 1,100-square-foot renovated structure on the distillery campus along Town Branch.
Jensen wants middle fork to offer a relaxed and interactive dining experience, he said, with 2,000 square feet that connects comfortably with the kitchen and blends both indoor and outdoor space. The restaurant, which will have 50 seats inside and another 50 outside in good weather, will feature large banks of windows, two garage doors and French doors that open onto a patio overlooking Town Branch, he said.
Jensen has built his food truck business around locally sourced ingredients and adventurous fare that he refers to as “worldwide street food,” with an open-galley design that welcomes and engages his clientele. With middle fork, Jensen is looking for even more of that, he said.
“I want to be across the table from them, and see the joy on their faces as they eat,” Jensen said. “I want to be a part of that.”
Jensen’s plans include an open-concept kitchen, with a wraparound chef’s counter that encourages diners to interact with the staff. In addition to smaller tables, Jensen said he’d also like to include a larger community table as well, so middle fork diners who are so inclined can share a more communal dining experience.
Jensen has acquired a quota liquor license for the operation, which will include a small bar featuring local brews and bourbons. And while he plans to bring the same local-food focused, globally influenced cooking style found at Fork in the Road to his new enterprise, patrons can expect the menu items to be a bit more intricate, he said.
“The dish complexity will be a little bit different at middle fork, because we will have more to work with,” he said. “Instead of a flat-top grill, we’re bringing in a 60-inch wood-fired Argentinian grill. ... And at the same time, it’s going to be a fireplace focal point that the whole restaurant will be able to enjoy.”
Cox is hoping his new bar, Break Room, will become a fun respite for those looking to enjoy the Distillery District’s revitalized atmo-sphere during the warmer months of the year.
“It’s going to be the only bar in Lexington on a waterway,” Cox said. “You can bring your dogs, and we’re going to have horseshoe pits and corn hole, and we’ll have a pool table inside. It’s going to be a fun place for people to come hang out, sit by the creek and have drinks.”
Cox plans to operate Break Room from Wednesday through Sunday, opening at noon on the weekends. The bar will serve mainly as a summer bar, open from March to November, he said, with the venue available for rental during the winter months.
Fork in the Road and future middle fork owner, Mark Jensen
The building, which served as the original break room for Pepper Distillery workers back in the 1920s, will feature a large outdoor deck and music staging area, Cox said, with a black walnut bar inside and an opening along one wall to enable service to patrons outside. Cox also plans to bring food trucks into the building’s ample parking lot to serve patrons with an appetite.
Cox said he stumbled upon the building while visiting his friend Tony Higdon, local sculptor and co-owner of the nearby studio Iron Horse Forge. As a fan of industrial style, Cox admired the small structure, located near the district’s iconic water tower, and he commented that he would love to purchase it if it was ever on the market. As it turned out, it already was.
“It was total luck,” Cox said.
Cox hopes his new establishment will serve as a rest stop for adventurous locals looking to take advantage of all that the west side of downtown has to offer, including hiking at McConnell Springs and bicycling on the developing Town Branch Trail.
“It’s starting to stretch downtown out farther, and it gives people something to do,” Cox said.
Both Cox and Jensen say they have fallen in love with the re-emerging district.
“The Distillery District has so much character. It’s got so much depth in its history, and that history is all wound up in craftsman-ship,” Jensen said. “It’s a sense that we are standing on the shoulders of something great; we are innovating on a great tradition.”
Jensen is also launching a Kickstarter crowdsourcing campaign on April 4 to raise funds and get more people interested in his new venture, and the district as a whole.
“We’re hoping that patrons of Fork in the Road, friends and people who are just interested in seeing the Distillery District take off will help with our campaign,” Jensen said.
Cox sees the potential for more development in the Distillery District, and he hopes it will transform into the kind of revitalized industrial shopping and entertainment destination that has become popular in other cities like Louisville.
“It’s exciting that [Lexington] is doing something again,” Cox said. “it just seems like the activity is starting to come back.”