The partners behind Belle’s Cocktail House are raising the roof — literally — to serve customers drinks with a view of bustling downtown Lexington. If all goes to plan, the historic building at 156 Market St., will open its rooftop lounge in mid-October, and the space will feature a bar, a two-sided fireplace, seats, high-top tables and room for about 100 guests.
Justin Thompson, one of four partners in Belle’s, said visiting rooftop lounges in such cities as San Francisco and Charleston, S.C., spurred his desire to add one when the group opened the popular watering hole 23 months ago.
“I always thought it would be cool if we could do it, but we knew it wasn’t a possibility, financially, back then,” Thompson said.
Adding a patio outside was investigated, but the idea was nixed due to space constraints. So the men sat tight to wait until a more opportune time when the vertical solution was affordable. Fortunately, Belle’s rapid success made way for that sooner than expected, and plans were drawn up this late last year.
“We thought to ourselves, maybe we could do this rooftop thing after all,” Thompson said. “We set some pretty conservative goals for the business at the beginning. So it’s safe to say [Belle’s has] exceeded our expectations so far.”
Architect Rebecca Burnworth designed the open-air space, while structural engineer Chris Kelly, of Poage Engineers, created the plan to shore up the roof. Emerge Contracting began working in late June to install structural beams that form the backbone of a new roof onto which a new gray-toned deck was constructed. Matching gray safety rails also were added to the roof’s perimeter to allow guests to take in what Thompson said is a 270-degree view of downtown.
“From up there you get a great look at the courthouse; you overlook the Cheapside Pavilion and you can see some really cool old church steeples,” said Thompson, adding that Belle’s Thursday through Saturday hours of operation haven’t been interrupted during the construction. “It gives the bar a big-city feel, and we got the contemporary look we wanted.”
With the arrival of fall rains and cooler weather, Thompson expects the construction of a permanent rooftop bar will have to wait until next year.
“We’re thinking that for this year — and always depending on the weather — we can get three to four weekends in on the roof,” Thompson said. But if the Bluegrass is blessed with some unexpectedly warm days, the staff could reopen the rooftop lounge on a whim. “We’ll take whatever nature provides after that and consider opening it.”
Until then a temporary, smaller bar outside will serve rooftop guests, who also can descend a set of stairs to the second floor lounge, where a new, larger bar was just installed. Thompson said that update was long overdue, but that its installation wasn’t part of the plan for the rooftop expansion. However, design and construction teams convinced the partners that doing it all together was ideal. Since then, the original bar, which was a tight working space for two mixologists, has been expanded to make room for four.
“When we originally built Belle’s, we thought the upstairs would be a place for people to chill, and that the downstairs bar would be the busy place,” Thompson said. As it turned out, both spaces are busy, meaning, “the service bar upstairs couldn’t really handle the demand.”
All the changes made are part of a master plan to make the second floor and rooftop lounge good venues for private events. Each space, Thompson said, can accommodate 100 guests depending on the arrangement of tables and chairs.
Thompson declined to reveal the group’s investment in the expansion, though he said Kentucky Bank financed the deal.
“We think it’s nice to see local banks investing in local businesses,” Thompson said.
His partners in Belle’s are Larry Redmon, brothers Seth Thompson and Bob Eidson. The latter two share ownership with Thompson in the Bourbon Review, a quarterly bourbon lifestyle magazine that also hosts the annual Bourbon Shindig in Lexington and the Bourbon Classic in Louisville.
Thompson said he’s especially pleased that Belle’s growth mirrors that in the city’s old courthouse overlay district. In the old courthouse itself, plans are being discussed to add multiple businesses, including a restaurant and bar, as early as 2018. Coincidentally, the old courthouse is visible from Belle’s rooftop lounge.
Thompson said he’d like to see the rooftop-lounge trend continue in Lexington, saying it adds to downtown Lexington’s increasingly cosmopolitan vibe.
“We can’t say we’re the first downtown to do that, since Debbie Long at Dudley’s did that some time ago,” he said. Local’s Craft Food & Drink, several blocks away, has one as well. “What we can say is ours is the first downtown rooftop experience in a traditional bar setting. We think that’s pretty cool.”