Lexington’s growing craft beer and food truck-fueled dining scene is set to welcome another brick-and-mortar pairing: Paris-based Rooster Brewing and Lexington’s Gastro Gnomes food truck are opening a joint project on North Limestone.
“I like the location,” said Ralph Quillin, one of the owners of Rooster Brewing. “We’re already calling Limestone ‘Restaurant Row.’”
The new, as-yet-unnamed restaurant will take up 3,000 square feet at 157 N. Limestone, next door to Minglewood in the former location of Merit Furniture. Owners are planning for a mid-Summer opening.
In addition to all the restaurants currently in the area -- including Minglewood, Limestone Blue, Sidebar and Beerworks -- Quillin pointed to other upcoming spots like Jonathan Lundy’s new restaurant at Short and Limestone, School Sushi in the former location of Shorty’s and Lussi Brown Coffee Bar going in at 114 Church Street.
The Gastro Gnomes is known throughout Lexington for its consistently rotating food truck menu, rarely offering the same locally sourced menu items on back-to-back days. Menu items tend to include quesadillas, ramen noodle bowls, grilled cheese sandwiches and various styles of burger, among others.
The collaboration is part of a pattern in the food world where breweries join forces with food trucks or other culinary institutions to create one business.
Lexington examples of this trend include Mirror Twin and Rolling Oven pizza, West Sixth Brewing and Smithtown Seafood and the recently announced Blue Stallion Brewing and Dad’s Favorites Deli.
Rooster and Gastro Gnomes originally were set to move into the warehouse building in the Distillery District on Manchester Street, but plans for that ultimately fell through.
Partners in the project include Quillin, his wife, Donna Quillin, his son and head brewer/general manager, Ralph Quillin, Andrew Suthers and Kyle Klatka (The Gastro Gnomes) and Vince Grupposo.
Quillin is working with Rebecca Burnworth of Burnworth Design, who will act as chief designer and code expert on the project.
“We’d not even attempt a project of this scope in Lexington without her,” said Quillin.
Quillin said the current plan is to do a fast-casual concept for food service, where chefs and kitchen staff bring the food directly out to customers. Quillin hopes this chef-to-table service method helps facilitate a strong community environment.
“We want everybody to know everybody in the joint,” he said. He added that plans are still in their infancy stage, and many of these ideas are not fully set in stone
The new location will have a 30-gallon test brewery in the basement, but the majority of their beer will be brewed in their 15,000-square-foot production brewery in Paris.
Quillin said he would be interested in inviting home brewers or people involved with Brewers of Central Kentucky to use the 30-gallon North Limestone system, produce their own beer and have it put on tap. Some of the better recipes even could be scaled up for Rooster’s larger brewing system.
Quillin started home brewing in 2008 and opened up Rooster Brew’s Paris tap room in 2014. He stated he’s already thinking of his next project somewhere else in Lexington.
“Work is our hobby,” said Quillin. “The interaction with the customers – that’s just the gravy.”
Quillin said they hope for the new collaboration to be open by July or earlier, though he admits the 120-day construction timeline on what is currently an empty building is an ambitious undertaking.
“We just want it to be an incredible experience,” he said. “You can go to Applebee’s and probably have an OK beer and an OK meal, but when you come down here, we want you to have a really great meal, a really great beer, and an even better experience.”