It takes more than great food to make a great restaurant.
During the past decade, many new dining and drinking establishments have taken root in Lexington, often in formerly overlooked or forgotten sectors such as the Distillery District. Reviving these once-neglected corners of local development into imaginative, energized restaurants and bars has become as much art form as business enterprise.
It’s created both an inspiring trend and a full client roster for Rebecca Burnworth, owner of Burnworth Design, who has helped both experienced and aspiring restaurateurs and bar owners transform their food establishment visions into brick-and-mortar reality.
“When it comes to design, she’s done everything,” said Ralph Quillin, owner of Paris, Kentucky-based Rooster Brew, who has been working with Burnworth to create a new space in Lexington for his business, in partnership with local food truck business GastroGnomes. “Chances are if you go out to eat or drink in [a newer establishment] in Lexington, she had something to do with it.”
Burnworth, a licensed architect, real estate agent, interior designer and self-proclaimed “code-wrangler,” has worked with a lengthy list of local food and beverage clients. Burnworth has helped in the development of local hotspots such as Middle Fork Kitchen Bar, Buddha Lounge, Crank and Boom, Hugo’s Lounge, Enoteca and Ethereal Brewing. She is currently working with GoodFellas Pizzeria on its third Lexington location, a 25-foot-high, 4,500-square-foot, multi-story space in the Distillery District, complete with its own VIP room to be housed in a former industrial smokestack.
For established chains looking to gain a foothold in the Lexington market, such as Panera Bread, Tony’s Steak and Seafood, HopCat, and Pies and Pints, Burnworth has also been called on to use her knowledge of local building codes in expediting permits, clearing red tape and speeding the process to a successful opening.
With so many job titles on her business card, it may seem like too much at times for one person to juggle, but Burnworth’s work is centered on her cooperative approach to getting the job done without sacrificing craftsmanship or creativity.
“In restaurants, I try to create a nice backdrop so that people know they are not sitting in their living room,” Burnworth said. “I want to take them away. I want to provide them with an amazing backdrop for that experience of going out to eat.”
In that regard, Quillin said Burnworth succeeds.
“When a guest walks through the door for the first time, she gets the ‘wows’ out of them,” Quillin said.
Many of Burnworth’s projects incorporate a smoothed and pared-down industrial style, highlighting exposed structural elements, well-crafted natural materials and artistic installations to create an atmosphere that feels modern and unexpected but also sincere. To Burnworth, many of today’s hipster trends are really reflections of a deeper nostalgia for the honesty and core simplicity of past generations, she said, and the design challenge comes in embracing those values and moving them forward through design in a contemporary way.
“I feel like this whole industrial vibe is part of that nostalgia, but cleaning it up a little bit, ... just to be able to see the grain in something and the natural beauty of it,” Burnworth said. “You think about something like farm-to-table and how honest that process is; I see it coming into design and architecture in that people are still interested in natural things.”
Although the creative opportunities are one of Burnworth’s favorite aspects of the job, she has also worked to develop skills as a practical project manager. After graduating from the University of Kentucky with a bachelor’s degree in architecture, Burnworth landed a job at Jarboe Construction as the firm’s in-house architect, estimator and construction manager. At Jarboe, she was often tasked with relaying information among architects, builders and subcontractors, she said, and it gave her a deeper understanding of the many players involved and what each needed to get the job done. Those lessons have helped her to craft her team-oriented, cooperative approach in her own career.
It also encouraged her to immerse herself in multiple aspects of the job. Burnworth joined the Code Administrator’s Association of Kentucky in 2004 and attends classes to gain first-hand training from those who write and enforce building codes.
“My knowledge of code was taught to me by building inspectors and fire marshals over the years,” she said. “I couldn’t do it without them.”
She also obtained her real estate license two years ago, and currently works as a Realtor with Tate Daniels Concierge Real Estate, which helps her to keep tabs on the expectations of today’s property buyers and sellers.
“To be able to realize the market even before it hits me as an architect is an amazing thing,” Burnworth said.
Roughly 65 percent of Burnworth’s clients are developers and builders, mostly in the commercial realm, she said, but she also does a small amount of residential work, as well. She is currently working with her husband, Eric Burnworth, owner of the building company Burnworth Builds, along with additional partners Brian and Cathy May, to transform a home in the Lakeview neighborhood for eventual resale. The spacious residence was formerly owned by local martial arts grandmaster Sin Thé.
For Burnworth, who grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and later lived to Cleveland before settling in Kentucky, Lexington’s manageable scale and entrepreneurial energy have made it a great home for her business and her family, which includes her three sons, ages 2, 4 and 22.
When she first started exploring the city’s possibilities after moving to Lexington 20 years ago, people were quick to write off large blocks and neighborhoods as “bad areas,” she said. Since then, however, she has watched the community shed a lot of that negativity and open up its mind and its development plans to new opportunities.
“I feel like we are all making Lexington what we really want it to be. I can see the next generation really molding it, and I find that exciting,” Burnworth said.
Burnworth is quick to give credit for that to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen.
“The clients are visionary,” Burnworth said. “They are able to zoom in on what they think Lexington wants and are essentially using me to determine how to deliver that.”
One example, Burnworth said, is Mark Jensen, owner of Middle Fork Kitchen Bar, who rolled up his sleeves on many occasions to construct elements of his restaurant himself.
“Mark is brilliant,” Burnworth said. “I can see his mind in that restaurant. I loved how he built everything by hand, and that gave so much opportunity to really fine-tune it. He literally crafted his restaurant.”
For Jensen, who said he’d spent decades envisioning what he wanted in a restaurant, his partnership with Burnworth gave him the room to realize his creativity while still keeping him on track during the process.
“I did have a very hands-on approach to building middle fork kitchen bar, but even with the fundamentals of the design firmly in place, there were a lot of professional choices I needed to make, and Rebecca was the perfect collaborator,” Jensen said. “She pushed me toward excellence and, occasionally, reeled me back in.”
In the end, Burnworth said, working with creative people like Jensen and exploring new ways to translate those imaginative visions into innovative spaces is what ultimately keeps her coming back for the next project.
“If I strive for anything, it is to maintain creativity and to keep getting better as a designer and to keep learning. I feel like I’ve learned a lot, but I still have so much more to go,” Burnworth said. “ I’m just in a really fun spot.”