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Coba Cocina
After three years of operation at its multimillion-dollar, golden-domed building on Richmond Road, Coba Cocina, along with its complimentary concepts CoCoh! Confectioner and Cobar Cantina, has closed its doors.
Lee Greer, president of Greer Companies, which owns the restaurant, described it as the hardest day of his career.
“I was trying to really do something special for Lexington, and it breaks my heart that it didn’t work out,” Greer said.
The restaurant review website Tabelog had recently ranked the Coba, with its 18-foot-tall jellyfish tank centerpiece, as the second most beautiful restaurant in America, describing it as “a stand-out not only in Lexington, but in the restaurant community in general.”
In late 2014, the Greer Companies had also brought on board local chef Jonathan Lundy to rework and refresh the concept's Pan-American menu.
Greer said that although the restaurant was busy during peak dining hours, it required even more activity to support it, and the scale might have worked better if it were located in a larger city. Beyond that, he declined to conjecture on why it didn’t work out.
“There’s no excuses; it’s on me,” Greer said. “It didn’t work, unfortunately, and we’ll try again.”
The company is currently reviewing its options for the future of the building and the concepts, Greer said. He said it is possible that Coba could be reworked on a smaller scale in the future, but that has yet to be determined.
Greer said that breaking the news to Coba’s staff was particularly hard.
“It’s impossible to understand how difficult it is until you are doing it,” Greer said. “It’s really the people that made it so special. We love every one of them, and we hope to continue to work together.”
Greer said employees were notified of the restaurant's closure this morning and given severance packages, along with encouragement to apply at the Greer Companies’ other local restaurant concepts, which include Cheddar’s restaurants and the newly opened Willie’s Locally Known.
Coba gift cards will also be accepted at both Lexington Cheddar’s locations and Willie’s Locally Known.