The North Limestone space formerly occupied by a la Lucie is now home to Minglewood, a modern, casual bar, restaurant and live music venue.
Owners Trish Tungate and John Tresaloni are no strangers to the food and beverage industry. For the past two decades, they have worked for and owned several local establishments. Tungate most recently owned The Dish, a fine dining restaurant formerly in Chevy Chase. Tresaloni is former owner of The Fishtank (now closed) and current owner of the Woodland Avenue music venue Cosmic Charlie’s.
The couple, both Lexington natives and lifetime music fans, has been searching for an opportunity to open a restaurant together after Tungate closed The Dish in 2014. Since then, they’ve spent much of their free time traveling, seeing their favorite bands and dreaming about the perfect bar that combined great food, cocktails, and music under one roof. After considering several spaces, they signed a lease on the former Merit Furniture Building at 155 N. Limestone but soon realized that installing a commercial range hood was too time consuming and costly. The landlord, Zeff Maloney, offered Tungate and Tresaloni the corner space instead, at 159 N. Limestone, and they immediately agreed.
Working with interior designer Anita Sexton, they transformed the 1905 building — restoring the original floors and tin ceiling. Lucie’s dark green walls, red ceiling, animal print carpet and cabaret style décor has been replaced with shades of fresh mint, exposed brick walls, a sleek granite bar, retro-modern light fixtures from Kentucky Lighting, open booths that the couple upholstered themselves with fabric from Interior Yardage, and a pair of sunny window nooks lined with potted herbs that are used in recipes. Patio seating is available, and on weekends, the back of the restaurant doubles as a stage.
The menu, primarily created by Tungate, is a combination of global flavors and American classics, each with a distinctive and flavorful twist. Many of the dishes are inspired by their travels to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.
“While we were on these trips, we started collecting ideas for plates and drinks that we could put our spin on and bring home to share with everyone,” explained Tungate.
Sharable snacks include the “I’m High on Cheese” platter (said Tungate: “I overheard someone say that at a String Cheese [Incident] show,”) a generous portion of smoked cheddar and parmesan pimento cheese with pickled jalapeños and grilled bread; “Hummus A Tune,” roasted garlic hummus with grilled chips and veggies; and “Wild Turkey Sloppy Joes,” ground turkey sliders with sweet and spicy Wild Turkey sauce, house made pickles and hand-cut fries.
“The whole idea behind this concept is that it’s the perfect niche for this area,” said Tresaloni. “You have Sidebar a few doors down, serving bar food and beers, and you have La Deauville and Distilled on the other side, which are more high-end, white tablecloth-type places. So we are right in the middle, price-wise and location-wise.”
For lunch and dinner, diners have several options, from Sriracha Shrimp Tacos with cucumber sour cream and collard green kimchi (a bestseller), to “Tico Chicken,” fried chicken over wilted greens with Costa Rican giardiniera. Other popular dishes include Caribbean jerk pork sliders with spicy black beans and pineapple salsa, and the Noli Burger, piled with melted Brie, bacon, and bourbon orange marmalade. Prices range from $8 to $14.
Local beer and a variety of wines are also available, along with a creative seasonal cocktail list including a watermelon jalapeño mojito; the “George Jefferson,” pepperoncini washed ice, Chopin, and olive juice served with a garlic stuff ed olive; and the “Sunshine Daydream,” a summery mix of vodka, grapefruit juice and champagne with a hint of lavender.
Tungate said the menu and hours will expand in time, and they plan to add Sunday brunch and a trivia night in the fall. But so far, they said, the response has been positive. During their soft opening on the weekend of June 17, over 200 customers wandered in.
“When we opened, we had five items on the menu,” she said. “On the first day, a customer was raving about the food and service asked how long we’d been open. I said, ‘About three hours.’ We thought that was pretty great.”
Minglewood is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The restaurant reopens for dinner from 5 p.m. to midnight Tuesday through Thursday, and from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. on weekends. Live local music starts at 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.