The new Marikka's, which cost about $6 million to build, encompasses some 22,000 sq. feet, including three indoor volleyball courts, a 10,000 sq. foot beer hall, a restaurant, three outdoor volleyball courts and a private party space on the second floor. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
When Marikka’s Restaurant & Bier Stube first opened in early 1991, the owners saw that on slow nights there wasn’t a whole lot for the waitstaff to do.
So Doug Tackett Jr., who was 17 at the time and worked in the kitchen with his father, set off for Walmart, determined to bring back something that might relieve the boredom. He returned with a cheap volleyball net and a floodlight, which he used to string up a court on a grassy patch behind the restaurant.
Volleyball, Tackett recalled, seemed like “something fun anybody could do.”
Little did he know how right he was.
The sport soon caught on in Lexington, and Marikka’s found itself in the middle of a volleyball wave that spawned a bevy of leagues, putting ever-increasing demands on the restaurant’s modest volleyball accommodations.
Which may help explain why Tackett, 43, who co-owns Marikka’s with his parents, Doug Sr. and Marikka (the restaurant’s namesake), says the restaurant’s recent tear-down and rebuild was a move some “25 years in the making.”
“We’ve been wanting to go bigger ever since we bought the building,” Tackett said, recalling the days when the restaurant occupied just one of many storefronts in a Southland Drive roadside plaza. “We just had a feeling that it was the right time to do this. We’ve got a great customer base, and the demand continued to grow, so we saw that the need was there.” The new building, which spans 22,000- square-feet, reopened on March 5. The standalone building features a separate restaurant, a private dining room and a 10,000-square-foot beer hall, replete with all the amenities for which Marikka’s is known: dart boards, shuffleboard, foosball and pool tables.
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Erik Hagihara of Lexington played a round of pool at Marikka's with friends. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
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Marikka's increased the size of its beer refrigerators to accommodate the expansive list of imports and speciality bottled beers. Currently, the bar carries some 800 kinds of bottled beer, and Marikka's owners say that number will increase to 1,000 bottles soon. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
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Matt Harrellson of Lexington played darts with friends at Marikka's while they waited for a volleyball court to open up. The restaurant features three indoor volleyball courts, which are available for open play on Fridays and weekends. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
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The Ball family, hailing from Lexington and Louisville, met at Marikka's to enjoy a family dinner together. They said they're big fans of Marikka's goulash and colossal pretzels. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
“Just sitting there drinking can get old,” Tackett said. “People want to have something to do. So that’s why we’ve always had the games. You should never be bored when you come to our place.”
The new building also expands Marikka’s volleyball offerings. It includes room for six beach volleyball courts—three indoors and three outdoors—which will allow for the restaurant’s volleyball leagues to run year-round.
“People didn’t want to take the winter off,” said Morgan Middleton, who runs Marikka’s volleyball leagues.
Middleton said the restaurant now features a total of 14 leagues, comprising some 910 players and 188 teams. The restaurant recently switched to online league registration, which Middleton said is a welcome change from the old days when everything was done in-person at the restaurant.
The new Marikka's building features three indoor sand volleyball courts, permitting the restaurant's popular volleyball leagues to run year-round. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
“We had people taking off work and lining up an hour early to throw their registration at the bartenders just so they wouldn’t miss a spot,” Middleton said.
The Marikka’s building, which cost about $6 million, also expanded another one of the restaurant’s trademarks: its endless bottled beer selection. One of the first Lexington restaurants to sport a huge list of hard-to-find imports and microbrews, Marikka’s added even more refrigerators, driving up its number of bottled beers to 800—a number that will soon expand to 1,000 when all the vendors come through, Tackett said.
Patrons who get around to trying every beer in Marikka’s arsenal will not soon be forgotten: Their names get enshrined in the Beer Club, a memorial hanging above the dart boards that pays homage to the heartiest of hoisters.
The restaurant also plans to roll out its own home brews later this year.
Marikka's is one of the region's only German restaurants, serving up homemade sausage and other traditional dishes. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
As for the food—all traditional German recipes from Hanau, Germany, where Tackett’s mother grew up—not a lot has changed, he said. There are still all the dishes for which Marikka’s is known: homemade sausages, schnitzels, sauerbraten and sauerkraut, and they’re still cooked by the same people.
“There’s always a Tackett in the kitchen,” said Doug Tackett Jr. “It’s just something that’s hard for us to give up or relinquish.”
Now that the restaurant is open and its volleyball leagues are back in full force, Tackett said it’s good to be running his business again rather than watching from the sidelines.
“Thank God we’re back open,” he said. “Being down for a year was torture, both for us and a lot of others, evidently. The restaurant industry can be brutal, but we love it. And it’s kind of overwhelming when you find out how many people that you’re important to. So that makes us feel good—like we’re doing something right.”