Owner Rob Ramsey opened Lexington’s first Ramsey’s, at the corner of High and Woodland Avenue, in the spring of 1989. That location spun off a Missy’s Pies next door (which recently relocated across the street), a Ramsey’s on Tates Creek, one in Andover, another on old Harrodsburg Road, and one in north Lexington in the Bryan Station plaza which closed amid some angry neighborhood buzz.
Almost as famous for their two-for-one happy hours and the dollar beers rung in when the neighboring fire station dispatched its trucks and sounded the sirens, it has been almost 25 years since the original Ramsey’s served its first meat-and-three at that corner. Countless hot browns, all-day breakfasts, and fried green tomatoes later, the location will serve its last meal at that location on Monday, January 20, on the Martin Luther King holiday. The mismatched furniture and dinnerware (at first necessitated by a shoestring budget, but later iconic) will be packed up and relocated.
For nearly two and a half decades, the location universally described as “a Lexington institution,” has sturdily served up reliably fried southern style comfort food in a popular neighborhood setting, topped off with award-winning pie. One fan described their infamous hot brown on Yelp: “it’s an open faced turkey and ham sandwich with 67 pounds of cheese on it, and it’s perfection.”
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