New owners, few changes at the Lex

The Lexington, that bastion of St. Paul tradition, has changed hands. Remarkably, it's just the third owner in the restaurant's 76-year history.

St. Paulites and good friends Tim and Maria O'Phalen, John and Michelle Hickey and Ed and Jenni Ryan signed on the dotted line yesterday. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The group has a lot in common with now former owner Thomas Scallen, who bought the place in the late 1990s after a lifetime as a customer. Scallen, a longtime Twin Cities entertainment mogul (he's owned the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, the Harlem Globetrotters and the Ice Capades, among other properties) has been a fine steward of the place, following a keep-it-like-it-always-has business model, a wise strategy when your clientele views your establishment as their semi-private club.

The one change I can recall him making is adding the Cedric Adams sandwich to the menu, a tribute to the former Charlie's Cafe Exceptionale in Minneapolis and named for the late Minneapolis Tribune man-about-town columnist and WCCO Radio personality.

"There's just no place like the Lex," Scallen told me over dinner last week in the restaurant's ultra-charming Williamsburg Room, the Lex's clubby private event space that has probably hosted more St. Paul wakes, bachelor parties and first communion lunches than any other venue. I imagine that he'll miss it, although he's going to remain a customer, naturally.

The new ownership shares that same devotion.

"I've been going to the Lex for a long, long time," said Tim O'Phalen. "For all of us it has really been, 'Meet me at the Lex.'"

"It's good that there's so much pride and emotion tied up in the place," he said.

Still, in today's competitive restaurant environment, change is inevitable, "but we will always serve the Lex favorites, the chicken pot pie, the green bean appetizer, the walleye, the Lex salad," he said. "All of those true classics will remain on the menu."

The Lexington's fabulous chicken pot pie.

Look for "a phenomenal steak program, coming out of Omaha," O'Phalen said. And a few physical tweaks too. (I'll be curious about the summer months, when Grand and Selby Avenue restaurants fill their patios while the introverted Lex keeps its sidewalks table-free.)

"There's an entire second floor on the building, and it's vacant," he said. "We're working with the city, and the neighborhood, to extend the bar upstairs, and maybe create an events center."