Lexington restaurant serves up gourmet food, craft beer

Since graduating from Johnson and Wales in Charleston, Brian Nelson has been cooking and preparing gourmet food for more than 17 years in notable South Carolina restaurants, including several in Charleston and the Palmetto Club in Columbia.

Now, Nelson, his wife, Natalie, and their business partner Jeff Woodruff want folks to know Nelson is still serving up his original, popular dishes for lunch and dinner – at Keg Cowboy on Main Street in downtown Lexington.

Though the name of the nearly 6-year-old establishment may hint that it’s just a bar, it’s become much more with Nelson in the kitchen for the past two years.

“Our menu changes constantly because we’re working with locally sourced food as much as possible and 90 percent of what we make is made in-house,” Nelson said.

That includes the restaurant’s crusty bread, pulled mozzarella, cured bacon and the chicken stock used as the base in numerous dishes. That constantly updated menu includes dishes you wouldn’t expect to find at a restaurant tucked away in downtown Lexington.

“One of our most popular items is the SOS Plate,” Nelson said. “It’s duck confit in a thyme cream sauce, with toast and a fried egg.”

Other popular menu favorites are the paninis – including a beef panini made with smoked flank steak, cheddar balsamic mushrooms and “horsey-mayo” on house-made focaccia.

But make no mistake, Keg Cowboy also serves unique craft beers with 12 rotating on tap, many brewed in South Carolina.

“We don’t have basic domestic beers; we have some you’ve probably never tasted before, in fact,” said Natalie, who works as the bar manager. “I like for folks to come in and experience something they haven’t before. You’re not going to find Bud Light or Miller Light here.”

In fact, the Nelsons have worked with Holy City Brewery in North Charleston to create a Julbocken beer – one with a 10.6 ABV barleywine and spiced with cinnamon, cloves, star anise and a plethora of other secret ingredients – that is served only at Keg Cowboy.

How did Keg Cowboy get its start?

Before moving to Lexington in 2010, Woodruff, also a commercial real estate agent, and his family lived in Houston, where he started Keg Cowboy as an online beer-brewing store selling draft equipment and kegerators.

After arriving in the Midlands, Woodruff decided he wanted to expand his business to include an actual brick-and-mortar location with a bar and, eventually, a restaurant. Now, Keg Cowboy is one of a small handful of places in South Carolina where homebrewers can buy their ingredients, supplies and equipment – and enjoy a cold beverage and hot gourmet meal at the same time.

What does the place look like?

Woodruff and the Nelsons have worked hard to preserve Keg Cowboy’s home, a 100-year-old building at 108 E. Main St. in Lexington. Inside are exposed brick walls and duct work, wooden floors and reclaimed galvanized metal. In addition to ample group and small-party seating at and around the bar, cozy couches flank the sides, while large circular tables in the front windows offer a view of Main Street.

What else?

Keg Cowboy welcomes art from Midlands-area artists and displays a variety of it just inside the front doors. Customers are welcome to purchase the art, with 100 percent of the sale going to the artists.

Who eats here?

“We have such a wide variety of customers,” Nelson said. “There’s nights you can look out from the bar and see there’s an old couple playing backgammon over there, five guys in business suits having a power meeting over here and three hipsters up in the window playing Jenga. It’s an eclectic group.”

It’s also what the Nelsons call “a mature group,” not in terms of age but in terms of a more sophisticated, yet not pretentious, palate.

“People who come here are foodies and they’re beer geeks,” Natalie said. “And we can satisfy their needs.”

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Lexington restaurant serves up gourmet food, craft beer."