A new restaurant is renovating a historic downtown Danville building with a specific look and memory in mind to lure diners.
“We want it to feel as if you’re walking into grandma’s house for dinner,” said Rick Cassidy, who along with his wife Samantha, is opening Margie at 314 W Main St.
The new Central Kentucky restaurant will open the first week of November after extensive renovations to the building built in 1850. Margie is named in honor of Rick Cassidy’s grandmother who recently died, whom he says was rooted in the kind of hospitality that makes you feel known, cared for and at home.
For several months they have been busy transforming the former Bluegrass Pizza and Pub space into a neighborhood restaurant rooted in family, hospitality and thoughtful chef-driven food.
“I call it approachable higher-end dining,” said Cassidy, who has been a chef for 20-plus years but transitioned to teaching culinary skills when he and his wife moved to Kentucky from Indianapolis after COVID.
For the 90-seat restaurant, the couple put in all-new flooring, replaced all the light fixtures, took out some booths, added a private dining room and renovated the bar. But to truly make it feel like you’re visiting grandma, they constructed a house with a patio stoop and porch lights just off the dining room.
Inside the small house is Margie’s pasta room, where they plan to make homemade pasta for their menu and retail shop, NoodleCraft, which for the past three years did catering and cooking classes.
Rick and Samantha Cassidy plan to open their restaurant named for his grandmother, Margie, after renovating the historic downtown Danville building. “We’re gonna make this look like coming into your grandma’s kitchen,” sad Rick. The restaurant will feature a pasta room where diners can see homemade pasta being made for the restaurant and retail sales. Photographed Monday, Aug. 31, 2026 at Margie restaurant in Danville, Ky. Brian Simms bsimms@herald-leader.com What’s going to be on the menu at Margie’s?
Despite having pasta made in-house, Cassidy says they are not an Italian restaurant.
“I’m an Italian American, so I wanted a fresh pasta aspect of it,” said Cassidy. “But we wanted to be globally represented in regional food. I also am a huge, huge proponent of local food. So all of our produce, all of our meat, pretty much anything that we can get our hands on is going to be sourced within 30 miles of the restaurant.”
Cassidy says the seasonal menu will be “new American style cooking” while incorporating Italian, Kentucky and Appalachian ingredients.
“We really want to do the seasonality and the produce of Kentucky justice, and cooking that way makes sense to me,” said Cassidy.
Margie, a new restaurant is opening the first week of November at 314 W Main St. in downtown Danville at the former Bluegrass Pizza and Pub, which closed in 2025. Chef and co-owner Rick Cassidy says the menu will be “very thoughtfully put together and intentionally cooked.” Brian Simms bsimms@herald-leader.com
The couple plans to have long-fermented dough for wood fired pizzas from its Neapolitan style oven. Cassidy says the menu will have small plates ($10-$16), pizza and pasta ($20) and entrées of local proteins and seasonal produce ($25-$35).
“There’s some really good restaurants around here,” said Cassidy. “But we have our chain restaurant area, we have some independent stuff, but niche-wise, there’s not really a chef-driven place around here that focuses on the local meat, local produce, a changing menu seasonally. So we really wanted to bring that to the area.”
Margie
Where: Downtown Danville, 314 W Main St.
Reservations: Being accepted for Nov. 8 and beyond at margieky.com
Hours: Retail opens at 11 a.m.; Dinner service starts at 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday; will expand with lunch and brunch hours after opening
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Brian Simms
Lexington Herald-Leader
Brian Simms has been with the Herald-Leader for 20-plus years, most recently reporting and editing coverage of restaurants, bars, food and bourbon. He is also a photographer and manages the newspapers photo archive that dates back to the late 1930s.
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Dining and Cooking