Stanley Demos, former owner of Lexington fine-dining restaurant Coach House, has died

Stanley Demos, a man virtually synonymous with fine dining in Lexington for generations, has died.

Tootsie Demos Nelson said her father died Aug. 26 in his home in Sarasota, Fla. He was 104. Actually, Demos was 104 and a half, having celebrated his half-birthday in July.

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Demos was known for establishing the Coach House Restaurant on South Broadway as the epitome of elegant dining in Lexington opening in 1969, serving movers and shakers, as well as ordinary Kentuckians out for a special, fancy celebration. He served a continental menu featured largely French cuisine, with some Greek offerings and Italian pasta dishes.

Lunch was “like watching a guided tour of who’s who in the Bluegrass,” according to Herald-Leader columnist Don Edwards.

Cooking show on WKYT, food column in Herald-Leader

Demos also wrote a food column for the Lexington Herald-Leader and hosted a cooking show on WKYT-TV, sharing recipes including his famous Crabe Demos, which was featured in the Herald-Leader’s Taste of the Past recipe series in 2022 .

In 1973, Demos was elected a Commissioner of Fayette County, a position he held for eight years.

Born in 1920 in Bulgaria to Greek parents, Stanley John Demos moved with his family back to Greece in 1925. He learned baking in a pastry shop in Athens and in 1938 emigrated to the U.S., where he joined an uncle and other relatives in Cincinnati. One of his first jobs was as a glass boy earning $3 a day at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate (the site many years later of one of the deadliest fires in history, killing 165 people on May 28, 1977.)

In 1941, Demos joined the Army and was sent to Fort Knox for basic training. He was assigned to the Hospital Food Service Division and shipped to France.

“He was more proud of his military career than any restaurant achievement,” Nelson said.

After the war, he returned to Cincinnati, where he became maitre d’ at the well-known Maisonette Restaurant . He began writing a column on gourmet food for the Cincinnati Enquirer and hosted a TV show there. He wrote his cookbook, “Stanley Suggests Gourmet Menus,” taught cooking classes and created a salad dressing line.

Operated Lexington’s Coach House for 20 years

In 1964, he was recruited to come to Lexington as food service director at the new Imperial House Hotel. Five years later, he purchased the Coach House Restaurant, which he ran until he retired in 1989. The Coach House Restaurant received many restaurant honors and Demos was considered the ultimate host, presiding over power lunches and dinners, surrounded by fresh flowers, oil painting and chandeliers.

“We brought a continental style and things rather different to Lexington back then,” Demos told Edwards in 2001. “Frog legs, (animal) sweetbreads, chateaubriand. A wine steward. April and October were our biggest months. We would do 300 for dinner, at 5, 7 and 9 (p.m.). That was a lot for a place the size of the Coach House.

“We had a local following and an international following. Customers from England, Ireland, France came to the horse sales. We had tobacco buyers from Japan. ... That’s what I miss most, you know — the people.”

In 1988, Demos’ daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth “Tootsie” and Sam Nelson, bought the Coach House and updated the menu and the decor.

In 1991, The Coach House was inducted into the National Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame.

Demos moved to Florida but he ran the place occasionally, until it sold in 1992 to John Dupuy III, who closed the doors in 2001. The building was torn down in 2013 and is now the site of a Cookout hamburger restaurant.

Demos is survived by his son, Dr. Jon Demos, of Sarasota, and his daughter, Elizabeth “Tootsie” Nelson, also of Sarasota. Arrangements are pending with Milward Funeral Home in Lexington.

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