Look back at the ‘Ho’: How a greasy spoon became a hub of UK campus life for 50+ years
Ever wonder how Tolly-Ho became the go-to place for University of Kentucky college students and professors alike?
Here’s a little history of the restaurant, which apparently will be making its fourth relocation later this year.
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According to a remodeling permit filed with the city, the restaurant will be moving to 350 Foreman Ave., in the former Bad Wolf Burgers spot, later this year.
The University of Kentucky board approved a plan to purchase the existing location at 606 S. Broadway, formerly Hart’s Dry Cleaning, for $2.3 million in February.
Lexington’s Tolly-Ho has served generations of UK students. Share your memories with us
The first Tolly-Ho
The restaurant opened in November 1971 at 108 W. Euclid Ave. (now Winslow Street, a one-way stub off Euclid that stretches between Limestone and Upper streets) and the nearly 24-hour (closed between 3 a.m. Sunday and 6 a.m. Monday) greasy spoon thrived there, serving cheap eats. This had been a restaurant spot for generations of UK students, variously Benny’s Place, the Little House of Pancakes and Howell’s Dairy Dip.
Tolly-Ho served a breakfast of two eggs, toast and jelly for 99 cents (the same breakfast was 39 cents the year the restaurant opened). But the most popular item was the quarter-pound burger, the Tolly, which outsold everything else on the menu.
Founded by Bob Tolley and Bob Hollopeter (the Tolly and the Ho in the name), the original location was open until May 11, 1985. (Well, technically May 12 because it closed at 3 a.m.)
At the time, it seemed like the end of an era because nobody knew if Tolly-Ho would be back or not.
As Herald-Leader columnist Don Edwards put it, “A block and a half east, the University of Kentucky Class of ‘85 was graduating, but there was a different kind of final ceremony beginning yesterday afternoon at the Tolly-Ho Restaurant, 108 West Euclid Avenue.”
Edwards described it as “where Greeks and freaks alike congregated, where you went at 2 a.m. when you had an attack of the munchies, where paper coffee cups left damp rings on Cliff Notes, and where pinball wizards showed their skill.”
Hollopeter famously took checks and even sometimes gave credit, and tolerated the more unusual characters who dropped in at all hours.
People like Everett the Kleptomaniac: “One time about 3 o’clock in the morning, Everett showed up with these 2-foot-long basketball shoes. So they checked at the Wildcat Lodge, and it turned out he’d stolen (UK basketball player) Sam Bowie’s shoes,” Tolly-Ho regular Sam Mason told Edwards.
The South Limestone Tolly-Ho
Hollopeter, known as “Papa Ho,” moved the restaurant around the corner to 395 S. Limestone, where it reopened in May 1987.
Once again, HL columnist Edwards was on hand, along with about 150 others, to welcome Tolly-Ho back to campus.
Although it wasn’t quite the same, the new larger, somewhat more upscale version kept the same menu of mostly fried food, including the “garbage omelet” and the Tolly cheeseburger.
Hollopeter even agreed to let back anyone who had been barred for bad checks at the old Ho, Edwards wrote.
The restaurant specialized in hangover food, or sometimes even still-drunk food, with a side of occasional after-bar brawl.
When Hollopeter retired in 1991, he sold the restaurant to Roy Milling.
“I liked the restaurant, so I bought it,” Milling, then 35, told the Herald-Leader in 1998. He liked the personality of the place, he said.
Where else, he asked, can customers find good food, cheap prices and a free-wheeling atmosphere but Tolly-Ho?
“The atmosphere, it’s hard to describe. The best I can think of is you can come in and lay back, no matter the condition,” Milling said.
Anybody who’s hungry or who just wants to listen to some music and have a good time can come in, said Milling, who worked the graveyard shift at the time.
On Limestone, Tolly-Ho served burgers like the Super-Ho, the Mega-Ho and the Big Tolly as well as sandwiches, breakfast, milkshakes and limeade.
First-timers, known as Ho Virgins, were celebrated and announced via shouts at the counter.
Like most restaurants of the era, many patrons and employees smoked and Tolly-Ho was known for its semi-permanent cloud of cigarette smoke hovering in the dining room.
In 2003, well before the rest of the city, Tolly-Ho went smoke-free and closed for 11 days in December to clean years of nicotine stains and repaint the walls.
Because the restaurant was open pretty much around the clock, it was common to see a mix of students, police officers and hospital workers in the early morning hours, giving way to professors and professionals coming in for breakfast when the sun came up.
The current Tolly-Ho
In 2010, the restaurant owner bought the former Hart’s Dry Cleaning building at 606 S. Broadway.
The restaurant officially moved in 2011 and made every effort to take the atmosphere (minus any lingering cigarette smoke) with it to the new location.
“When you walk into our current building, you’ll see the same counter and the same wood walls. You’ll see the familiar paddles but the new reversed layout of the building. But when you walk in it still FEELS like Tolly-Ho,” the restaurant said on its website. “You feel comfortable in a business suit, a prom gown, or all sweaty in your running shoes straight from the 5k. And the new location is a quick 3-minute walk from the old location and most importantly – we have 15 TIMES MORE PARKING!!!”
The South Broadway spot opened in May 2022, completely with a Wildcat blue awning that says, “A UK Tradition since 1971.”
