Pub-type restaurant to open in Doko Depot

Doko Depot

BLYTHEWOOD – In a special called Town Council meeting Monday evening, it was announced that the owners of the Old Mill Brew Pub in Lexington will be leasing half of the Doko Depot building for a similar restaurant to open under the name of Doko Station.

“I’m very excited about the restaurant,” the Town’s economic development consultant said. “It will offer a full menu including salads, sandwiches, steaks and a number of craft beers.”

The other half of the building will house Don Russo’s Freeway Music, Jeff Wheeler of Wheeler & Wheeler, LLC, a Columbia development company, told Council. It was also announced that Russo will now be purchasing the building, not Wheeler & Wheeler, who signed a contract with the Town last December to purchase the building for $325,000.

By late January 2018, Wheeler asked for and was granted a more favorable earnest money arrangement and an extension on the purchase contract. At the same time, Freeway Music owner, Don Russo, told The Voice in an exclusive interview that he planned to lease the building from Wheeler and Wheeler. That extension ended last month without a closing.

On Monday night Wheeler appeared before Council to ask for an additional 90-day extension of the contract and for Council’s approval of an assignment of Wheeler & Wheeler’s interest in the contract to Russo’s company, Blythewood Depot Property, LLC.

Council voted unanimously to approve the assignment and to extend the inspection period of the contract for 90 days.

“I don’t expect it to take nearly that long,” Mayor J. Michael Ross told council members. “But I don’t want to have to come back and approve another extension.”

The Doko Station restaurant is expected to open in about three months, Wheeler said.