01/23/2026
SOMERSET - Darlene Rayburn, 81, says her fondest memories aren’t of graduations, weddings, or careers—but of holding court at the Continental Inn hotel lounge in Lexington during the 1970s.
“Those were the golden years,” Darlene sighed, sipping a martini and flipping through a photo album filled with mustaches and polyester. “Back then, men were classy. They wore slacks, opened doors, and called you ‘darlin’ without sounding sarcastic.”
Known by regulars as the “Queen of the Continental,” Darlene says she never paid for her own drink, danced five nights a week, and once slow-danced with a man who claimed to own a bowling alley in Cincinnati.
“Nowadays it’s much different,” she said with a shrug. “Nobody slow dances to Engelbert Humperdinck anymore. Tragic.”
She still has the stilettos. And the sass.
This is a developing story.
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