starters | comings & goings
comings & goings
BY RON MIKULAK
The local restaurant scene continues to be on a tear. In this issue, F&D is listing 30 restaurants that have opened in the last three months (or are scheduled to open by the fall) – 23 new concepts and seven new locations for businesses that have decided now is the time to open additional outlets. That number lopsidedly contrasts with only 14 restaurants that have closed their doors – eight of which were stand-alone businesses, the others multi-location businesses that have shuttered one of their outlets. How long such continued growth can be sustained is anyone’s guess. But, for the moment, there are more choices than ever for your dining dollars.
NEW TABLES Two very familiar names on the local scene have opened new businesses, both taking tacks different from their previous courses. Fernando Martinez and his Olé Restaurant Group continue to demand attention, this time with their transformation of the longtime Joe’s Older Than Dirt property in Lyndon into Red Barn Kitchen, a not-your-usual barbecue and fried chicken spot at 8131 New La Grange Rd. with Chef Reed Johnson at the helm in the kitchen. Kevin Grangier, who didn’t take long to recover his energies after opening the over-the-top Le Moo, has returned to his Anchorage base by opening Kevin’s PICNIC, a casual eat-in and take-out restaurant at 11505 Park Rd., near his flagship Village Anchor Pub. Some other familiar faces have also started new ventures. Darnell Ferguson’s new Highlands iteration of SuperChefs shows he pretty much has earned that soubriquet, and Bobby Hancock and his wife, Kit Garrett, co-owners of Blue Dog Bakery and Café, are finally ready to open their long-awaited butcher shop and café, Red Hog. Ferguson, who had made a name for himself at a series of pop-up breakfast spots, had been in his first stand alone restaurant in St. Matthews for less than a year before a fire burned out the business. His big personality (and his supersized dishes named after comic superheroes) earned him some national attention and support, which has enabled him to re-open SuperChefs at 1702 Bardstown Rd., in the little restaurant row that also harbors Tom+Chee and Sapporo. He and his staff change the interior decor from celebrating superheroes during the day to recognizing their super-villain foes at DINNER, the evening identity of his restaurant. Hancock has been busy raising heritage hogs and studying the fine art of sausage-making and charcuterie for several years, and has been renovating a Crescent Hill service station
Red Barn Kitchen’s fried chicken
at 2622 Frankfort Ave. for about a year. He is now ready to open Red Hog in late August as a café/salumeria/butcher shop, where he will serve sandwiches, sausages and other preserved meat dishes to eat in or on the patio, and sell his own pork, and beef and lamb raised by other local farmers. One other veteran of the local scene is back with a new restaurant. Matt Davis, whose Lil Cheezers concept had its ups and downs, has renovated a corner space in Old Louisville at 1161 S. Second St. for his Slice, a high-concept deli that has hit the ground running. Seven new restaurants are serving ethnic food of one kind or another, but one of them, Pho Ba Luu, situated in a sharply remodeled truck garage at Continued on page 8
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Fall 2016
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