Franco’s Restaurant & Catering
Louisville approved $173,000 to put a LongHorn on Dixie Highway. Further north on the same road, a family has been serving smothered pork chops in the $11 to $12 range since 2009.
Frank Foster opened Jay’s Cafeteria in 1974, and it closed in 2005. Four years later his son Domanic opened Franco’s out on Dixie Highway. It works the way a cafeteria works. You push a tray past collards, cabbage, mac and cheese, green beans and cornbread, point at what you want, and leave at $11 to $12. It sits at 4.4 stars, and half this city has driven past the sign without once pulling in.
A Louisville cooking lineage still running a tray line on a road the city just spent $293,000 recruiting chains onto.
Smothered pork chops, collards and mac and cheese on the side. Then the cobbler you told yourself you weren’t getting.
Closed Mondays. Their own ordering page lists 11am to 7pm Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 8 Friday and Saturday, 11am to 7 Sunday. Catering is the family’s other business, so call (502) 448-8044 ahead for a pan of anything.
3300 Dixie Hwy #5014, Louisville, KY 40216 · Website →
Country-fried steak at Christi’s Cafe, Valley Station
Country-fried steak at Christi’s Cafe, 12810 Dixie Highway in Valley Station, open 7am to 9pm. Get there before 11 if you want a table without standing for it.
Magnolia Bakery
Opening Tuesday, August 18
Bleecker Street banana pudding, now on East Market
The banana pudding gets here Tuesday. Magnolia Bakery, the Bleecker Street shop that turned a tub of vanilla wafers and custard into a tourist itinerary, opens inside The Zen at 620 E. Market on Aug. 18, run by Louisville native Alex Nessenthaler, the first franchisee in Kentucky and only the second in the country. That is the quieter story: national names are reaching Louisville through people who grew up here.
Banana pudding, vanilla wafers gone soft in the custard, by the cup or the tub. It is the only reason anyone has ever stood in that line, and there will be a line on day one.
1pm and 3pm
Tour & Taste
The only place in the United States aging soy sauce in bourbon barrels, in a Butchertown microbrewery using Japanese methods and Kentucky wood. The tour walks the brewery and the smokehouse and ends in a tasting of the Bluegrass Soy Sauce line and the smoked spices. Book through their Tock page.
@ Bourbon Barrel Foods, 1201 Story Ave, Butchertown
August 15
5pm to 10pm
Watch Hill Proper’s American Whiskey Festival
Forty-plus distilleries and wineries pouring in a village square, and walking in costs nothing: the courtyard, live music, food trucks and vendor market are free and all ages. Sixty dollars gets you into the shaded whiskey and wine garden with unlimited samples. Fourth year they have run it.
@ North Village Square, Norton Commons
- The receipt, line by line: Louisville’s new $1M Dixie Highway Restaurant Incentive Fund made its first four awards, and $293,000 of it went to LongHorn Steakhouse ($173,000, 7401 Dixie), Freddy’s ($75,000, 8700 Dixie) and Crumbl Cookies ($45,000, 10970 Dixie). The fourth went to Derby City Pizza at 12900 Dixie, the only local name on the list. Every one of those numbers has been sitting on the city’s own website since February. Nobody bothered to add them up.
- The number underneath all of it: Dare to Care counts 203,770 people across its service area as food insecure, the highest figure in the food bank’s history, and St. Vincent de Paul says pantry demand is up 40%. Which room your dining dollar lands in has never mattered more than it does this month: https://daretocare.org
- Put it in the calendar now: Louisville Wing Week runs Sept 8 to 14, specialty wings at $8 to $10, with an app to map the crawl: https://wingweeklouisville.com/
One stop on Dixie Highway. Which tray are you carrying out?