Imagine a restaurant being so well known that it refrains from including a street address in its Facebook listing. Bristol Bar & Grill’s exact whereabouts are shown at its web site: 1321 Bardstown Rd., which in Louisville-speak means the Highlands. We’ve all known this for years, right? They’re almost synonymous.
However, in terms of Louisville’s officially delineated historic neighborhoods, for almost a half-century the Bristol has been situated in Cherokee Triangle, on the north side of Bardstown Rd., facing Tyler Park on the south side, and not in the Original Highlands per se.
No one cares, and I accept this even though contrarianism always brings me great personal pleasure.
Most often the Highlands exists as a positive attribute in the popular imagination of Louisvillians, right up until it doesn’t, and during the past few years, as socio-economic shifts have occurred and arguments have raged about whether the Highlands can ever again be what it used to be, these debates suffer from the topic’s amorphous geographical existence.
Exactly where are we talking about, anyway? No one says, “Tyler Park sucks nowadays,” or “no one goes to Bonnycastle any more.”
We’d be better off indulging an earnest discussion of whether the institution of Airb-n-b hurts or helps matters in such instances, but at any rate, perhaps there can be agreement that Bristol Bar & Grill was one of the earliest and most famous proponents of Highlands-ism.
A Louisville Original and local favorite. Three area locations with on premise banquet rooms and off premise catering facility. Lunch and dinner daily with a Best of Louisville award winning Sunday brunch, full bar service with an excellent choice of wines by the glass or bottle. Kentucky Proud menu options and our world famous Bristol green chili wontons. Member of Kentucky Restaurant Association, Louisville Originals and The Urban Bourbon Trail (Downtown only). Proud supporter of the Louisville Arts scene.
McSorley’s Old Ale House in New York City may or may not have been founded in 1854. Abe Lincoln is reported to have consumed a pint there following a speech in 1860. We cannot know for sure about the Civil War era, but 48 years in Louisville is a long time, and the Bristol stood for something that many of us were seeking long before we understood much of anything about modern dining and drinking, as opposed to fast food and...Read more
