I’m here, all alone, so consider the following a commentary.
Yesterday afternoon, news began making the rounds that Goodwood Brewing & Spirits had closed its two downtown Louisville locations (on Whiskey Row, and at the beer corner of Main and Clay), and maybe the others elsewhere, too, although very little about the situation is clear.
That’s because I’m using the word “news” at its most elemental and informal. This isn’t to say that we should ignore workers who take to social media groups to report the closing, having gone to work and read the sign taped to the door, and now abruptly find themselves unemployed.
They’re the front line and the shop floor. So are the vendors, the musicians, the weekly trivia administrators, and maybe even those area fan clubs devoted to Goodwood’s beer, even if there is no evidence of the latter’s existence (ever).
Various other interested parties appeared at Reddit to commence the discussion chain, and that’s where it gets interesting, at least to me, because a great many individuals know bits of the story, which has yet to be assembled into a coherent whole.
And THAT is what actual trained journalists have done through the years, less so now, because who needs to be lectured about what just happened when they can see it with their own eyes, right there on Facebook and X?
Aargh. I just wasn’t made for these times.
It’s also what the savviest business persons do when they advance news proactively, ahead of the inevitable distortions of social media, by releasing statements and “owning” their message.
Of course, when the “good news” section of Goodwood’s web site hasn’t been updated since 2023, I may be asking far too much of them.
The sub-thread to whatever did or didn’t happen with Goodwood yesterday is that the two locations are being acquired by Doc Crow’s, or specifically (and presumably — remember, there has not been an official utterance) by the parent company of Doc Crow’s, Nashville’s Bertuca Hospitality Group.
(If you’re saying to yourself, but Roger, just go out there, be Pablo Torre, and find out…well, that’s not the nature of my job, assuming I still have one. This is another story for another time, and a chronicle of my own depression.)
I’d venture to say there is almost no chance that a prospective new owner would run Goodwood precisely the same way, if at all. There would...Read more
