Here is the text from Dundee Tavern’s announcement at Facebook last week.
🎉🎉 ANNOUNCEMENT 🎉🍕 Good News!!🍕
Dundee Tavern is announcing we are becoming the 10th location of Derby City Pizza in the Greater Louisville area. We will change our name, products, services to those of Derby City Pizza.
Dundee Tavern has long served the community of The Highlands but we feel this change will be an overall positive impact to the neighborhood. Derby City Pizza’s “Family Spoken Here” commitment will greet and serve you every time you come in.
Our last day in operation as Dundee Tavern will be May 4, 2024. We are committed to serving our loyal community and look forward to enjoying your company for the long haul.
Stay tuned for details in the near future.
EDIT: left out important information. We all know due to high overhead and rising food costs restaurant business is difficult. We had to make a tough decision to move in a different direction. The current business model was not working. These financial decisions are critical for survival. This was not a decision taken lightly and your current staff will still be working. We will still be family oriented atmosphere with your local owners but we had to simplify this business. This is the world we live in.
Strictly speaking, Dundee Tavern (2224 Dundee Road) is located in the Belknap neighborhood, though Deer Park is only a block away. Across Bardstown Rd. is Highlands Douglass, and since most people refer to the general vicinity as the Highlands, I’ll be following suit.
Writing at Louisville Business First, Michael L. Jones dives into this rare instance of everything changing at an establishment even as it remains largely the same. The net result is another outpost of Derby City Pizza, and the disappearance of a neighborhood name that dates back to the mid-1990s.
Dundee Tavern will close at the conclusion of business on Derby Day (May 4), and then the refit will get under way, with the summer reopening date yet to be announced.
Dundee Tavern to transition into the tenth Derby City Pizza location this summer
Missy Webb, co-owner of Dundee Tavern, said she made the decision to change the concept at Dundee Tavern because food sales are down by nearly $40,000 this year compared to April 2023, when she and partner Taylor Ferry took over the business.
Webb said she approached Larry Davis, owner of Derby City Pizza, about helping out with the Tavern location because she wanted to save the business and the jobs of her 20 employees.
“I decided to find a way to be a survivor in the situation and not just another failed business,” Webb said. “I know Larry. I made pizzas with Larry, when we were 15 years old. I think it is important too that Dundee stays under local ownership. I know people are worried about a big corporation coming in, but this is not what is happening.”
Webb told Jones that some of the tavern’s food items (like the Dundee Dip) will migrate to the new pizza menu.
