Pretty Decent is a new and quite unique combination cocktail bar and plant shop in Clifton. Opening day was April 12 at 2235 Frankfort Avenue, Suite 107. John and Jeanne Douglass are the owners, and they sent F&D a clear and well written information release. There’s no sense in paraphrasing this release when we can allow John and Jeanne to tell their own story. Besides that, they had me with “mezcal” (see below).
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The front half of Pretty Decent is a plant shop offering house plants, containers, home gardening tools and a potting bar. The shop also sells candles and other home goods plus a small selection of wine for carry-out.
The cocktail bar is described by ownership as “a love letter to the clear sprits of Latin and South America and the drinking cultures of places like Lima, Oaxaca, Havana and Mexico City” and features a well-curated selection of tequila, mezcal, rum and pisco.
The Pretty Decent space is bright, airy and sunny with 20-foot ceilings and a soft color scheme. The cocktail bar was built to resemble a home kitchen rather than a dark tavern, with a counter-height bartop and a bright tiled back bar.
“A common refrain in hospitality is that this work involves extending the same warm welcome in a bar or restaurant that you would give guests in your home. We created a physical space that extends that analogy by making the bar look like a home,” says co-owner John Douglass, a thirty-plus year hospitality industry professional whose experience includes time managing operations for Hyatt Hotels in Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle and who managed the beverage program of four Michelin-rated restaurants in Chicago.
“Our philosophy is that bartending is 90% hospitality. Making sure people leave feeling better than they felt coming in is our goal,” says John.
Both the Pretty Decent bar program and plant shop offerings are sourced as much as possible from family-owned small businesses. The plant shop element is managed by co-owner Jeanne Douglass, a Kentucky Master Gardener and avid Plant Mom. Jeanne spent significant time traveling Kentucky connecting with small-scale plant propagators so that Pretty Decent offers a selection with as local a pedigree as possible, while supporting independent producers.
The same ethos applies to the bar program. John diligently pursued producers and importers of the world’s most in-demand mezcal labels while working with local distributors to introduce those spirits to Kentucky. As a result of John driving the distribution of these spirits to Kentucky, the back bar at Pretty Decent offers one of the finest selections of agave spirits in the United States.
Pretty Decent offers a small selection of cold bar snacks influenced by the Douglasses’ travels in Oaxaca, with plans to expand the food program in the near future.
The Pretty Decent bar is open from 4:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. nightly (except Tuesday, when Pretty Decent is closed), and opens on Saturday and Sunday at noon with a separate “Day Drinkin’” menu. The plant shop is open from noon until the bar closes.
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Previously at F&D:
