The Spring 2025 issue of Food & Dining Magazine is now available in all the familiar places: Louisville area eateries and food shops, newsstands and online (or read it at issuu).
In early January, Louisville Public Media’s Breya Jones filed a story about the alternative newspaper LEO Weekly’s difficulties (old hands recall that “LEO” stands for Louisville Eccentric Observer).
LEO Weekly fires remaining editors, down to one editorial staffer
Alt-weekly newspaper LEO is down to just one content-focused staffer after the remaining two editors were fired earlier this week.
Erica Rucker was the editor-in-chief at LEO Weekly until Jan. 9. She told LPM News that the day prior Big Lou Holdings owner Chris Keating instructed her, via email, to fire her digital media editor.
LEO Weekly’s content staff was previously made up of Rucker, a digital editor and one staff writer.
Rucker followed through with Keating’s request Jan. 8, only to find herself locked out of LEO email and the website later that day.
Now it seems that amid subsequent sad remembrances of LEO’s proud previous history, food writer Robin Garr also is a casualty of the current turbulence. Michael L. Jones offers a discussion of the implications at Louisville Business First.
Small Plates: Food writer Robin Garr ends 20-year run with LEO Weekly
After nearly two decades, longtime food and drink writer Robin Garr is no longer publishing his LouisvilleHotBytes column in the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO).
Garr told Louisville Business First that he officially ended his relationship with the alt-weekly in January after Editor-in-Chief Erica Rucker and Digital Editor Sydney Catinna were fired by LEO owner Big Lou Holdings.
If you’re a food- and drink-loving Louisvillian who has been around the block once or twice, then it’s quite likely that you’ve been reading what Robin has been writing for most of your adult life.
Garr was a reporter at the Louisville Times in 1982 when an editor noticed his interest in fine dining and suggested he write a wine column.
“Two years later the restaurant critic post opened up and I took that assignment as well. None of this replaced my paid job as a local news reporter. It was all fairly low-paid freelance work, but it was fun,” Garr explained.
Fortunately Robin’s writing remains available to us at Substack, the LouisvilleHotBytes.com web site, and his social media accounts.
Today’s cover photo depicts newspaper boxes in Munich, Germany in 2018.
