For the record, Pig Beach BBQ exists no longer at 1201 River Rd. The closing happened abruptly, but wasn’t really a surprise. Since you can get the nuts and bolts of this story elsewhere, kindly indulge a reverie (read: rant).
When I was a young lad in Southern Indiana, world cuisine was not a thing. We had Chef Boyardee, La Choy Chow Mein and rudimentary Doritos.
However, by the time I had a driver’s license, watered-down Tex-Mex burritos, queso and tacos could be procured at the Tumbleweed down the hill in downtown New Albany, which coincidentally – at a time much later in our nation’s history, and ensconced within in a vastly expanded physical setting – was the sole restaurant operation to survive more than a few short months in the massive waterfront aircraft hangar where first Doc’s Cantina, and now Pig Beach BBQ, somewhat ignominiously failed.
I am not David Samson, and this isn’t his show Nothing Personal. It’s an expression of annoyance, albeit very brief.
Listen, if you people want a Hofbräuhaus-sized riverfront emporium, guess what: they’re available, and there’s one in Newport KY called (curiously enough) the Hofbräuhaus, straight out of Munich and franchised worldwide.
And apart from the fact that I’m predisposed to patronize German food and beer, and would be a regular customer at a Hofbräuhaus, the point is less the Hofbräuhaus culinary identity than (a) no one does anything like it hereabouts, which implies a level of marketing exclusivity, and (b) the Hofbräuhaus franchise concept itself is scaled and designed to succeed in such an oversized space, given the debt service and monthly rent level (it’s a lot, and the waterfront corporation can answer for that, not me).
As I’ve stated in the past until I’m Bavarian blue in the face, the Hofbräuhaus and a handful of beer halls like it are anomalies in Germany in the specific sense of size, scale and a business plan to effectively manage them.
But hereabouts, we get instead a purveyor of barbecue from NYC (the flagship of which closed in late 2022 owing to redevelopment of the neighborhood), which isn’t exactly a locale noted for a down-home culinary genre nonetheless intimately familiar to the vast majority of genuinely down-home Kentuckians, coming to town from 750 miles away bearing a trendy, craft cocktail-laden “concept” to a crazily overpriced retail space located downtown — and right about now, the “concept” of Louisville’s downtown is a political and cultural football (rugby might be a better analogy, actually).
Subdivide the building? Tear it down? Erect a Murmansk-sized statue of Jerry Abrahamson or Mitch McConnell? Okay, fine, but if it is to be another single-unit eatery for investors to lose their shirts, can someone opt for a “concept” more sensible than offering (in effect) to bring this exciting new spirit called “bourbon” to the very place where it has been made for hundreds of years?
Molly Jett has the nuts and bolts of Pig Beach’s closing at WDRB: Pig Beach BBQ abruptly closes Waterfront Park location a year after grand opening. As McCartney, Lennon or both once wrote: “no one was saved.”
