Our Summer 2023 issue simply isn’t ordinary. It’s a Food & Dining recap of two decades covering the food and dining scene in metro Louisville, and a key contributor to this coverage was the late Ron Mikulak.
Our editor-in-chief Marty Rosen explains.
From the beginning, we documented and reported on every restaurant opening and closing in the Metro. Until his death earlier this year, that was the work of Ron Mikulak. These days, that beat is in the hands of a worthy successor, Roger Baylor. His overview of the Comings & Goings column is an essential read.
In this issue, we have taken a look back, year-by-year, and chronicled how the local restaurant scene has changed. For the record, our listings (which do not include the major national chains) have grown from 718 in 2003 to 1528 today. Over these two decades, of course, restaurants have come and gone. In total, over the last 20 years, we have chronicled 3,416 restaurants in our guide.
I always appreciated Ron’s work, but in complete honesty, never so much as when it came time to step into his shoes. Assembling twenty years of Comings & Goings for the anniversary issue left me gasping for breath but also grasping for ways to express my sense of awe at what Ron achieved. He left an amazing body of work, and it’s a legacy I’m doing my best to perpetuate.
Check out the article. I believe you’ll recall a great many good times, revisit a few restaurants from bygone days, and emerge with renewed pride about the sustained excellence of Louisville’s food and drink community.
