Patrick’s (Facebook) at 3202 Frankfort Avenue in Crescent Hill will close permanently following service on Saturday, June 14.
Solid information is scant, but the general consensus seems to be that the bar’s lease is expiring, and the building’s owner is headed in a different direction.
Here’s a brief profile from 2008.
Neighborhood bars become local fixtures after decades of existence, by Kevin Eigelbach (Louisville Business First)
Bernard “Nardy” Bridgers tells a story that illustrates what neighborhood bars such as the one he owns — Patrick’s Bar Inc. in Crescent Hill — are all about.
“A guy walked in one day and asked the bartender for a wine list,” he said. “She went to the other end of the bar, got a napkin, wrote ‘red,’ ‘white’ and ‘pink’ on it and gave it to him.”
Patrick’s does sell a little wine, but the staples here are Bud Light, Miller Light and Maker’s Mark. No fancy frozen drinks with umbrellas in them.
Bridgers bought the bar, at 3202 Frankfort Ave., in 1981, but it’s been around since the late 1940s. He keeps things as they were, with the same pictures on the wall, because he thinks people like the familiar surroundings.
“People come in now and say, ‘I used to live around here. I came in 20 years ago and nothing’s changed,”’ Bridgers said.
The bar hasn’t, but the neighborhood has. When Bridgers bought the place, there were only three or four liquor licenses on Frankfort Avenue. Now there are probably 20, counting restaurants, he said.
He attributes the bar’s survival to its homey atmosphere and to the fact that it’s one of the few bars in Crescent Hill that stay open until 4 a.m. seven nights a week. It’s a bar for bartenders from other bars, who stop in to relax late at night when they get off work.
Bridgers takes pride in keeping the bar clean, especially the restrooms. And the bartenders, some of whom have worked there for 20 years, have a loyal following.
“If I didn’t have these bartenders, I don’t know how I would have stayed in the bar business,” he said.
If the bartenders don’t draw you in, the two pool tables, the video games, the outdoor beer garden, the seven flat-screen TVs tuned to sporting events or the discount on food from the nearby Tony Boombozz Pizza outlet just might.
