It’s two for the price of one today at Food & Dining—except our content is free of charge.
First there’ll be a history lesson, then the update. In November of 2016 the Gray Twilight blog told the story of a Louisville civic institution, located at 1127 Logan Street in Shelby Park, and as of 2023 coming around again as a bar and music venue.
Louisville natives with an eye for retro design will recognize the circa 1950 neon and porcelain “KDC” sign jutting from the three-story red brick building at the corner of Logan and Mary Streets in Germantown. The throwback sign identifies what was, for more than 80 years, the Keswick Democratic Club.
What began as a traditional Democratic Club, meeting in the founders’ homes on Texas Avenue in the mid-1930s, had, by the 1970s, evolved to a pure social club, fully untethered from party politics. Along the way, it acquired a building, investment property, a beer license, and had a couple of run-ins with the law. Today, the club is remembered more for its monthly chicken dinners and as a sort of underground venue for punk rock than for anything related to Democratic politics.
Over at Louisville Business First, our friend and former F&D colleague Michael L. Jones has the full story of The Keswick‘s launch.
Red Top Hotdogs owner brings the Keswick Club back to life in Shelby Park
A new bar and music venue with a familiar name is opening in the Shelby Park neighborhood this week.
The Keswick is opening at 1127 Logan St. on Friday, Jan. 6. The 3,200-square-foot space was previously occupied by Red Top Hotdogs, which closed in September.
Red Top owner Ryan Cohee is also the owner of the Keswick. The name of the new bar and music venue pays homage to the old Keswick Democratic Club, a former music venue that hosted popular punk rock shows in the building during the 2000s.
Cohee tells Jones that hot dogs will remain on the menu, with the resident commissary kitchen continuing to support his food trucks. There’ll be other mobile vendors and pop-ups, and future performances likely will be themed around bluegrass and roots music. Current hours for The Keswick are 4:00 p.m. to midnight (Wednesday – Friday), and 1:00 p.m. to midnight (Saturday and Sunday).
More from Live in Lou:
And in closing, recent Red Top backdrops to The Keswick.
