Louisville Diners

Louisville boasts many award-winning fine dining restaurants, but long before Derby City mastered upscale cuisine, it perfected the diner. Explore Louisville's tasty offerings with local food writer Ashlee Clark Thompson as she surveys the city's impressive variety of greasy spoons from the Highlands to the West End and everywhere in between. Enjoy home cooking done right at Shirley Mae's Café and Bar, breakfast at Barbara Lee's Kitchen, lunch to go at Ollie's Trolley and so much more. Packed with insightful interviews and helpful tips that only a local can provide, Louisville Diners is a delectable look into the best the city has to offer.

Louisville was home to fine cuisine long before the famous restaurant rows on Bardstown Road, Frankfort Avenue and East Market Street. Mazzoni's served the area's first rolled oyster. At the C-54 Grill, guests dined inside a remodeled aircraft, and Kaelin's prepared its classic cheeseburger. Hasenour's sauerbraten and Hoe Kow's war sui gai are two dishes that still make local mouths water when mentioned. Authors Stephen Hacker and Michelle Turner revisit the vivid personalities, celebrated spaces and unique recipes that made Louisville's historic eateries unforgettable.

The stories of Louisville's best-remembered restaurants are chock-full of legendary locations, huge personalities and well-loved recipes. Find out how a silly joke about "Hillbilly Tea" became an international sensation. Discover the origins of Casa Grisanti and why there would be no Queenie Bee without it. Enter the "World of Swirl" surrounding the rise and fall of Lynn's Paradise Café. Enjoy menus, memories and more of favorites found across the Derby City through the decades. Author Stephen Hacker serves up this history and more, complete with photography by Dan Dry and John Nation.

Louisville is consistently recognized as having one of the best dining scenes in America, with its farm-to-table aesthetic, celebrity chefs like Edward Lee, and ultra-hip pockets of dining culture around the city, from NuLu to Downtown to the Highlands. But Louisville is also home to countless one-of-a-kind eateries that span myriad cultures, from Vietnamese food to street tacos to Ethiopian fine dining to mom-and-pop diners and soul food restaurants. Unique Eats and Eateries of Louisville will take you on a tasty tour of some of the city's most distinctive, unusual, and downright delicious places to fill your belly.

Insiders' Guide to Louisville is the essential source for in-depth travel and relocation information to this storied Kentucky city. Written by a local (and true insider), this guide offers a personal and practical perspective of Louisville and its surrounding environs.

hat is Louisville’s identity in the twenty-first century? Is it the Southernmost Midwestern city, the Midwestiest Southern town, or somewhere in between? Living on the border of two regions creates a hybrid sensibility full of contradictions that can be difficult to articulate beyond “from Louisville, not Kentucky.” In this collection of evocative essays and poems by natives and transplants, The Louisville Anthology offers locals and visitors a closer look at compelling private and public spaces in an attempt to articulate what defines Louisville beyond—but also inclusive of—its most recognized cultural exports.

With more than 1,800 entries, The Encyclopedia of Louisville is the ultimate reference for Kentucky's largest city. For more than 125 years, the world's attention has turned to Louisville for the annual running of the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. Louisville Slugger bats still reign supreme in major league baseball. The city was also the birthplace of the famed Hot Brown and Benedictine spread, and the cheeseburger made its debut at Kaelin's Restaurant on Newburg Road in 1934. The "Happy Birthday" had its origins in the Louisville kindergarten class of sisters Mildred Jane Hill and Patty Smith Hill. Named for King Louis XVI of France in appreciation for his assistance during the Revolutionary War, Louisville was founded by George Rogers Clark in 1778. The city has been home to a number of men and women who changed the face of American history. President Zachary Taylor was reared in surrounding Jefferson County, and two U.S. Supreme Court Justices were from the city proper. Second Lt. F. Scott Fitzgerald, stationed at Camp Zachary Taylor during World War I, frequented the bar in the famous Seelbach Hotel, immortalized in The Great Gatsby. Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville and won six Golden Gloves tournaments in Kentucky.

The passenger train has long held a special place in the imagination of Americans, and Indiana was once a bustling passenger train crossroads. Limiteds, Locals, and Expresses in Indiana, 1838–1971 brings to life the countless locals, accommodation trains, and secondary expresses that Hoosiers patronized during the Golden Age of the passenger train. Craig Sanders gives us a comprehensive history of intercity passenger service in Indiana, from the time railroads began to develop in the state in the mid-19th century through May 1, 1971, when Amtrak began operations. Each chapter summarizes the history and development of one railroad, discusses the factors that shaped that railroad's passenger service—such as prolonged financial difficulties, competition, and the influence of a strong leader—and concludes with a detailed account of its passenger operations in Indiana. Sixteen maps, 87 photographs, and other evocative illustrations supplement Sanders's text.