A place where people know how to cut loose
Greater Louisville started life as a river town. It’s the largest city in the state that invented bourbon. The bars can stay open 22 hours a day (and all night during the Kentucky Derby). No wonder it’s a place where people know how to cut loose. And for your cutting-loose pleasure, we’ve assembled some of the coziest dives and swankest nightclubs you’ve ever seen.
We’ve got brewpubs, Irish bars, gay bars, a first-rate comedy club, and as many places to watch a basketball game as there are basketball games to watch.
There are establishments that’ll make you think you stepped into 1961, or 2161. But not all nightlife is liquor-based: We’ve got coffee shops, restaurants, paintball emporia, midnight movies, billiards palaces…. However late you want to go, Louisville stays open. One tip: Keep your ear cocked. The city’s original musicians have made joyful noise since the jug-band era, and the city is still producing artists as popular as My Morning Jacket and as creatively intense as Will Oldham (AKA Bonnie “Prince” Billy). Take notes, next show you go to, so in five years you can brag about who you saw, way back in 2016, in a little place called Greater Louisville.