Our Week In Louisville: Things To Do, Places To Eat & Drink & Where To Stay

Louisville, Kentucky is one of our new favorite cities. Shae and I recently spent a week there while on our 5 year, 50 state road trip and loved it.

The city has a ton of great restaurants and bars and loads of interesting things to do including museums, caverns and more.

Here’s a list of everything we’d recommend during a visit to Louisville. I’m sure we’re missing out on a bunch of other activities, so let us know your suggestions in the comments below.

Where To Stay In Louisville

We stayed the entire week at this Airbnb in the NuLu neighborhood. It was a great choice as a) the apartment was fantastic and b) NuLu is an awesome location in which to stay.

It only took a matter of minutes to walk to dozens of NuLu restaurants and bars (more on some of those in a mo) and only a 20-30 minute walk to downtown Louisville. That meant that while hundreds of thousands of people were waiting in traffic after the Thunder Over Louisville firework display, we were already back at our Airbnb.

Where To Eat In Louisville

We ended up spending a fair bit of our April budget on food while in Louisville as there were so many restaurants we wanted to eat at. Even so, we still only managed to eat at a handful of places – there were so many more we’d have loved to have checked out.

One quintessential Louisville delicacy we didn’t eat – yet – was a Hot Brown. We’re returning to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby, so we’re planning on visiting the Brown Hotel then for an original Hot Brown seeing as Shae’s mom and stepdad will be with us. I’m hoping we don’t come to regret that decision as it’ll likely be a madhouse given how busy the city will be that week.

Feast BBQ

My favorite meal was at Feast BBQ. It was some of the best BBQ I’ve had, with the brisket being incredibly tender.

Shae recently started doing WeightWatchers, so she tried making a good food choice at Feast BBQ by ordering the chopped chicken salad. She felt a little hard done by when she ordered it, but ended up really enjoying it and so was glad that’s what she chose.

Pho Ba Luu

On our first night in Louisville we walked over to Pho Ba Luu for dinner. We’ve been watching a lot of Food Network over the last year and seen a lot of chefs making banh mi, but we’d never tried it before. I therefore decided to get their grilled chicken banh mi which was very tasty.

Shae ordered the beef pho and she enjoyed her meal too. The broth was extremely flavorful, so she’d recommend that.

Harvest

We’d planned to go for Sunday brunch at Toast On Market, but it was heaving that day. The line was out the door and we’d have had to wait 45 minutes, so we went to Harvest next door instead. We got there at just the right time as Harvest got much busier shortly after we arrived.

I was tempted by their banh mi sandwich seeing as I’d enjoyed it at Pho Ba Luu, but instead decided to go for their farmer’s omelet. It had extremely flavorful bacon inside and came with a side of some kind of grain. I forget exactly what the grain was, but it was surprisingly tasty.

Shae ordered the brioche French toast which came with red wine-pear coulis, orange blossom granola and whipped cheesecake. This was very good too, especially the whipped cheesecake.

Royals Hot Chicken

While Shae drove up to Indianapolis one evening to attend a live podcast (more on that in a few weeks once the podcast is released), I decided to take advantage by eating something that wouldn’t be WeightWatchers friendly for her.

That meant a trip to Royals Hot Chicken. They’re owned by the same company that owns Feast BBQ and Royals offers delicious food too. I ordered the chicken tender tacos with hot sauce. Royals Hot Chicken has four spice levels, with hot being only the second hottest out of four.

The tacos come with one side, so I got the broccoli and bacon salad as it sounded intriguing. It was fantastic – far more flavor than I thought would be possible from something that consisted primarily of finely chopped broccoli.

Mayan Cafe Food Truck

While having a drink at Gravely Brewing, Shae ordered some beef tacos from the Mayan Cafe food truck that’s on site. Mayan Cafe itself was next door and is somewhere one of my friends had recommended and, based on how much Shae enjoyed the tacos, it’s easy to see why she suggested it.

Where To Drink In Louisville

The same friend who suggested eating at Mayan Cafe had suggested going for a drink at Angel’s Envy distillery. We stopped by there on the Saturday afternoon, but we got unlucky as they’d closed that day so their staff could attend Thunder Over Louisville. We didn’t have time to go back, so that’s somewhere I’d like to check out in the future.

Gravely Brewing

Shae and I did go for a drink at several places though. I already mentioned Gravely Brewing and their hefeweizen was excellent.

Gravely has a large beer garden that’s pet-friendly, so Truffles was able to join us.

Another benefit of sitting out in the beer garden at Gravely Brewing is that the top level has great views of downtown Louisville.

Louisville Beer Store

The Louisville Beer Store was only a couple of minutes walk from our Airbnb in NuLu and they had a ton of different craft beers.

On the day of Thunder Over Louisville, they offered three beer and donut pairings. The beers were all from Deschutes Brewery, while the donuts were all from the local Hi-Five Doughnuts store.

I prefer my beer dark, so I got the Black Butte Porter which was paired with a Black Butte Porter custard-filled donut with a bourbon caramel glaze and candied walnuts.

Feast BBQ

I already listed Feast BBQ as somewhere you should eat, but it’s also somewhere you should drink. That’s because they offer bourbon slushies containing bourbon and Ale-8 ginger ale, both of which are made in Kentucky.

Kentucky Derby Museum At Churchill Downs

We couldn’t visit Louisville in the weeks leading up to the Kentucky Derby and not get a mint julep, so that’s exactly what we did when visiting the Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs.

We’d heard that Derby Pie was something we should try, so we shared a slice of that too.

Akasha Brewing

Akasha Brewing is one of numerous breweries in Louisville and was another one that was within walking distance of our Airbnb.

I was tempted by the 2018 Goaty McBockFace because, y’know, it’s a great name, although I ended up getting a Jitterbug which was a tasty coffee milk stout. I don’t like coffee, but for some reason I enjoy coffee-flavored beer.

Things To Do In Louisville

Louisville has a ton of things to do, with loads of museums you can visit, most of which we didn’t have time for. Some museums people had suggested that we didn’t end up checking out include the Colonel Sanders Museum, the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, the Frazier History Museum and more.

Here are some things we did do during our week in Louisville though.

Kentucky Derby Museum

The Kentucky Derby Museum is located at Churchill Downs and was much more interesting than we were expecting. Despite the fact that we’re attending the 2019 Kentucky Derby, neither of us are horse racing people, but the Kentucky Derby Museum is definitely worth a visit.

Your entry fee includes a guided tour and took us out to the racetrack, although we weren’t allowed on it seeing as the race was in a few weeks.

Shae went back the following day for a Barn & Backside tour, so check out this post for more about our visit to the Kentucky Derby Museum.

Thunder Over Louisville

Thunder Over Louisville is a 30 minute firework display which was incredible and is the reason we visited Louisville when we did. Be sure to check out this post about Thunder Over Louisville which includes a video of the entire 30 minute display.

Louisville Mega Cavern

One of the other highlights from our time in Louisville was visiting Louisville Mega Cavern. This contains the world’s only fully underground zipline tour and was so much fun.

Shae is scared of ziplines, so she wore our GoPro while riding them as we figured that’d be more entertaining 😉 You can find her account of our visit – and videos of her screaming – in this post about Louisville Mega Cavern.

Your Recommendations

So that’s a list of things to do in Louisville that we enjoyed, but do you have any other recommendations? Let us know in the comments below.