Another one bites the dust!

Certainly not a great dining experience but it's been there forever and I'm sure it's fed many many people in the Louisville community.
https://www.wlky.com/article/frischs-st-matthews-closing-louisville-restaurant/42861430?fbclid=IwAR3TXe--0abh8c3Tw26ADOoH3RdsjO_ra_MZS0YLkvYdhwsn-fhUDuANIL8

hey Mark, perhaps worth noting that it had become "not a great dining experience". For many, many years, they served as good a double-deck burger and rings or as good a breakfast bar, as anyone in town.
Sadly, it had fallen miles in to a chasm of poor service & mgmt. and mediocre food, that can't be blamed on Covid....the fall started back in the mid/late noughts.

But the place is replete with a glorious history. In the '60's, it was the "Waggener/Trinity Frisch's". Yep, many high schools had their own "turf" which often focused around a Frisch's. ....Seneca's Hikes Point Frisch's, Atherton's Bowman Field Frisch's, St. X's Poplar Level Rd. Frisch's....etc. And it was "risky" - to say the least - to cross from one school's Frisch's, to another! We were all JD's! (Juvenile Delinquents!!)
Back then, Frisch's was right out of "Happy Days" - - drive up, park and order through the speaker, a young lady would bounce out with your food! (Or usually, a single, iced Cherry coke that you would nurse all evening!)
These were *great* gathering points "after the game", with pretty good food.

But back to recent times, when I moved back to Louisville in '98, I was really happy to see that the Shelbyville Rd Frisch''s was still there. And really happy to find that a Bigboy with rings tasted as good as I had remembered.
But the first clue of change was when my Waggener class of '64 were holding our 50th (!) in '04 and we asked the then current mgmt. if they'd like to have 40-50 of us show up for Sunday breakfast? It would've been one of the highlights of the reunion, but honestly, they couldn't have been bothered. So we didn't go. Sad....

And as we got in to the 2000-teens, there were more mgmt. changes and more staffing changes and the whole dining experience suffered greatly. Then came Covid and they shut down. But when they reopened, staffing was worse than ever. On my last visit - a couple of months ago - I stood alone at the "wait here to be seated" stand for more then 10 minutes, as a single waitress *tried* mightily to serve the entire restaurant (while three staff hung out in the manager's office having a break). I finally left without being seated and I should've realized it was probably my last visit there.

So apologies to anyone of you that are still reading this reply. Apologies for it's length, that is. But I am really having a flood of feelings about the closing of this place that was such a part of my "formative" years (few as they were)!
And for any of your that remember this distinction, yes - - I was once a "BigBoy of the Week"!!!

[Robin Garr]

So apologies to anyone of you that are still reading this reply. Apologies for it's length, that is. But I am really having a flood of feelings about the closing of this place that was such a part of my "formative" years (few as they were)!
And for any of your that remember this distinction, yes - - I was once a "BigBoy of the Week"!!!

No apologies needed, Willie! I really appreciate the time you took to sketch that history and your thoughts about it, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that!

Willie, I love your background explanation regarding the restaurant! We've only been a couple times as we moved here 97 usually for breakfast and haven't been for about 4 years or 5 years so I didn't realize how much it had declined. Again maybe not a great loss as far as food goes but certainly an iconic restaurant in the Louisville/St. Matthews area that will be missed by many.

Frisch's are hugely popular in NKY and Cincinnati. They are everywhere. For some reason they never caught on here in the same way.

Willie I loved your post re the high school divisionals! I remember that Fern Creek HS had the Ranch House on Bardstown Rd near the Watterson Expressway. That was because the owner's son went to FCHS. He later grew up, owned a couple of Burger Queens then the Fish House on Winter and HIS son now makes those lovely beignets on the weekends. Great people.

When my father raced horses at Louisville Downs, we used to stop at that Frisch's almost every night after the races. It was billed as such a special treat. Later as an adult, I took my own family there many times, and while we were not surprised that things had slowly begun to slide (welcome to franchising), we always enjoyed ourselves and the breakfast and salad bars, my personal favorite, the Buddy Boy had long since transformed into something unrecognizable. We actually ate there last month with no idea that it was about to shutter. Guess we got one last go at it.