There’s a great interview with Susan Seiller, the former owner of Jack Fry’s restaurant, on the Louisville-based Website Vibrant Nation. The website provides advice and information for women over 50.

Seiller spent 22 years making sure diners had a pleasant, upscale experience at the Bardstown Road restaurant, before passing on the business to Stephanie Meeks earlier this year. Seiller still owns the building at 1007 Bardstown Road, but has relinquished management of the business to her long-time general manager.

In the interview, Seiller, 53, talks about life outside the restaurant business. And Stephen Reily, the entrepreneur behind Vibrant Nation, got her to list her five personal favorite restaurants, which are:

1. Basa (Vietnamese) on Frankfort Avenue
2. Mojito (Spanish) in Holiday Manor
3. The Mayan Cafe on East Market
4. Shiraz (Mediterranean) on Frankfort and in Holiday Manor
5. Proof in the 21C Hotel downtown

This week, we’ll be getting all kinds of national props from the media, but none bigger or better for a business than the mention of Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse in the Wall Street Journal.

The business rag says Ruby’s is “. . .emerging as a favorite hangout for Kentucky Derby spectators and equestrian big shots over the first weekend of May.”

And they’ve got the names to prove it, starting with Hollywood director Jerry Bruckheimer, who recently dined in the private dining room at the restaurant, which opened two years ago on the bottom floor of Galt House East. Michael Jordan, Nick Lachey and jockey Calvin Borel spent time there last year.

Be sure to click on the WSJ’s interactive seating chart, where you’ll learn, for example, that Bill Samuels Jr. of Makers Mark fame prefers Table 42 for twice-monthly visits, while Churchill Downs big shot Steve Sexton recently had dinner at Table 31 with his wife.

Last year, the place made headlines Derby Week when its namesake owner refused to serve O.J. Simpson on Derby Eve.

Brohm-ville: On Saturday, Brian Brohm will be nervously anticipating his name being called in the NFL draft. Soon after, he’ll sign a multi-million dollar contract with an NFL team. But on Friday, Brohm will at the Qdoba in the Highlands, celebrating the first “Party on the Patio” of the season.

There will be live bands and $1 domestic bottles of beer. The bands will play from 9-11, but the drink specials start at 5. In good weather, there’s no better place to be in the Highlands.

Fest-a-Ville: On the other hand, it’s a good night to get downtown to the Waterfront. You can get a free shot of bourbon and some munchies tonight in the Fest-a-Ville’s Bourbon Country Tent. The Friends of Lou campaign will be recruiting new members and providing free entertainment - via a jazz ensemble. The Great Balloon Glimmer is going on, too. Bring a friend. Hey, if you bring a non-drinking friend, you can probably get their free drink ticket.

Birthdays, and special offers, are maybe the leading reasons to try a new restaurant, or maybe to splurge a bit on a night out. At least that’s the way it works around my house.

So for Jeanine’s birthday, I planned a family night out at Palermo Viejo on Bardstown Road and a lunch the following day at Winston’s on the Sullivan University campus.

Being cheap and all, these spots were selected because I had secured discount deals from our partners at Louisville’s Best Deals for them.

I’ve been to Palermo’s maybe a half dozen times, and it’s never disappointing. You could wrap everything I know about Argentine cuisine in a carryout bag. But give me a place that can satisfy a vegetarian teen, a ravenous athlete, a picky 10-year-old and the birthday girl, and I’ll write nice things about it.

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Acclaimed chef and TV personality Bobby Flay will be a grand marshal at the Derby Festival’s Pegasus Parade. He’ll join local celebrity trumpter Patrick Henry Hughes, who will also play in the University of Louisville band, at the May 1 event.

Flay does have a connection with the Derby — if nothing more than he’s a known fan of the big event. Two weeks ago, he appeared on NBC’s Today Show touting Kentucky Derby recipes, including the basic Mint Julep and a dish “All You Can Eat Shrimp with Green Onion, Garlic, and BBQ Spices.”

Flay is also a horse owner, and he’ll be busy during his time in town as Churchill Downs’ official host of something new, called Kentucky Derby Party. Now, we’re tempted to say this new deal is just an attempt to sell more Derby merchandise, but maybe, just maybe, there’s more. If you’re hosting a party, it’ll have tips, recipes and, oh, yes, instructions for ordering stuff. Like, you know, official swizzle sticks.

You could learn something about local dining by watching this segment in KET’s Louisville Life series.

Baxter Station’s Andrew Hutto explains the origins of the local group, Louisville Originals, which formed four years ago, and how it created a gift card program that brought in $100,000 last year.  The group of 55 local restaurants has gone through some turmoil in the past year, breaking from its national organization.

Hutto describes his own place as offering “flavor with a little zippiness.” The KET feature didn’t touch on that, but Hutto did say the group was interested in growth and would add new restaurants to its roster in the future. All members are locally-owned and independent.

It may be the shortest news item to run in the Courier-Journal in months, and it explains something most folks already knew. Acclaimed chef Anoosh Shariat is planning a new restaurant. Heck, we reported it right here on March 12. But apparently Shariat had a spokeswoman (?) put out this big news, which the C-J gave all of 42 words:

Anoosh Shariat, former executive chef at Park Place on Main, plans to open a new restaurant in Louisville.

A spokeswoman said Shariat, who also runs a catering company, is looking at locations and hopes to open by the end of the year.

By the way, we’re all looking forward to seeing what’s next for Anoosh, and we’re hoping his new idea turns up near us.

The BuzzWorx coffee shop on Main Street is closing April 25.

That’s bad news for a lot of Main Street workers at places like GLI, Doe-Anderson and Red7e, but BuzzWorks partner Greg Jewell said business has been falling off since December.

“If you want to know if you’re in a recession, ask a small business owner,” Jewell said Saturday.

Jewell, president of the Greater Louisville Hotel Lodging Association, said that he’s seen customers who once came in daily cut back to twice a week. Other customers are bringing their coffee from home, and he said he knows it can be an expensive habit. He said that a customer who buys a latte every day could rack up a $900 a year habit.

After April 25, Jewell said he plans to publicize a sale of the business’s equipment and furnishings.

Roger Van Fleet has a passion that supercedes his work as an IT manager and a part-time pastor at a New Albany church. Van Fleet call himself a BBQ-ologist, and spent Thunder weekend following his passion — feeding the 150 crew members lunch AND dinner on Saturday.

He cooked up 50 pounds of brisket, 80 pork medallions, 70 pounds of pork and 80 chicken breasts on his homemade smoker, and got help from co-workers and friends in delivering the food to more than 20 locations throughout the Thunder event.

“I get a lot of satisfaction out of it, I love to feed people,” he told me on Saturday afternoon, offering an exquisite sample.

He said he built the smoker from an abandoned trailer once owned by Fox 41, where he’s worked for 7 years. With a little help, he got a 550-gallon oil tank mounted to the trailer. He says his goal now is to enter the world of barbecue competition, beginning with a big event in August.

As a big (and barely closeted) fan of “America’s Next Top Model,” I’ve heard my share of “life lessons” from Ms. Tyra Banks. And natch, I’ve experienced lots of these moments in my own life as well.

I rarely get the opportunity to be on the giving — rather than receiving — end of a life lesson. So I got a minor thrill from filling Tyra’s Manolos on a recent dining excursion with my husband and son. After catching a movie, we stopped in for a quick bite at Steak & Shake. (Not one of my favorites, but the boys like it, and I was feeling more magnanimous than usual.)

Our waitress flirted quite openly with Sam, age 7. This is hardly a rare occurrence, as he has big eyes, long lashes and a deceptively sweet smile. (The staff at the Chinese buffet place near our home treat him something like a rock star, lavishing him with free trinkets and praise. My husband thinks it’s because he resembles an anime character.) She was also quite solicitous with my husband, bringing multiple Diet Coke refills and asking several times if the food was to his liking and if he needed anything else.

Meanwhile, I sat there as if invisible, with a lukewarm cup of coffee that didn’t get refilled once. [Read more →]

Maybe it takes a little Hollywood to make a downtown Farmer’s Market a reality.

Louisville-born actor William Mapother, (Tom Cruise’s cousin) along with movie producer and Louisville transplant Gill Holland, are part of a group that has bought property downtown with the intention of creating a market that would rival the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

Holland, who’s married to Augusta Brown Holland (Owsley’s daughter), is also renovating a building on East Market Street right next to Toast.

The market would be open year-round, and produce would only be a part of the offerings. Located on the site of a former tire store on Jefferson Street, the market could offer meats, fish, wine and cheese.

The investment group has already requisitioned a $150,000 study, half of which was paid for by the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board.  The group also includes Lois Mateus, a Brown-Forman executive, and her husband, contractor Tim Peters.

There’s no word on when the Market might become a reality.

We noticed that two highly-anticipated dining options have opened their doors on Bardstown Road.

First, Oishii Sushi opened a few weeks ago in a former cellular phone store right down the street from Kroger. I haven’t been inside, but plenty of folks have provided their opinions on the place at the Louisville HotBytes Forum, and they’re mostly favorable. In any case, sushi fans are thrilled with another option in the Highlands.

It’s small, but seems to be clean and well-run.

Further down Bardstown, in the old Lentini’s space, Jarfi’s has opened its doors after moving from the Kentucky Center. And it provides another sushi option, with a new sushi bar in the back of the building. Looks like the sign still needs some work, but it’s quite a contrast to the look that Lentini’s gave the streetscape for decades.

Browning’s Restaurant & Brewery (401 East Main Street) has a new spring menu that leans heavily on classic comfort foods. Among the modernized offerings fashioned by Chef Jay Denham:

• Appetizers: deviled eggs; fried oysters with rémoulade and cocktail sauce; baked Green Hill Cheese in puff pastry with spiced nuts, dried cherries and honey; and four cheese mac and cheese.
• Sandwiches: pulled pork shoulder sandwich with pickles, tobacco onions and Porter barbeque sauce; and a fried grouper sandwich with crab salad and rémoulade.
• Entrees: BBQ pork shank with potato salad and coleslaw; bison tri-tip served with crispy potatoes, vegetables and a green tomato sauce; braised lamb served with vegetables, cheese grits and rosemary sauce; and a six-ounce filet mignon served with mashed potatoes, vegetables and Henry Bain sauce.

Call 515-0174 for more info.

The more I learn about locally produced foods, the bigger supporter I become of organizations like Kentucky Proud—regardless of how tightly tied they are to the state political machine. Despite the recent budget fiasco, there is some good news to report out of Frankfort: Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer said that the Kentucky Proud bill (HB 626), passed on Wednesday, will mandate dollars be spent on marketing of foods grown and raised in the Commonwealth.

What a concept! Promoting our own businesses!

“This bill will assure producers as well as consumers that Kentucky Proud will always be the brand for fresh, nutritious, great-tasting food products made right here in the Commonwealth,” Farmer said. “Kentucky Proud has been very successful in much of the state, and this legislation provides the stability to take the Kentucky Proud movement to a higher level.”

Kentucky Proud has grown from a few dozen members to more than 1,000 since 2004. Its members accounted for an estimated $80 million in retail sales in 2007.

Constant conversation with other foodies in town confirms I’m not the only one feeling the pinch of higher restaurant prices in our market. Yes, I know they’re justified as skyrocketing costs need to be passed along to consumers at some point, but at some point that results in me and mine dining out less. Such is the ongoing struggle of life in the middle class (but no thank you, Hillary, I don’t need your condescening offers of help to change that).

My point is to show how affordably we dine here compared to cities like Las Vegas. Great food in Sin City always costs more compared to most markets, but the fares charged at some of the gambling mecca’s top names is, well, sinful. Here’s a sample of some of the prices Los Angeles Times dining critic Irene Virbila noticed while on assignment there:

“A few steps away, in a private dining room floating above a state-of-the-art kitchen, six businessmen spend a minimum of $350 each to work their way through the tasting menu at Restaurant Charlie. That’s without wine, tax or tip. Or chef Charlie Trotter in the kitchen.

“In another casino, guests step out of an elevator and are ushered into a small lounge just inside Guy Savoy’s hyper-chic, very French restaurant. Here they sip $75 glasses of Champagne before floating off to their tables for $280 dinners.”

And trust me, that’s not the half of it. Read the full, jaw-dropping text here.