'Marriage of two passions': This mezcal bar and plant shop aims to be different in Louisville
At first, all you see is a sea of green.
Then pops of purple, pink, and other shades and shapes of beauty that plants show up as.
Walk a few more steps, and you see this is not just a place to peruse or purchase plants. There’s a cozy bar back there, too.
This happens a lot at Pretty Decent, a boutique plant shop and mezcal bar at 2235 Frankfort Ave. First-timers checking out the spot in the Clifton neighborhood often get a pretty nice surprise that there are two concepts in one room.
That was the goal.
“It’s a room full of stuff that my wife and I love,” John Douglass, who co-owns Pretty Decent, told the Courier Journal. “It’s a marriage of our two passions.”
After 27 years together, they know how to blend their interests. Jeanne, now a Kentucky Master Gardener, loves plants. John’s favorite thing? Mezcal.
They share a love of travel, as evidenced by their small wedding in a small Colorado town more than two decades ago. With their home base in Chicago for nearly as long, they visited many places, including Louisville, many times. They thought they might move here one day.
And then the day came, about three years ago. They had a business plan ready to go for Pretty Decent. It opened in April 2023.
Why Louisville?
“Louisville didn’t have an agave bar and I wanted to open an agave bar,” he said. “It was pretty much always Louisville.”
In a town like Louisville, a cocktail spot with bright lights, lots of plants and clear spirits behind the bar stands out. At least, that’s what Douglass has been told.
“A handful of times people have said to me from across the bar, ‘Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, but this place is kind of different,’” Douglass said.
This place, they’re saying, is not a bourbon bar.
His response?
“Thank you.”
“We’re different by design,” he said. “How my wife and I feel is, when you come in here, you should feel like you’re in our own home. It doesn’t feel like you’re in a tavern. It feels like you’re in our home.”
That goes down to the details, like how the light wooden bar sits at the height of a standard kitchen counter with a blue-tile backsplash.
That goes into the bar snacks served, like house-made salsas of the day, and inventive cocktails that aim to introduce patrons to unique variations of mezcal, which is often described as just a smoky tequila. As Douglass will tell you, it’s more than that.
Douglass, who followed his passions to Mexico a few years ago, is happy to talk about the intricacies of mezcal in the way Kentuckians have been known to hear stories about how one bourbon is different from another.
These are the kind of conversations that come up at the cozy bar of 20 seats. Recently, some people behind a new ranking system for bars sat around this bar, too. Called the Pinnacle Guide, billing itself as a recognition system for the world's best cocktail bars, it recognized Pretty Decent bar as one of the best, awarding the Louisville spot with two pins and an “outstanding” rating. Only 12 bars around the world got that rank.
Douglass is proud of this kind of thing, which takes into account the menu. It changes about every three months, with the most recent one including a take on a Fernet-Branca and soda, complete with mezcal and salt. The drink called, “Ba-Ranca-Tanga,” comes with the fun presentation of being poured out of a 2-liter Coca-Cola bottle. As the next menu drops, there will be even more to try.
We featured Pretty Decent in the latest installment of our weekly video series, “Best Thing I Ate This Week,” which can follow on Instagram.com/Courierjournal.
The plant shop is open from 3-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, noon to midnight Friday-Saturday and noon to 7 p.m Sunday. The cocktail bar is open 3-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 3 p.m. to midnight Friday-Saturday and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.
Reach food reporter Amanda Hancock at ahancock@courier-journal.com.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Pretty Decent mezcal bar, plant shop aims to be unique in Louisville
