A brief trip through the Best of Louisville archive.

Canceled Categories

Some past categories don’t make sense anymore (and maybe never did?). Others — well, we wouldn’t want somebody following our advice about the Best Cosmetic Surgeon or Best Hospital ER. 

Just some past categories that didn’t make the cut this year.

Best VHS Rental Shop

Best Mission Food

Best Magazine Stand

For the record: That’d have to be Carmichael’s? It’s just that, in some instances, Best actually now means Only?

Best Salad Bar

Best Bagels

Unless we’re talking a direct flight from SDF to NYC?

Best Candlelit Dinner

Best Senior-Living Residence

Best Smokiest Restaurant

Best Travel Agency

Best Cellular Phone Company

Best Place to Duck Dance

Best Oriental Restaurant

Best Ethnic Restaurant

The very American chain Tumbleweed won this poorly worded category in ’92.

Best Best-Looking Louisvillian

Best Sensual Groceries

Best Use of Guy Wires in a Theatrical Production

This one went to Southeast Christian Church’s Easter Pageant in 1999.

Best Malodorous Drive

Best Local Subdivisions to Live in If Your Ancestors Came Over on the Mayflower

Best Local Subdivisions to Live in If Your Ancestors Came Over (the Mountains) in a ’59 Ford Pickup

Best Most Missed Louisville Landmark 

Gus Ballard’s shed behind his house in Schnitzelburg won this one in 2000.

’86 and Still in the Mix

In 1986, the illustrated giraffe was for the Louisville Zoo, which was the Best Place to Take Children, a category we headlined: Kiddie-Catchers. Like the zoo, here are winners from the first Best of Louisville issue that are still with us.

Best Hamburger

W.W. Cousins, which has won the category a total of 10 times.        

Best Interior Design Firm

Hubbuch and Co.

Best Fitness Centers

YMCA

Best Mall

Oxmoor

Best Neighborhood Bar and Best Brunch

Bristol Bar and Grille

Best Bakery 

Heitzman

Best Pizza

Impellizzeri’s

Best Men’s Store

Rodes

Best Tourist Attraction

Churchill Downs

Best Local Festival

Kentucky Derby Festival

Best Florist

Nanz and Kraft, which has won the category every single time we’ve run it, a total of 17 times.

86’d ’86

And just five of the winners from the first Best of Louisville issue that are now gone.

Best Bookstore

Hawley-Cookie

Best Nightclub

Phoenix Hill Tavern

Best Women’s Store

Byck’s

Best VHS Rental Shop

Video Madness

Best Romantic Restaurant

Casa Grisanti 

Cover Controversy

And the most controversial Best of Louisville cover…

Cover subject went by the BBQ Cowboy. A reader wrote in to say, “I was taken aback. His hand seems to have been caught in a meat grinder! Just an appalling and simply gross cover.”

Pearce Pierced

…Muhammad Ali died June 3, 2016, days before we were going to press with the 2016 Best of Louisville issue. We scrapped whatever we’d planned and instead had photographer Chris Witzke shoot boxing gloves in the shape of heart.

Letter from Dan