Flanagan's Ale House. Louisville, Kentucky

934 Baxter Avenue

Guinness Tag: $8.00 | Overall Rating: 7.00

Today's Dedicated Pint: Dancing Silver

Flanagan's sits in the middle of a busy street in the heart of the Highlands, an area outside of downtown Louisville where locals gather for drinks, cuisine, shopping, and entertainment. I'm a city person, and I'm always excited to check out a new "downtown" that I haven't been to before. Take it from someone like me, who has explored more cities than I can remember, downtown Louisville is not the place to be. It's very spread out, the hours of operation for most of the bars/shops are awful, the hotels are weak, and there's simply not a lot going on. Sure, the Louisville Slugger museum is cool, but how many times can you go into the same museum? The water is fun to look at, as it houses the widest part of the Ohio River. If you ask me, I'll tell you to skip downtown and either go to the Highlands or go across the river to Jeffersonville, Indiana. Look out for my article about the Pub over there, because that little city is awesome.

Anyway, I stumbled into Flanagan's on a warm Wednesday afternoon. No, it wasn't the sign out front promoting their sloppy Joe's that reeled me in, it was the fact that they were open, they were Irish, and I still had a pulse. Nothing about the curb appeal is very spectacular, but it is what it is. I like the interior, though, as the floors are white, the walls are orange, and the ceiling is green. The bar is a horseshoe style counter that joins two different dining rooms together, making it feel like two separate bars in a sense. The booths are nicely worn in, which ties into a lot of the character and charm inside this place.

You can tell a lot of fun nights have taken place under this roof. The bar has a nice ingrained wooden display for the beer taps, a large collection of steins/mugs for the regulars, and a fun little walkway for the bartenders to associate themselves with each of the dining rooms. Our bartender today was a fun dude named Chad, who happened to be a Cincinnati Reds and Bengals fan. He was excited to hear about my mascotting duties of the last four odd years. He's young, along with many of the patrons here. You'll encounter a handful of the college crowd alongside these barstools unless you choose your time wisely. The college crowd typically puts a blight to my day, so I try to avoid it at all costs. But hey, if you're into that sort of crowd, then by all means...

Flanagan's has a huge patio with its own bar, TVs, greenery, tables, umbrellas, overhanging string lights, and a big wooden Guinness sculpture. The layout of the Pub as a whole is pretty awesome. The signage on the walls is pretty generic without anything too unique. The bathrooms? They provide fun floor tiles, exposed brick, and flushable toilets. They deliver the duty.

They serve their Guinness the right way (a bit of a Bishop's Collar today but it's alright), and the other choices from the tap station are respectable. They offer Magners here, which is nice, hence having a tough time finding Magners as of late. They provide a rather average to boring whiskey selection, and the food is definitely your average bar food. Nothing wrong with that, of course. I mean, they shamelessly promote serving sloppy Joe's: they know what they're doing. Charging people money for a sloppy Joe out of a "professional" kitchen is a bold move, and I respect it, despite not supporting it.

I like Flanagan's. Does it knock your socks off in any particular way? Nope. Do they disappoint you? Well... they probably do at times, but they didn't disappoint me today. Just because I wouldn't frequent here if I was a local, doesn't mean it's a bad spot. It's certainly deserving of your time. I guess its biggest hurdle is its tough competition nearby. Just a stone's throw away, you'll hit both Molly Malone's and Pat O'Shea's, two distinctively better Pubs in my opinion. Flanagan's isn't bad; it's just not good enough.

I'm heading across the street. Slainte!