Louisville Magazine

MAR 2013

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/111400

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 107 of 136

Tony & Manny & Merle T he heavy, dark wooden bar at Manny & Merle, n��e Zena���s Cafe back in the day, dates to the 1920s and, if you look past the layers of polished varnish to the fashionable scars underneath, you can tell. It���s old in a good way, in a way that conjures up memories real and imagined. ���I drank a lot at this bar,��� says Tony Palombino, smiling mischievously, one Friday afternoon at Manny���s, which, at 1:45, still has a crowd. ���Who���d have thought that one day I���d own it?��� Palombino owns more than the bar; he owns the whole damn thing, from bare-brick walls and worn wooden foors that run the narrow length of the place to a made-for-patio-dining space out back. Tere���s just enough room for a band to play in a corner up front, which gives Manny���s the go-all-night feel of a beer-and-songwriter joint in Nashville, Memphis or Austin, Texas. Manny & Merle ��� a honky-tonk with ���modern Mexican��� cuisine ��� opened last November in a shotgun-style space at 122 W. Main St. across from Whiskey Row. It joins the Palombino empire of eateries that includes a growing number of BoomBozz pizza restaurants around the area (as well as in Indianapolis and Phoenix) and gastropub AP Crafters in Westport Village. Tell me about this space. ���Tis building went up in 1867. It���s been a paint shop. Tey made brooms here. I used to come here when it was Zena���s. I had my eye on this particular location for a long time. I happened to ask at the right time and here we are.��� How���s business been? ���I remember when we frst opened we were putting ads out there for musicians. And some of the people that we wanted to play here were out of our range price-wise, and now they���re calling us, wanting to play here. We get like 10 requests a week now ��� everywhere from Nashville to Ohio to Chicago. I don���t know how the word is getting around.��� (A waiter arrives at the table.) Okay, here���s what I���m gonna do. If you don���t mind if I have a beer��� ���No, please.��� ��� since it���s Friday. So, Falls City beer. And what tacos do you recommend? ���I like the fsh tacos.��� (Waiter notes they���re PBR-battered. I pull up my skinny jeans and order. ) Let���s go fsh, steak and chicken. So this is more or less a music place now? ���Tat���s the way it���s evolved. I knew I couldn���t make this place work based on the arena events alone. I knew that going in. So what���s a draw here minus arena events and the occasional convention?��� Live music. ���Yea.��� So I read that the name Manny & Merle is a bow to the ���Bakersfeld sound��� and guys like Merle Haggard. But it also mentions Johnny Cash. He���s not really Bakersfeld. ���It���s a broader defnition of what a honkytonk is. Johnny Cash isn���t Bakersfeld, but he���s honky-tonk. Even the Beatles and the Stones were infuenced by honky-tonks. So that���s what happened. Merle, the music; Manny, the food. Because in doing my research, most of the honky-tonks that Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Cash, Lefty Frizzell played in, the kitchens were manned by Mexican immigrants serving Hispanic food. And one of the longest-serving employees in my organization is a guy named Manuel.��� He���s the Manny? ���He���s the Manny.��� Is he here? ���Yea, he works in the kitchen.��� So do you still cook? ���I do some, especially with the start-ups. But I do most of my cooking at home feeding my three kids.��� How old? ���Sixteen, 15 and 12. Two boys and a girl.��� Two boys that age range? I can���t imagine your grocery bill. ���I took my son from football workouts at Trinity to AP Crafters the other day and he orders the ���mighty fne chicken��� . . . and a steak. And that chicken is big. And the server says, ���And a steak?��� My son says, ���Yea, and a steak.��� Like it was nothing. He ate it all.��� (Waiter arrives with food. ���Are you ready for some greatness? Now the sauce is a little spicy.���) Scale of one to 10, Tony, with 10 being mouth-burning, how spicy? ���Nah, it���s just a 7.��� Tell me about your family���s frst restaurant here. ���My family moved here in ���75 from Florida (via Naples, Italy), and my dad had a restaurant called the Plantation Country Club and then in the late ���80s started a wood-burning pizza oven concept.��� By Kane Webb Photos by Jolea Brown Te Naples infuence. ���Right. A guy in Texas brought the ovens to the States. Actually, I trained in Dallas for months on that oven. I carried over the woodoven theme in my frst restaurant in Kansas City.��� What was that one called? ���(laughs) Wood Roasted (laughs again) Pizza of Kansas City. How original. I think the frst thing customers were looking for when they walked in the door were these pizzas on a spit over an open fre.��� Are you always looking for new concepts? ���It always starts for me with the location. Tis is a perfect example. When people found out I was going to open something downtown, they automatically assumed it was going to be a BoomBozz. I get that. But look at the location. We have enough pizzerias down here. I wanted something diferent. Tis is the food I was eating during my travels through Southern California and Mexico. Back then it was called Old World. Now it���s called Modern Mexican.��� It���s been Americanized. So what���s left over from Zena���s? ���Well, the bar. At one time it was the longest bar in Louisville. It was cut in half. You can see where it was cut in half. Right there. See that? (He points to the last third of the bar nearest the door.) Tis is the last place that Zena���s existed.��� You hit Zena���s a lot? ���Great story with Zena���s I don���t tell much. In the ���90s, I sang in a band. (Actually) there were two: Darkhorse and Buckethead. So I was the lead singer, and we would play at Zena���s when it was at Tird and Market. Classic rock and blues.��� If you had a reunion, would it be Darkhorse or Buckethead? ���Buckethead. I love the blues.��� (Waiter arrives with queso ��� a mix of three cheeses topped with fresh chorizo. Two words: Order. It.) Did you have actual paying gigs? ���One of our frst shows we did was in this really run-down bar in J-town back in ���91 or ���92, and I think three people showed up. We got paid enough money to buy doughnuts next door.��� So you got to play music and eat doughnuts. Sounds perfect. ���It was fantastic.��� 3.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 10 1

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Louisville Magazine - MAR 2013