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/197412
the DISH Freddie's Bar and Lounge (220 W. Broadway) I f you were to dream up a bar for a movie or a detective novel, you might come up with something like this: walls plastered with old photos of boxers and celebrities; maybe a pair of signed boxing gloves hanging near a black-and-white of Sinatra; a bar top that runs the length of one wall, free of fashionable tchotchkes and defnitely not made of refurbished something-or-other; worn vinyl-covered booths that provide some actual privacy; "bar food" that consists of a bag of chips; an on-the-spot, loyal bartender named, say, Charlene; and an owner who's had the place since Muhammad Ali (one of those boxers in the photos) was Cassius Clay. Now that's a bar. And that's Freddie's. And, yes, there is a Freddie. He's Freddie Scarlott, 92, who has owned this staple on Broadway for 51 years. Freddie's is the kind of place that still touts signs out front beckoning customers with "pay phones inside," "parking in rear" and "beer to go." If you're there during the day — the hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. — it's almost too dark inside to see what you're drinking. But chances are you're having a beer. And Charlene Ray won't keep you waiting, either. Te service at Freddie's is another thing that's old-school. Scarlott doesn't drink or smoke. A former Golden Gloves boxer and Navy veteran of World War II who was on a ship that was sunk in the English Channel, Scarlott still comes to the "ofce" every day and looks ft enough to go seven rounds. "Maybe two," he says with a chuckle. After Scarlott got out of the service in 1946, he returned home to Louisville. A construction worker by trade, he specialized in concrete and ironwork. But if the winters were especially bitter, he was laid of. "Back then you couldn't pour concrete if it was below freezing," he recalls. "So I'd be out of work. My brotherin-law had a nightclub out in the county, so I worked for him three or four nights a week." He and a partner bought Freddie's when the bar was called Two Toms. (You guessed it: Te owners then were "two fellas named Tom.") Over the years, Scarlott says, he's owned 10 bars — nine in Louisville and one in Cocoa Beach, Fla., back in the 1970s called Bachelors Two. Now he's down to Freddie's. "I don't change it much," he says — a new computerized jukebox being an obvious exception. "I don't have lots of neon and stuf like that. Tis is a neighborhood bar. It's been successful, so why change it?" One of the traditions that makes Freddie's Freddie's is its regular clientele, which includes an ever-changing band of folks from Actors Teatre, many of whom stay at the neighboring Weissinger-Gaulbert apartments. In October, they rehearsed right in the bar. "We're fortunate to get them here," Scarlott says as Ray nods and tops of a customer's cofee. "Tey're nice people, and we never have any trouble with them." So after more than a half-century in the business, what's the strangest thing Scarlott has seen in his bar? He studies his boxer's hands for a moment, then says, "I'd rather not say — not for publication." A really great bar should have a little mystery, too. — Kane Webb 11.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 133