Same but different: "Come Back Inn in Jeffersonville opened last week as Town, a neighborhood pub and restaurant."

We've been fans of Jeffersonville's Come Back Inn almost from the beginning, and tremendously admire the individuality and perseverance of Chris and London Smith (both of whom I recall from substitute teaching at Floyd Central, a fact that dates us all).

I know heads are being scratched about the seemingly abrupt metamorphosis into Town, but it's important to understand that gradual reinvention in a restaurant or bar is constant, anyway. There comes a time to go for the gusto, and they have. It will remain a special place, and they'll be fine.

Can't wait to get up there and try the new menu.

Why this well-known restaurant is changing concepts, rebranding, by Bridgett Weaver (Louisville Business First)

A local restaurant is rebranding and revamping its menu after 17 years.

After more than 17 years of serving the same (well-known and well-liked) food, a Louisville-area restaurant is shaking things up.

Come Back Inn in Jeffersonville opened last week as Town, a neighborhood pub and restaurant. Co-owner Chris Smith said it was time to try something new.

"When you are serving the same thing, the same food — it's not that it’s not good — it's just nice to be able to have a more creative side and be proud of what you're doing," Smith said. "That creativity starts to dwindle a bit after 17 years."

Smith originally opened the Jeffersonville restaurant in a partnership with the owners of Louisville's Come Back Inn on Swan Street. After splitting up three years later, he entered a licensing agreement with the Louisville Come Back Inn to continue operating under the name and using the same recipes.

"It was just time to separate and move on," he said. The restaurant is "less Italian-centric than we used to be. It was time to move on and do new things."

Since the licensing agreement was dissolved as part of the rebranding to Town, the menu and recipes changed, too.

"Every single recipe is totally different," Smith said.

But he said the atmosphere won't change, and the entire staff will remain on board ...

Our long civic nightmare finally ends as CM Cappuccino returns to the country comforts of obstructionism.

Boy, that was strange.

Around the time the Sherman Minton Bridge became ill back in 2011, Dan Coffey started making sense on occasion. I remember him convening a meeting at Lancaster's, and speaking stridently of the importance of using the opportunity of the bridge shutdown to restore two-way traffic to New Albany's streets, RIGHT NOW.

Why? Because it would be beneficial to small, independent businesses downtown.

In subsequent years, the unknown space alien continued to occupy Coffey's body. Heads were scratched raw as he actually became the voice of reason at council meetings. Perhaps the makeover was a run-up to the county commissioner's race in 2014, when Coffey -- with no city council seat to wager or lose -- was unable to muster any semblance of a fighting spirit, and suffered a humiliating 22-point defeat to Mark Seabrook.

Maybe he just decided that urban demolitions were more lucrative kicking back than exurban bulldozing.

Whatever the rationale, the universe has been out of sync, and the gods obviously weren't happy, and so now, at long last, we have our Cappuccino back, merrily contradicting himself on the topic of streets, and -- unopposed in his re-election to the post of Wizard of Westendia -- freely caterwauling and chewing scenery on topics of which he knows next to nothing. It's just like old times. Now all we need is Professor Erika blowing rancid cigarette smoke in his face.

The odds that Coffey actually read Speck's report?

Same probability that I've chugged a Miller Lite in the last five years, which is to say: Zero.

Welcome back. We've missed you so very much.

(Click through to read reporter Suddeath's redevelopment report in its entirety)

River Ridge may gain Toyota instead of New Albany, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

TIF ALSO TIED TO TWO-WAY STREETS

New Albany would likely use TIF funds to provide its 20 percent match to a $2.5 million federal grant for calming traffic in the city’s downtown.

The money could, for example, be used to flip one-way streets to two-way traffic.

On March 18, the city will hold its final public hearing on planner Jeff Speck’s street study, which is strongly in favor of two-way conversion, smaller traffic lanes and more on-street parking.

It’s one step the city has taken as it prepares its strategy for utilizing the federal grant, which was awarded through the Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency, or KIPDA.

But New Albany City Councilman Dan Coffey believes the city might need another report.

“I still don’t think it would hurt to have another, unbiased study,” said Coffey, who is also a member of the redevelopment commission.

Speck’s study is a plan “that’s been slanted toward one view,” he added.

“I’m really disappointed in the way that turned out,” Coffey said.

Mayor Jeff Gahan’s administration has largely remained noncommittal on Speck’s recommendations. With the Ohio River Bridges Project expected to bring more motorists to New Albany, Gahan has acknowledged the city will likely need to make adjustments to the traffic grid.

The final public meeting on the Speck report will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on March 18 at the Pepin Mansion, which is located at 1003 E. Main St.

ON THE AVENUES: Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.

ON THE AVENUES: Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

I’ve never thought of myself as a gambling man, and probably never will.

The next dollar I lose at a casino will be my first, and I may have bought as many as a dozen lottery tickets in the past two decades. Poker puts me to sleep, and I’ve been to Churchill Downs on an actual day of racing precisely once in 53 years of habitation hereabouts.

However, as an aficionado of food and drink, who in the past has enjoyed pursuing these activities in faraway places, trust me: There are plenty of ways to spend money apart from spinning a roulette wheel or playing the ponies. Verily, you can’t take it with you.

In the wake of NABC’s announcement earlier this week that we’re suspending food service at Bank Street Brewhouse, some have asked me whether walking away from a big chunk of food sales revenue represents a gamble for my company. I understand how it might appear that way, and of course, only time will tell.

But to me, what we’re doing speaks far more to a liberating opportunity than any undue risk. After all, the previous five years haven’t always provided sufficient tulips for tiptoeing.

Lately, this particular socialist has had a lot to learn, grudgingly, about the game of chance called capitalism, up close and personal, and to make a painfully long (and dreadfully boring) story as short as humanly possible, undoubted culinary achievements and stubborn force of will alone are not sufficient to suggest good odds for continuing what, in effect, has been a variable coin toss since BSB first opened in 2009.

Eternal thanks to those of you who supported the food concept at BSB. When our menu was on, it was great, and even when it wasn’t, it was good, and yet even the Beatles broke up – and they were better still. Call it cold turkey, or term it shock therapy; either way, costs had to be eliminated, because betting on next week’s roll of the dice was not always the best return, and by doing so, we’ve been starving ourselves of necessary reinvestment. Stripping one business plan down and building a second one back seems a far better course for us than persisting with unpredictability.

Instead, it’s about recommitting to what we do best. We’ll still have revenue, off-site from the damned fine brewery in back as well as from yet-to-be-determined beer sales in front. While revenue from beer sales in front will be less in the beginning, at least selling the beer we brew in back is sustainable and expandable in a way that the kitchen simply could not be.

That’s where a bit of community-oriented placemaking comes into play. The taproom model without a kitchen allows the indoor and outdoor areas to become a venue for creativity and activities, and places where things happen. The beer being consumed while these things happen is profitable. If we succeed in attracting customers in this fashion, there’ll be an opportunity to encourage other food-focused entrepreneurs to deliver food, or park a food truck, or set up a weenie cart.

And then … yes, then there’ll be food once again at BSB, but this time on terms more financially favorable to my company, even more diverse and eclectic – and fun – and potentially enabling the wetting of affiliated beaks all around, which is my more personally favored mode of capitalism, anyway.

---

There have been two supremely difficult aspects to these changes.

The first is knowing that however great the effort getting out the word, there’ll be customers who’ll drive out of their way to find us, expecting a meal we’re no longer capable of offering. In advance, permit me to apologize to them for their trouble. Our job now is to point them toward the many other eateries downtown.

The second is knowing that we had to let people go in order to reformat the business. Jobs are people, and that’s real life. This part of it isn’t easy, isn’t fun, and can’t be explained in any other way than “it’s the rules of the business game as we all play it.” This doesn’t mean I have to like it. I hope they all land on their feet, and that we can have a beer together some day in the future, and think about the good times.

Of which there were many, thankfully.

---

Looking back on my pronouncements in 2009 as we prepared to debut Bank Street Brewhouse, and comparing them with the record of BSB’s evolution since then, produces a sensation not unlike the one we feel while viewing leisure suits and hair styles in the late 1970s, as depicted in Throw Back Thursday photos.

Here’s a groaner.

NABC annually ranks highly in “best of” lists published by web sites such as www.ratebeer.com and www.beeradvocate.com, and furthermore, co-owner/beer writer Roger A. Baylor is regarded as one of the region’s foremost champions of the better beer movement.

These days, I detest Rate Advocate. Here’s another head-scratcher:

At the Bank Street location, there will be a limited Belgian-style café menu of food prepared by a Josh Lehman, a professional chef. A small on-premise shop will sell t-shirts, other advertising wearables, glassware and souvenirs.

Ah, the limits. Josh did great work and was far ahead of his time, but the “limited” descriptor is decidedly archaic given the levels of cost and inventory we eventually managed to reach by the year 2013, in a futile effort to “grow” a concept that lacked money and space.

As for the souvenir shop, it’s déjà vu all over again in 2014, and we’re hoping that finally, we’ll accomplish the goal. Arguably, these three broader planks from the 2009 mission statement come closer to the mark. Our aims were …

To be leaders in the craft beer segment and in the community, not followers.

To be progressive, not regressive.

To challenge and to educate, not to pander.

As far as I’m concerned, NABC surely achieved these objectives with BSB, and in 2014, we can move forward with the same points in mind. As Al Gore once noted, “You win some, you lose some – and then there’s that little known third category.”

In our case, it means we keep on going: Reinvent BSB as we go, brew beer, drink beer, and sell what’s left. The food will come.

Thanks again for your support.

Updated: Steve Coomes on Bank Street Brewhouse's reinvention.

I spoke with Steve Coomes at length, because he gets things right. It might be easier for me to post first, and comment later. At the moment, it's a pinball machine effect on the iPhone.

We're improvising an opening schedule. Tuesday - Thursday hours for beers at BSB are 3 - 9 p.m., with weekend hours yet to be determined. When we say food's gone away, it's what we mean. Of course, we'll adhere to the ATC rules, and the kitchen remains fully licensed by the health department, pending the latter's periodic policy coin tosses.

No food means no brunch on Sunday; no brunch means no Bloody Mary bar, at least for now. The exciting part of all this is that we get to create a whole new program from the ground up. It will be confusing, but it will evolve, and at some point, it will make sense. As it evolves, we'll do our best to keep people informed.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments so far. We achieved aesthetic success; if it just wasn't for those damned, pesky numbers.

Bank Street Brewhouse ends foodservice, will serve beer only after midweek shutdown, by Steve Coomes (Insider Louisville)

... Despite the cost, Baylor said he’s glad to have helped shepherd the process of revitalization in downtown New Albany. Since its opening, multiple restaurants have moved in and turned the once-tired area into a lively entertainment and retail district. Baylor said BSB also needed to adjust better to the neighborhood competition and play to its own strengths: great beer and socializing.

Changes coming at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse.

Just the facts for now. Here is the press release making the rounds, explaining that Bank Street Brewhouse henceforth will be a taproom and not a restaurant. I have the distinct impression that I'll be answering the phone quite often these next few days, and I'm eager to begin plotting the next course. We'll be leaving some things behind, even as numerous fresh possibilities are opened. Reinvention is liberating, so stay tuned.

---

Changes coming at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse.

“You could knock me over with a feather, because it turns out that the numbers don’t lie, after all.”
--NABC co-owner Roger A. Baylor

Effective Tuesday, May 13, the New Albanian Brewing Company will indefinitely suspend food service at Bank Street Brewhouse, its downtown New Albany location.

NABC’s brewing operation and our original location at the Pizzeria & Public House are entirely unaffected by these changes.

In the days to follow, we’ll remain open for business (exact schedule TBA) for “beers only” while planning, painting and remodeling, and BSB will continue to regularly function as the brewery’s downtown New Albany taproom – altered yet ongoing.

The future taproom format will include NABC beers served on site, and NABC beer for carry-out in growlers and 22-oz bomber bottles. We’re planning an expanded souvenir shop. There will be enhanced opportunities to use the facility as a venue and host for special events.

There may even be nibbles at some point, and we hope to play an ancillary role in animating food truck culture in New Albany, but we don’t intend to be a restaurant as before.

That phase has passed, for now.

Long live the many fond memories.

We had a great five-year run at BSB, and did our bit to shepherd the process of revitalization in downtown New Albany. We actually accomplished many of our aesthetic and ideological goals, but now we need to indulge in some updating and reinvention of our own, because the targets have moved and the competitive climate always is changing -- as it pertains both to the food and drink scene in downtown New Albany, and the market for better beer at home and in the world outside.

We must change along with the rest, and so we will. We intend to remain part of the downtown fabric, just differently than before. It’s a reinvention, not a departure.

Profuse and sincere thanks to everyone who supported the founding BSB concept, whether employee or customer. We are grateful.

Rock on.

Roger Baylor
Kate Lewison
Amy Baylor

Achtung Baby and the greatest rock reinvention.

It was roughly three weeks before Christmas in 1991. My afternoon classes were over, and a brisk stroll into the old town landed me at the Zlaty Dukat restaurant for a dinner of pork, dumplings and draft Pilsner Urquell. Returning much later to my hillside residence hall, I stopped by the sliding glass window for mail call, and to say hello to the ever-friendly night porter. With a smile, the old man gave me a handful of letters, a shoebox-sized package, and a warm seasonal greeting in Slovak: “Veselé vianoce.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” I responded -- in English.

Upon closer inspection, buried deep in the box was the real prize of the day, a cassette copy of U2’s album “Achtung Baby.” It had been released only a short time before, and some of the tunes were just beginning to be played on Bratislava’s weird, joyful Rock FM radio station, a figment of pre-Communist imagination sprung amazingly to life two years after the Velvet Revolution. The signal was relayed to a local transmitter in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, and then came to rest on the FM band of my South Korean boom box.

Popping the top on a locally brewed Cassovar lager, I listened with rapt attention. Indeed, U2’s sound on “Achtung Baby” was different – very much so – but at the same time, the band was the same one I’d seen perform in Ireland during the 1987 tour backing “The Joshua Tree” album.

What in the hell had happened? It took me a while, but eventually it made sense, and when it finally did, I was hooked for life.

Twenty years have come and gone. I didn't spring for the Super Deluxe Edition of "Achtung Baby", just the remastered original album with an accompanying disc of B-sides, most of which I'd heard before. No matter. This essay-length review on Pitchfork by Ryan Dombal uses the re-release as an excuse to recall the context of a time, and indeed, Dombal does a fine job of it. In particular, his assessment of the subsequent Zoo TV tour's impact is spot on. Two excerpts are offered, but by all means, read the whole piece.

U2 Achtung Baby

[Super Deluxe Edition] Island; 2011
By Ryan Dombal; November 9, 2011

"If you give a pop star a shit pile of dough and he refuses to self-destruct, I think it is a bit wet," said a smoking, slicked-back, black-sunglasses-clad Bono in a 1993 interview on the UK music show "Naked City". "I think it's part of the deal. If they don't die on a cross by 33, I'd ask for your money back ...

... Achtung Baby is rightly known as one of rock's greatest reinventions because it was so complete. Sure, U2 changed their sound from chiming melodics to lurching, distorted rhythm. But they also changed their attitude, their demeanor, their look, their ideas on how to deal with celebrity. All of a sudden, they were funny, sexy, a bit dangerous-- three things few would've associated with U2 in the 80s. And yet, at their core, the band's values remained constant. They were still ethically minded and interested in the real-life connection between living beings. But the way they went about projecting those core tenets flipped. In TV-news parlance, their attitude switched from "60 Minutes" to "The Colbert Report".

86'ing heedless repetition.

"If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves...There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding."

-Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Perhaps it's a bit early in the "adjustment" period, but the above quote shared by reader Josh and a neighbor's mention of how pleasant New Albany's downtown can be without the noise of interstate traffic have me (re)thinking.

Let's suppose the Sherman Minton Bridge needs replacement. The current projected cost of a new East End Bridge sans tunnel and other approaches is $406 million. One assumes a new Sherman Minton might come with a similar price tag. That's a lot. Given that level of expenditure, would merely replicating an interstate bridge really be the best investment of those dollars?

Haven't a lot of our issues in terms of urban devaluation and decay ridden shotgun on the destruction of Scribner Park and the insertion of an interstate into our downtown street grid and lives? The city's oft-referenced 20th century heyday was an interstate free affair.

Like Steve Wiser's better cross-river plan (PDF) in response to the Ohio River Bridges Project, could we be better served by two local access New Albany bridges, transit options, and park and rides on the perimeter and, like 8664, the removal of the Great Wall of the West End? Aren't a lot of the points we've all made about the downtown portion of the Bridges Project in general as true for New Albany specifically? That our neighborhood streets have become cut through highways and both our green and building spaces mostly unused surface parking might provide a clue.

Before we get too caught up in partisan bickering over paying for it, it may be a good idea to consider what we actually want.

Hurried Friday scribblings.

It's frustrating not to have the time to write when there is much to say, but I'm just going to have to accept that this is going to be one of those days.

It probably sounded like I was giving Jeff Roudenbush too hard a time in last evening's hurried posting, and if so, apologies. Anyone with ideas about downtown is welcomed at the table, with the frustration on my part coming from the unwillingness of so many people who have ideas to take note of what's already going on. More so, with another neighborhood forum approaching, there's the fact that locals hereabouts refuse to sit at the same table even when self-interest compels them to do so.

It is so very clear to me that three (maybe more) fundmental preconditions are necessary to make this notion of a functional downtown come to fruition. First, government must takes its own rulebook seriously. Second, there must be a comprehensive plan for reinventing the core. Third, there must be unity among all participants in order to achieve it.

Specifically, although I abhor ROCK's goals, I envy its organizational skills. These skills are not unique to one-issue lobbyists inspired by religion. They are available to all, and yet New Albany's citizenry persists in fragmentation.

Everyone has ideas ... why not work together to see which of the ideas are useful, which are repetitive, and which have a chance of succeeding? Obviously, it won't happen for so long as the "our people vs. them people" mentality reigns.

As noted, there's no time today. I'll be at the Bank Street site by 9:30 a.m., meet with our licensing lawyer from Indy at 11:00 a.m at the Plaza Drive location, then be back downtown to show him the build-out and be at the Carnegie by 1:00 p.m. for the urban enterprise zone seminar. After that, with luck, there'll be time for a progressive pint and cigar at Connor's Place.

Have a good Friday, all.

Defying categorization is one thing; ignoring it is another.

Travel + Leisure, in conjunction with CNN, recently surveyed what 600,000 people thought of 25 U.S. cities based on a list of specific criteria as part of their 2008 America’s Favorite Cities guide. CoolTown Studios took the list, broke it down to the qualities that matter to creatives, and posted the results.

Not surprisingly, names like Portland, Austin, and Chicago appear near the top.

New Albany's puzzle, however, is not national. It's regional. It's metro. It's within 10 miles in any random direction. A notion of revitalization that at times seems vague and impossible is really just a matter of capturing a tiny percentage of real estate and retail activity within a relatively small area.

The categories, as defined by Travel + Leisure and separated out by CoolTown, are below. I might cavil at a couple of them, but I'm not editing a national magazine or running an international television network.

Within the Louisville Metro-Southern Indiana area, how do we comparatively rate? What are we good at? How do we capitalize? What and how do we improve?

Figure it out or die. No biggie.

People
Diverse
Athletic/active

Culture
Live music bands

Shopping
Local boutiques
Art galleries
Vintage stores/flea markets

Food/dining
Ethnic food/cheap eats
Cafes/coffee bars
Farmers’ and specialty food markets

Quality of Life & Visitor Experience
Public transportation and pedestrian friendliness
Affordability
Environmental Awareness

Nightlife