Kern's Korner

An ol' charmer
Kern's Korner is a home away from home

Address: Kern's Korner, 2600 Bardstown Road, across from the amazing Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen.

Small print: Open daily from 9 a.m. to around midnight, later if the crowd is good. Forget the Bambi Walk -- if you really want to impress and/or scare me, spend all 15 hours here one day!

Why you should go: Do I have to tell you why you should go home? No, you go because you love your family and they love you, even though you're a no-good screw-up who hasn't given them grandkids to dote on yet.

Just like at home, they'll feed you at Kern's; it ain't gourmet cookin' here, no no no, but it sure does taste good, like when you were 10 and all you cared about was playing basketball in the driveway with Nick and Charlie and Momma called you in for supper.

The sign outside reads, "Kern's Korner Sandwiches," but I pity the salesman traveling through who misses out on the burgers or the chili. Now isn't that Louisvillian of them, to throw you off track and be humble about their claim to fame? Your meal just might come back on you 20 minutes later, but that's part of the fun … right?


PHOTO BY CHRIS HALL

Being locally owned for decades, they love the horses, as we all do. The proud display of old photos led my dining companion, Jefrey, to announce, "The picture of the horse being washed is kinda sexy. …" Seeing the reaction upon my face, he added, "Not to me, though," with a nervous weasel laugh.

The clock behind the bar tells you one thing about the regulars: I'm not sure why Viagra made a bunch of clocks and distributed them, but it gave me something to ponder.

At Kern's, I feel like a child again, not just because of the home-cooked charm of the food, but because most of the lunch crowd is old enough to be my father. I don't think Ed Asner and Norman Mailer were in town recently, but their doppelgangers were.

At night the crowd gets younger … but not by much. Friendly thirtysomethings not quite ready to try their pick-up lines at Jim Porter's practice them here on the weekends. If your hair's not too big, don't worry, they'll let you be.

Bottom line: Kern's Korner is an ol' charmer, a li'l slice of Germantown for those closer to the southern end of Bardstown Road. If anything I said about it sounds like anything less than high praise, well, that's your fault. I'm just glad they didn't name it "Kern's Korner Kafe."