UPCOMING EVENT: Access Louisville Live presented by Baird. Be on hand for a live recording of the Access Louisville podcast April 22. Details and registration here.

A new pizza joint, a French Bistro and the latest on the brewing scene.

All of the above are topics on this week's Access Louisville podcast. LBF Restaurant reporter Michael L. Jones is on the show to tell us about a new St. Matthews Pizza joint, Pizza Jones (no relation.) Pizza Jones will be located at 126 Breckenridge Lane, next to the China 1 restaurant, and is scheduled to open in early May. Gene Stein, co-owner of Pizza Jones, is the former co-owner of the defunct Pizza Guy brand, which closed nearly two decades ago.

Jones also tells us about French bistro M. Peppers, which opened at 1306 Bardstown Road, inside the Bellwether Hotel, opened Tuesday, April 15. It comes from the team behind bar Vetti inside NuLu's AC Hotel. The ownership group includes chef Andrew McCabe and restaurateur Ryan Rogers, co-owner of Feast BBQ and Royals Hot Chicken.

We also chat about Mashup Food Hall landing its first restaurant, the closure of the Oddbird Cafe in the Highlands and the latest trends in craft beer brewing. Brewing is still a growing business (despite troubles experienced lately by Louisville brewers) though it's not growing as fast as it was pre-pandemic, as our data showed.

After the restaurant talk, we chat about music festivals — including the news that Danny Wimmer Presents, the promotor behind Bourbon & Beyond and Louder than Life, has committed to Louisville for the next 10 years. Bourbon & Beyond and Louder Than Life generated more than $33 million in local economic impact in 2024 and drew more than 300,000 attendees, booking over 60,000 hotel room nights, as Jones reported. 

We also chat about the recently announced lineup of The Big Stomp festival, which you can find here. 

Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. It's available on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.