Wiltshire Pantry, a local chain that has locations in The Highlands, in NuLu and at the Speed Art Museum, opened a new downtown location at 605 W. Main St. last Monday.
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The downtown Wiltshire Pantry Bakery & Cafe fills the space previously occupied by Atlantic No. 5, a cafe that closed early last summer. It serves pastries, carryout “breakfast boxes,” sandwiches, salads and cold drinks.
Wiltshire Pantry is down the street from the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts and very close to 21c Museum Hotel and the Kentucky Science Center. Owner Susan Hershberg had announced in 2019 that her team would open a downtown location in a property adjacent to another nearby cultural venue, the Frazier History Museum, but the museum decided instead to sell the space.
After 2020, though, her motivation for opening a downtown location came from a broader purpose.
“After going through the uprising in 2020, in addition to the pandemic, I felt like downtown Louisville could use a little burst of new energy,” she told LEO. “We felt at [that] point that we could be a good contributing factor there.”
Young working professionals are bringing some of that new energy to the downtown location, as are young families, Hershberg said. Office employees who only have half an hour to eat lunch, for example, need quick dining options.
Hershberg said this location differs from the other Wiltshire cafes in its focus on the young professional demographic –– for example, there are more grab-and-go menu offerings at Wiltshire on Main than at the Highlands location. An online ordering platform for in-store pickup orders is slated to launch at Wiltshire on Main in the next two weeks.
Wiltshire on Main is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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