See photos of the LGBTQ+ ‘Pride Plates’ Tour Below
If you’re looking for a way to connect with the LGBTQ+ culture in Louisville, the Louisville Food Tours provide Kentucky staples like the hot brown and an old fashioned while you learn about the area’s LGBTQ+ history.
The three hour long, guided walking tour will take participants on a journey through Louisville’s LGBTQ+ history—featuring delicious meals and iconic meals of fried chicken, spoonbread, bourbon cocktails, and more. During the tour, the tour guide will tell stories of Prohibition-era drag queens to poets and activists in the community to a bourbon drinking goat.
Richie Goff is the director of marketing for Louisville Food Tours and the lead writer for the Pride Plates food tour.
He hopes tour participants learn something new about LGBTQ+ history during the tour. He spent months researching to write Pride Plates working with David Williams,, the curator of the Williams Nichols Collection at the University of Louisville and Chad Kamen, who works with the special collections at UofL and is curator of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Collections.
“I hope they learn something new, because there is so much cool history in Kentucky, you know, especially queer history,” Goff said. “A lot of people don’t think of Kentucky as being very open minded or different or unique in any way, but we’ve had a lot of really cool characters throughout history.”
One historical figure that the Pride Plates tour shares the story of is Kelly King, who was on the cover of the Louisville Scene when it was still part of the Courier-Journal. The story was one of the first public glimpses into Louisville drag culture.
“She really was the one of the first drag queens in Louisville to pave the way for people understanding the life of a drag Queen,” Goff said. “The article was all about her getting into character, getting dressed, working at the bars. It was a behind the scene glimpse at drag culture that most people would have never heard of.”
The tour leads participants down Bardstown Road, to several restaurants and two different bars. One bar has a laid-back atmosphere, while the other bar has a bit more high energy.
“I think the pride plates tour is really good, especially for gay and queer travelers, because we do go to chill bar and big bar, which are, you know, both on Bardstown Road. I think that’s a really nice introduction to the gay bars.”
The tour launched last October as part of Kentucky’s Queer Bourbon Week, so this June will be the first Pride month with the tour offered. Goff hopes to see more interest in the tour this year.
“We’re excited this year to hopefully ramp up interest in it,” Goff said. “It’s not our most popular tour by any means. It’s very niche, of course.”
The Louisville Food Tours is partnering with Actors Theatre of Louisville to be able to purchase tickets to both the tour and their upcoming performance “Gender Play or what you Will.” The play runs June 13-22.
The tour currently runs every Friday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets start at $159. Learn more on their website: Pride Plates: Kentucky’s Queer History Food Tour – Louisville Food Tours | Walking Tours of Louisville, Kentucky
