Around this time last year, the University of Louisville’s Athletic Department announced the hiring of Pat Kelsey as the new head coach of the mens’ basketball team. The future of the program was uncertain, but the city of Louisville was ready for a change—a change that would hopefully restore the mens’ basketball team to its former glory.
At the beginning of his tenure, Kelsey coined the term “ReviVILLE” to signify the beginning of a new era and the hope that he could revive a program that once experienced winning ways. Now, “ReviVILLE” is a term commonly used in the Louisville community, as Kelsey has no doubt achieved what he set out to do. The Cardinals ended the 2024-25 season with a 27-8 record, reached the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship for the first time ever and earned a berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament for the first time since 2019.
The effects of this resurgence can be felt across the city, particularly among the local businesses that surround the Yum! Center and make up Downtown Louisville’s “Whiskey Row.” “Whiskey Row” is an entertainment district located throughout W. Main Street. The heart of the area, located right in front of the KFC Yum! Center is more recently known as “Whiskey Alley.” The one block stretch of main street houses restaurants like O’Shea’s Irish Pub and Troll Pub Under the Bridge among others, where fans frequently gather to watch Louisville basketball games.
As the tides of Louisville’s basketball program have shifted over the years, so too has the revenue and success of these restaurants, whose business relies heavily on the popularity of the team. Patrick O’Shea’s, which has entrances on both “Whiskey Row” and “Whiskey Alley,” for example, has seen significant impacts from this year’s basketball success.
“The fan base just even from the very beginning of getting a new coach has been exponentially more supportive, it seems,” O’Sheas Office Manager Kady Miller said. “The business has been booming on event days and basketball games. In the past two years before, we weren’t having as much success.”
The restaurant has three stories, each holding around 200 people. In the two seasons prior, under former head coach Kenny Payne, they rarely even opened the second floor. This season, all three floors have been opened and full of fans on almost every single gameday.
Miller has worked at O’Shea’s since 2011, switching between bartending, hosting, serving and finally working in the office. Through this experience, she has seen many eras of Louisville basketball and its impact on the local community.
“We’re always hearing the Cards here. Yeah, so people are really happy and excited when they’re in the building,” Miller said. “It definitely feels very similar to the fan base [during the Pitino era].”
Doc Crow’s Southern Smokehouse and Raw Bar, more commonly known as Doc Crow’s, is another restaurant located in the “Whiskey Row,” “Whiskey Alley” and Yum! Center area. Dining room manager Brooke Mclean, who has worked at Doc Crow’s for five years, has also seen a shift in customer attitudes and turnout since Kelsey took over.
“I would say in the past couple years when we [Louisville’s basketball team] weren’t the best, business was a little bit different. Specifically, we would still get a crowd before the games, but once they would get there, and then the game didn’t go in our favor, they wouldn’t be coming out to celebrate. So now, this past year, we will get that rush before the game and then after the game. When we were winning, people would come out for that after game celebration. So we definitely saw a lot more business for that,” Mclean said.
Mclean and Doc Crow’s have seen the change manifest itself in multiple ways, including in both customer and employee attitudes and spikes in revenue. For example, on Dec. 21, 2023, during the Payne era, Louisville lost to the University of Kentucky. The next day, on Dec. 22, Doc Crow’s revenue was approximately $11,000. Flash forward a year to Dec. 22, 2024, and the restaurant made $24,000 the day after Lousville defeated Florida State. The increase in revenue from that day in 2023 to 2024 was 54%, showing without a shadow of doubt that when the Cardinals are winning, Downtown Louisville reaps the benefits.
In addition to the monetary value of the Cardinal’s success, morale among Mclean’s employees and customers have also improved. Seeing as Doc Crow’s is located in the heart of the city and is close to the University of Louisville, many of its employees and patrons attend the school and/or are fans of the team. Mclean has seen the overall environment of the restaurant shift as the team has given people something to be excited about.
“It’s definitely been a good thing for them. You know just not only with the boom of business but just to see our home team winning like it brings morale up around the restaurant,” Mclean said.
In her years with Doc Crow’s, Mclean has become familiar with the culture and routine of Downtown Louisville on gameday. She knows which regulars to expect before games but had noticed that in recent years, she had seen them less and less often. However, that has changed this year, as both regulars and new customers alike venture out to celebrate victory after victory.
“When there’s a game, we know in advance to expect them [regulars] so it’s kind of like we can plan ahead. We know that they’re gonna be there. We kind of know what to expect at this point, which has been different from the previous years because a lot of times those people aren’t coming when th
ey’re sad and not winning,” Mclean said.
Overall, the success of Pat Kelsey and the 2024-25 Louisville cardinals was certainly something of a revival for both the basketball program and the Louisville community as a whole. The program turnaround that Kelsey, who was recently named the ACC Coach of the Year, achieved will be remembered as one of the largest and fastest culture shifts in college basketball to date.
As a result, the boost in morale across the city can be felt both in the roar of the Yum! Center on game days and in the crowds of people pouring onto the streets of Downtown Louisville to celebrate Cardinal wins.
“I feel like [the success of Louisville Basketball] has really brought back a life to Whiskey Row again,” Miller said.
The “ReviVILLE” is no doubt both real and bigger than basketball, as its effects can be felt across the city as attested by the businesses on “Whiskey Row” and Whiskey Alley.”
