Dixie Highway's New Restaurants Are Round One, and Round One Used About a Third of the Money

Four restaurant projects along Dixie Highway got public money last February. As of early October 2026 they sit at four different stages. Crumbl is open. Freddy's is due this month. LongHorn is under construction where the Frisch's Big Boy used to stand. Derby City Pizza's expansion is still a plan on paper. Those four grants add up to $353,000, about a third of the $1 million the city set aside to bring restaurants to the corridor. When those awards were announced, the city said the fund was still open to more restaurants, and no further Dixie restaurant grants have been publicly reported since.

So the openings along Pleasure Ridge Park's stretch of Dixie are not a finished set. They are the first projects through a pipeline that is still running.

Four addresses, four stages

Head south on Dixie from the 7400 block to the 12900 block and you pass every step of the process in order.

LongHorn Steakhouse, 7401 Dixie Highway. Work has started on the old Frisch's Big Boy site, and the Frisch's building came down in June. Councilman Jonathan Joseph, who represents District 12, wrote on Facebook on May 27 that the site holds memories for South End families, and he called the project "continued real time investment and momentum along the Dixie corridor." A company spokesperson told the Courier Journal in September that the restaurant should open in "Winter 2026 or Spring 2027." It will be LongHorn's fifth location in the metro. The other four are in Clarksville, Indiana, near I-265 and Brownsboro Road, in Jeffersontown, and in Okolona. That makes Okolona the closest LongHorn to Pleasure Ridge Park right now.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, 8700 Dixie Highway. WLKY's latest update, on September 20, said this location was "scheduled to open in October." It will be the chain's fourth Kentuckiana location, after a Clarksville store at 1055 Veterans Parkway opened in September. That report did not give a specific opening day.

Crumbl Cookies, 10970 Dixie Highway. This is the one you can visit today. Its grand opening was Friday, August 28. In its February announcement, the city said the store would bring Crumbl to the South End for the first time.

Derby City Pizza, 12900 Dixie Highway. This is the only project of the four that expands a business already operating on the corridor. Plans call for an event center and outdoor game yard. WLKY reported in February that construction on a 2,000-square-foot event building, with outdoor volleyball and pickleball, was expected to start "this spring." We have not found a public update since then confirming that work started.

Why the money shows up after the doors open

The order of that list follows how the program pays out. The Dixie Highway Restaurant Incentive Fund is first-come, first-served, and the city pays awards after a project hits its construction and occupancy milestones. So a grant announced in February does not put cash in a restaurant's hands in February. The restaurant has to get built first.

That explains the spread you see along Dixie this fall. A cookie shop moving into an existing space can open within months. A full-service steakhouse on a site that first had to be cleared takes a year or more. The fund's program page sets out separate size bands for fast-casual spaces of 2,000 to 5,000 square feet and table-service spaces above 5,000 square feet, with incentives of up to $30 per square foot. The page carries no publication date, so the details may have changed, but the structure is clear. The city is paying for finished dining rooms, not for announcements.

The fund covers the whole Dixie Highway corridor, from Broadway to the county line. Pleasure Ridge Park sits in the middle of that stretch, and that is why two of the four first projects, LongHorn and Freddy's, landed at 7401 and 8700 Dixie.

The local pizzeria has the largest public commitment

LongHorn's $173,000 is the largest single restaurant grant. Derby City Pizza is the business with the most public money behind it overall. A February 16 council newsletter reported that, on top of its $60,000 restaurant grant, Derby City Pizza was approved for a $215,000 METCO loan for courts and parking. Together that comes to $275,000 for one South End business adding to what it already has.

Owner Larry Davis told Spectrum News 1 the funding helped "a five-year vision" become reality. "We have strived to get better things out this way on Dixie Highway," he said. The current building already works as a community room. On August 31, District 14 used Derby City Pizza – Valley Station to celebrate students from Valley High School and Stuart Middle School who had competed in chess at the national level.

Councilmember Khalil Batshon of District 25 made a related point when the grants were announced. "These national chains and national brands are carried by a local business owner, a local entrepreneur, who buys into most of these franchises," he said. Even the brand names on Dixie are, in his telling, local investments.

The same fund also supports smaller existing businesses across the South End. Five received $10,000 South Points legacy grants: Sandollar on Outer Loop, B.A. Colonial on W. Kenwood, LJG Childcare on Taylor Boulevard, The Well Coffee Co. on New Cut Road, and Maya Collection.

About two-thirds of the restaurant money had not been awarded as of February

The math is simple. The South End Loan and Incentive Fund is $3 million, split into three equal parts: $1 million for METCO loans and grants, $1 million for Dixie Highway restaurant recruitment, and $1 million held in reserve. The four restaurant grants come to $353,000. That leaves roughly $647,000 of the restaurant money unassigned, as long as no new awards have been made, and local reporting has not announced any additional Dixie restaurant grants since February.

The city has said plainly that it wants to spend the rest. "Our team is actively engaging multiple restaurant groups, and there is still incentive funding available," Trevor Pawl, CEO of the Louisville Economic Development Alliance, said in February. "We want more brands and more choices for South Louisville residents." The release added that the fund "remains open" to table-service and fast-casual restaurants looking to open in South Louisville. At that point the loan side still had $255,000 available in METCO funding and $150,000 left for South Points grants.

Grants are paid only after construction and occupancy, and a full-service build like LongHorn's runs from a February award to a projected opening of Winter 2026 or Spring 2027. That means any restaurant that signs on next would likely show up as a fenced lot or a new sign on Dixie long before it serves a meal.

Getting there

All four addresses are on TARC's Route 10, which runs along Dixie Highway through Shively, Pleasure Ridge Park, and Valley Station. New TARC schedules took effect August 2, 2026. A District 14 notice before the launch said the new network would cut the system's bus stops by about half, so if you rode Route 10 before August, check where your stop is now.

At ZHomes Real Estate, we keep track of what is opening along Dixie Highway because our office is down the road on Preston Highway and these are our neighbors' blocks too. If you own a home near the corridor and want to know how a new LongHorn or Freddy's down the street fits into what your house is worth, ask for a free home valuation. Our bilingual team can walk you through it in English or Spanish.