Review: The Hitching Post Tavern

(Credit: Joseph Lord)

The first thing to know about the Hitching Post Tavern: It’s cash only.

Found that out the hard way.

Luckily, a block away is a concentration of banks with ATMs, and this apparently happens all the time, so the bartender was cool about it.

The second thing to know: The beer is cheap ($2 cans), but the selection is limited. Bud, Bud Light, Miller High Life — you get the idea.

The third thing to know: The bar is the place to be in October during New Albany’s annual Harvest Homecoming — non-Hoosiers, think the Kentucky Derby Festival on a much smaller scale and without a horse race at the end.

The Hitching Post is an unassuming joint, a block from the New Albany police department and pretty much everything else in the city. New Albany is an interesting spot because it gives off a definitive small town vibe despite being literally five minutes from downtown Louisville. It’s less a suburb than an insular small berg all by its lonesome, one that somehow happens to be near a relatively big city.

The bar fits the motif perfectly. On this afternoon, the bar was filled with regulars nursing cans of beer and ribbing each other the way older guys rib each other in bars. (That is, laughing at the bald guys.) It didn’t take long to realize that these were people who’d patronized this bar for years, if not decades. Still, the bartender and cook were quite friendly to this stranger — particularly when he had to leave briefly to get cash.

The Hitching Post looks like a Cracker Barrel from the outside — like an old country store back when people bought pickled eggs.

It looks like an old saloon that might actually have a hitching post.

Inside, the bar is long, the stools are comfy and there’s plenty of room for groups to sprawl. Dozens of aged cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and other beers sit behind the bartenders. The Hitching Post serves breakfast and lunch, and the food is pretty good for a bar. And the service is pretty zippy.

If you want bars with frills, go elsewhere. There aren’t a lot of games or karaoke. Bear in mind, the bar always attracts an overflow crowd during Harvest Homecoming. The bars on the block are generally sleepy except for those lifelong regulars — mentioned the police department nearby, right? — but for one week the place is like Baxter Avenue on Saturday evening. Maybe crazier.

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