2026 03 14

Kelly at Sergio’s. Louisville, Kentucky. February, 2026. © Clayton Hauck

Often in my life, a place away from home will become a sort of second home for a period of time. Currently, that place is Louisville. It’s a place I’ve always been fascinated by and even briefly considered making a second home base a decade-or-so back when real estate prices seemed like a steal. The immediate area I was infatuated by was the Clifton area just east of Butchertown. Being familiar with how things change in Chicago, it felt like it was a neighborhood on the rise and within another decade, the place would be filled with bars, restaurants and shops. Admittedly, upon returning a month back, I was completely wrong in this assessment and many of the places I’d previously loved no longer exist . Fortunately, Sergio’s is not one of those places.

The city was largely deserted after getting blanketed with a foot of snow some five days prior. Entire neighborhoods still hadn’t seen a plow and likely never would. Things happen a bit slower down south, I’m told. “All of the schools canceled classes for the week,” I was also told. Again, using my familiar reference point of Chicago, this just seemed like madness. But you gotta wonder if maybe we’re the mad ones up north, so rushed to get back to normal business. Because the place was deserted, I was able to have a nice long chat with Kelly about all things beer and the history of the building Sergio’s calls home.

Once I was back home, it hit me that I should’ve documented our chat and turned it into content for my everyoneisfamous.com blog. What a missed opportunity, I though, being hard on myself as usual. But maybe I should instead take a page from the Louisville Streets & Sanitation Department and not stress so much about these things.

-Clayton

PS- It sounds like I’ll be back down in Louisville in a week or so, again hunting for content, and possibly bringing down the photobook shop!