Striking from outside is the pair of massive patios in front of and behind the building, prime real estate during Louisville’s temperate months with ample room. The patio in back doubles as live music venue, hosting a regular and steady stream of acts capped off by weekend sets and Wednesday jazz nights. This rear patio is particularly large, including covered seating and a patchwork network of seemingly custom tables and benches. A set of outdoor beer taps are poised to activate on particularly busy evenings supported by events and live music.
The layout inside matches the rectangular expectation set by Nachbar’s exterior appearance. The space opens up into a single room footprint, the bar running about halfway down the dive bar’s main room. Seating comes at a premium, the stools at the bar supported by a handful of jukebox adjacent beer ledges along one wall that jut out from the brick to provide room for a pair of stools. Behind the bar, a fireball of light that is the mirrored, liquor bottle display sits just under a bit of Nachbar-inscribed stained glass. A nice collection of dive bar-like odds and ends can be found running atop the beer taps attached to barrel tops.
A cozier seating nook can be found in the rear of the space where wood paneling and what looks to be a supremely comfortable coach block off a bit of real estate under a set of very hipster-friendly paintings. A bit of dive bar grit can be found in this makeshift corner, inscriptions carved here and there into the furniture and wood paneling itself. Short round tables dot the rear of Nachbor for some additional seating, large bulb Christmas lights swinging overhead. The black painted ceiling tiles again conjure up that dive bar feeling, Nachbar’s windows nearly touching the ceiling itself, creating an illusion that feels almost like drinking in a basement.