During our trip last year to Louisville to play "tourist" for a couple days, we had eaten one evening at a place called Wild Rita's, a contemporary Mexican restaurant with some very good food and interesting decor. (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Wild Rita's.) It turned out the gentlemen who owned Wild Rita's owned a breakfast place that had become wildly popular in the greater Louisville area. And one was located a short walking distance from the hotel we were staying at in downtown Louisville. Eschewing the free hotel food one morning, we took a walk over to Wild Eggs to have breakfast.
J.D. Rothberg became the owner of the upscale Napa River Grill in Louisville in 1999, with Shane Hall as his general manager. The two entered into a new venture together, a local breakfast spot called Wild Eggs in 2007. It quickly became one of the hottest restaurants in Louisville and it wasn't long before there were three locations around the city. The pair brought in Tony Estratiadis to be their executive chef.
Pictured right - Shane Hall and J.D. Rothberg
In 2012, Rothberg sold his stake in Napa River Grill to local restaurateur and entrepreneur Junior Bridgeman to focus fully on the Wild Eggs concept. Rothberg, Hall and Estratiadis all had a part in opening Wild Rita's in 2014, but Hall and Rothberg both relinquished the day-to-day operation of Wild Rita's to Estratiadis in 2015 after receiving capital from an investment firm to help grow the Wild Eggs brand. Today, there are 16 company-owned and franchisee-owned Wild Eggs locations in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
The downtown Louisville location of Wild Eggs is located on S. Floyd Street between Main and Market. (see map) We got there around 10 a.m. figuring that we wouldn't have any trouble getting in on a weekday morning. Well, we were wrong about that. It turned out that we had about a 10 minute wait before we could get a table in the dining room. We hung out up front near an area that had a small semi-circular breakfast bar.
It was more like a 15 minutes wait (with more people coming in after us while we waited) before a young lady took us into the dining room and sat us at the table near the front of the building. The dining room had a high ceiling with walls painted with light earth tones. The dining room was open and airy, and very well lit from both the LED lighting from above and the natural light coming through the windows.
Now, I can usually remember the names of our servers, but for some reason the name of the young lady who waited on us that morning at Wild Eggs escaped me. And I feel bad about that because she was a wonderful server. She was outgoing, witty, chatty without being a nuisance, made some great recommendations for food and joked with me when I ordered espresso. "Going for that morning jolt halfway through morning," she said. "Well, there's nothing wrong about that." My wife and I both also got glasses of their fresh squeezed orange juice.
The breakfast part of the menu at Wild Eggs (they also serve lunch up to 2:30 p.m. through the week) was wide and varied from basic breakfast favorites like biscuits and gravy, to omelets, crepes, pancakes, waffles and French toast. They had a number of egg dishes as well as an assortment of Eggs Benedict plates. One that jumped out at me was the Smokin' Hash with housemade corned beef hash mixed in with peppers, potatoes and onions were served with two eggs any style. Also, they had something called the Wild Chicken and Waffle that featured a seasoned chicken-infused waffle, a Nashville-style hot chicken breast, along with chopped bacon and a housemade buttermilk maple syrup gravy. Many of the foods served at Wild Eggs are locally sourced and made from scratch in-house.
They also had a number of breakfasts with a Mexican-influenced breakfasts including something my wife got - the Chili Verde Huevos Rancheros. "Good choice," our effervescent server told my wife. It featured two eggs any style - she got scrambled egg whites - and it was topped with pico de gallo, sour cream, green onions, and a green chili sauce served with a flour tortilla. Black beans and potatoes came on the side. My wife was in heaven with her breakfast. She couldn't stop raving at how great it tasted.
I did the Kelsey KY Brown - Wild Eggs' version of the Hot Brown dish that Louisville is famous for. (You gotta try a Hot Brown in Louisville at least once in your life.) It had roasted turkey, applewood smoked bacon, and a fried egg (over easy) on toasted sourdough bread, then topped with a white cheddar Mornay sauce and sprinkled with chopped tomatoes and smoked paprika. I also got a side of 3 strips of applewood smoked bacon. The Kelsey KY Brown was heavenly - full of flavor with a richness in each bite. I knew that I wouldn't need to have lunch today after eating everything in the bowl down to the bottom. It was simply outstanding.
My wife and I found out first hand why Wild Eggs is growing so quickly with up to 16 different locations in four states (and more on the way this year). Both our breakfasts were interesting and delicious, and the service was excellent as our service was attentive, friendly and chatty. We were comfortable in the place and it was spacious enough that we didn't feel like we were on top of other diners in the place. I would have no problem stopping back for breakfast at any Wild Eggs location I may encounter during my travels.
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