I don't know what it is about Paducah, KY. I really like the quaint little town that sits along the Ohio River about two hours west of Nashville. My wife and I have spent some time in the city and the downtown area has a number of good to great restaurants, pubs and stores. On my way between Nashville and St. Louis earlier this summer, I decided to get something to eat in Paducah. I got into the downtown area and was looking for a burger and beer place. I found something that sounded pretty interesting - a double-story sports bar/restaurant by the name of Over/Under.
Dru Hardin and Blake Calhoun were longtime friends and business partners who owned a commercial construction company. They were hired to do a total renovation of a space that would eventually become Grill 211 in downtown Paducah. (To see the Road Tips entry on Grill 211, click here.) While doing the renovation, Hardin and Calhoun fell in love with the vibe downtown Paducah exuded. They thought that maybe they could do something else in their lives at some point - like possibly owning their own restaurant in downtown Paducah.
The owners of Grill 211 also owned an Italian restaurant just up the street - the Italian Grill on Broadway - before closing that restaurant in 2019. While still doing commercial renovations around Paducah, Calhoun and Hardin finally made the decision to plunge into the restaurant business taking over the former Italian restaurant during pandemic in 2020. The first thing they did was to sit down with a friend - Chris Johnson, who was managing the local Buffalo Wild Wings - to make up a wish-list of what they wanted in a restaurant. Having it be a sports bar was one item on the list, having the best burger in town, having eclectic tacos, and having a number of signature cocktails available from the bar.
Pictured right - Dru Hardin and Blake Calhoun. Photo courtesy Paducah Life Magazine.
With Johnson onboard as the restaurant manager, Calhoun and Hardin did the renovations on the two-story establishment. They brought in their own chef - Kevin Dowdy - to oversee the kitchen. With everything in place, Over/Under opened on St. Patrick's Day in 2021. (After opening and getting Over/Under up and going, Hardin and Calhoun renovated a historical building in downtown Paducah into an upscale tavern by the name of Stella's. Stella's opened in the fall of 2022.)
It was around 1:15 p.m. when I pulled up in front of Over/Under located along Broadway, a one-way street in downtown Paducah. (see map) There is a common door to a handful of businesses that one goes in to get to Over/Under. The "under" part of the bar was closed off that day as the main restaurant and kitchen are upstairs. It featured a small bar with a concrete top and a corrugated tin front. The walls were made from distressed bar boards with shadeless Edison lighting hanging from the ceiling. Many of the private parties that Over/Under hosts are usually held on the ground floor of the restaurant.
There was a sign on the ground floor to go to the elevator to go up to the second floor to the "over" part of Over/Under. There I found a larger bar with a long, narrow and well-lit dining area. There was a hostess who greeted me and I asked if I could just sit at the bar. It, too, was a concrete-topped bar with distressed barn board inlays just below. Given the renovations that took place, it was a rather impressive little space.
Toward the front of the upstairs dining area was a small room off to the side that featured a number of high-top tables that sat up to six people per table. It featured flatscreen televisions on an exposed brick wall with plenty of light coming in from the large windows on the front of the building.
The bartender/server that day was a young lady by the name of Stephanie. She handed me a food menu to look through and asked what I wanted to drink. They had a pretty short tap list and a rather uninspired list of canned and bottled beer. I ended up ordering a pint of the Cigar City Jai Alai India pale ale they had on tap.
The food offerings at Over/Under included the normal bar appetizers - nachos, wings, jalapeño poppers, and vegetarian cauliflower "wings". Sandwiches, burgers, wraps, tacos and salads were also on the menu. I contemplated getting the fried Buffalo chicken wrap for a moment, but I decided to go the burger route.
I ended up getting Over/Under's Smash burger, a 1/2 pound blend of ground short rib, chuck and brisket beef smashed on a flat-grill and served on fresh-baked Texas toast from the venerable Kirchhoff Bakery in Paducah. (To see the Road Tips entry on the Kirchhoff Bakery and Deli click here.) The burger patty was topped with American cheese, grilled onions and a special house-made sauce. I had a choice of sides and - of course - I got tots to go along with the burger. They didn't have Cholula to go with the tots, but they had some other off brand Louisiana-style hot sauce instead.
And the burger was very good. It was more like a patty melt, but it had the consistency of a good smashed burger. The blend of different cuts of beef gave it a great flavor and it was cooked perfectly. As I said, it was a very good burger, but it was very expensive for what it was. I know restaurant prices have gone up dramatically over the past couple of years. but $16 bucks for what was a glorified patty melt and a side of tots was a big extravagant, in my book.
Over/Under was a nice way-station for lunch on my trip between Nashville and St. Louis. While the menu is typical for a sports bar and doesn't really have anything that sticks out, the smash burger I had was very good. But I thought it was sort of expensive, and they didn't have that good of a beer selection. The sports bar atmosphere was very nice and I really liked what they did with the building to transform it from a longtime Italian restaurant into the space that it is today. Over/Under would be a go-to to watch a sporting event while in Paducah. Just make sure you bring some extra cash.
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