A piece of Frankfort restaurant history is for sale to the right buyer
Frankfort’s oldest restaurant, an institution among those who like burgers as well as Cajun and Creole food, is for sale.
Rick’s White Light Diner has been listed with The Sievers Co. according to a post on the business broker’s Facebook page. The post does not list a price or any details.
Owner Rick Paul, a well-known Frankfort character, is semi-retired said that he feels like he’s “cooked enough.” His daughter, Hannah Davis, is managing the diner and has been running it while he’s been traveling for the last month.
The restaurant, which was featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” with Guy Fieri in 2010, has been at one end of the so-called “singing bridge” in Frankfort at 114 Bridge St. since 1929 as the White Light Diner. It’s been in the existing building since 1943.
Rick Paul bought the White Light building, where he’d been operating his diner since 1991, at auction in 1997. A trained chef who had owned many restaurants and clubs, Paul built a following for his menu of breakfast specials, handmade burgers and pulled pork as well as his po’ boys and crawfish pie.
Open only for breakfast and lunch, the diner serves locally produced meats, eggs and seasonal produce.
The restaurant closed in 2021, a year into the COVID pandemic, after Bridge Street was shut down. But eventually the bridge was repaired, the Kentucky River went down, a massive road project moved on and the street reopened.
“COVID and the construction on my street and the disruption of business because of what they did there had me throwing my hands up,” Paul said.
“But tourism has picked back up and many customers are tourists from all over the country, primarily because of ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.’ That really put us on the map.”
Paul said that he is offering the building and the business for an undisclosed price. “I’ll talk about the price to somebody who’s serious about buying,” he said. The recipes he is willing to discuss. Paul also hopes to write a cookbook.
Mark Sievers said Tuesday that he thinks a potential buyer could be either a restaurant operator ready to become an owner/operator or an independent restaurant group that could add the diner to an existing portfolio and expand the brand.
He said that the diner has a lot of nostalgia for kids like him who grew up in town.
“I walked by that diner every day as a kid, spent many an hour in that place pumping nickels in the pinball machine,” Sievers said. “It’s a bit of a passion project for me.”
