Extol Magazine Celebrating Southern Indiana is a local publication that covers stories about businesses people places or events throughout the cities of New Albany Jeffersonville Clarksville Sellersburg and Louisville KY
Issue link: https://extol.epubxp.com/i/475732
Hall and his wife Nikki took out a home equity loan, combined it with the cash they'd saved up and bought Te Main Menu on Grant Line Road in 2007, renaming it Mybar. "After three years of a roller coaster ride … we were struggling to make it, to pay bills. I mentally just lost interest," he said. Hall was hired as a bartender at Proof on Main in Louisville. "I needed a job that would actually pay me something because (Mybar) wasn't paying me anything and was struggling just to pay its own bills," he said. "I decided that if I'm going to go work at a bar, I wanted to work at the most high profle bar in town." Te experience at Proof helped Hall further his knowledge about craft cocktails– and more. "Working at Proof kind of got me back to the food side of our business. I could see how food and art and music and cocktails could all intertwine." all closed Mybar for about six weeks and with the help of family and friends, he rebranded the venue, reopening as New Albany Exchange in January 2011. To ensure he had a cash fow, Hall bartended at Proof four nights a week while also running his own full- service restaurant. "It was a really bad location. People didn't know we were there and GPS couldn't fnd us. Te frst six months were really tough, but we hung on," Hall said. But then came a favorable review by renowned Courier-Journal restaurant critic Marty Rosen (who retired in 2014, much to the chagrin of his fans who miss his delicious reviews). "Tat day, the light bulb came on," Hall said. "Te phone rang of the hook all day. People wanted to make reservations, which was something we'd never even dealt with before. We opened for dinner at 5 p.m., but at 4:30 p.m. cars were just fling into the parking lot. Tat was the day I actually took a step back and said, 'We might have something here.' " Soon, Hall met developer Steve Resch, who has been instrumental in the downtown revitalization of New Albany. "I told him I wanted to be a part of what was happening downtown. I saw this great resurgence happening. Couldn't fgure out how we were going to make it happen, but I stayed on (Resch) and I think I fnally broke him a little bit," Hall laughed. Initially, Hall was interested in a smaller space now occupied by Feast BBQ, since it was similar to the Grant Line Road property, but Resch steered him to the vast space next door, which had been built in 1875 as Shraders Stable and Livery. "I thought it was too big," said Hall, but Resch disagreed. "It showed his confdence in us and what we were doing. We all knew Te Exchange was bigger than what it was on Grant Line Road. … Obviously, it's much greater than what we had ever projected." A Kickstarter campaign netted Hall $15,000 to help with the massive renovations, and Hall fnanced the project and directly through Resch, 26 EXTOL • 2|15