Lynn's Paradise Cafe, Louisville

I recently had a chance to visit Lynn's Paradise Cafe for the first time. I read about it in my "Weird Kentucky" book, and a co-worker friend in the Louisville area told me this place was a must see.
My wife and I pulled in to the parking lot around 8:30 on a Saturday. It was hard to find a parking space already! Getting a table was easy though. I wouldn't say the place was crowded yet, but there were people there for sure!
My first impression as we pulled in was that this place ripped off the set of the old Saturday morning kids TV show, "Pee Wee's Playhouse." The place was very colorful and lively. There were some funky animal and coffee related statues out front, along with a cool flower arrangement.
You walk in through their gift shop. I was eager to check out all of the stuff for sale, but my wife made me go straight to the dining area. She promised that we could look later, and, if I was good, she would maybe even let me buy a souvenir.
My friend Ann said that we should only go to Lynn's hungry. They were generous with their tasty items. This was an understatement! We had coffee and we ordered the 2 pancake breakfast. We are not really breakfast people, and we never eat large breakfasts. Their two pancake meal was more thanenough for the 2 of us to share. In fact, a third person could have joined us in our meal!
I read that Lynn grew up in the Louisville area, moved to San Francisco, then came back to Kentucky to open her cafe. People in Louisville should be grateful that Lynn decided to come home to open this place. The decor and vibe does have a very San Francisco feel to it. We were sort of reminded of our trip a couple years ago to San Francisco, except we weren't worried about someone trying to hustle us for spare change on the way out.
Inside Lynn's is a bit overwhelming. I noticed a tree, a huge world map on the wall near the restrooms, and toys and tacky lamps on every table. I am sure that the next time I am there, I will notice something different.
On our table there was a large clear tube filled with beads and other trinkets. The "other trinkets" were listed on the top of the tube. You had to shake the tube and flip it around to try to find all of the listed trinkets. This entertained for some time. In fact, I didn't want to stop playing with it, but my wife said I had to when our pancakes arrived.
Each individual table had its own character too. One table had a clear glass top, and a cool mini railroad display built into it.
Goofy lamps are everywhere. We had a really neat cherub lamp on our table. It was a little chipped, but nicely detailed. Like many of the other items displayed at Lynn's, this lamp looked like it may have come from a garage sale. A really cool garage sale. In fact, if I had been at the garage sale where Lynn bought this lamp, I would have offered the garage saler $5 more than whatever Lynn gave them for the lamp. I wanted to take that lamp home and paint it! I would have painted some little rosy cheeks on those cherubs!
On the way out we ran through the gift shop. They had the standard novelty shop items (sea monkeys, plastic dinosaurs, Sigmund Frued action figures) and a cool selection of "Lynn's Paradise Cafe" items, mostly shirts, and postcards.


I really like Lynn's Paradise Cafe. It is a very nice comfortable place. Its right off of Bardstown Road too, which makes it convenient. Anyone within a 2 hour drive of Louisville could make a nice little day trip to the Bardstown Rd. area, have breakfast or lunch at Lynn's and not have a boring moment in their day.