Lyndon Yard, The Goose opens in the East End
This article was written by Eleanor Tolbert and originally appeared in Louisville Business First on June 29, 2023.
The renovation on an East End shopping center has finished up, offering a mix of restaurant, retail and office space.
Lyndon Yard, located at 812 Lyndon Lane, held its grand opening Wednesday. The 52,000-square-foot development has restaurant and retail space on the first floor, with office space taking up the second.
Pluris Real Estate purchased the property in March 2022 for $3.5 million. The redevelopment began in September of that year and wrapped up this past May.
“We wanted to modernize the project and be a better appeal to this new age tenant and to a wider audience of people,” Colin Underhill, president of Pluris Real Estate said. “… We’re so close to so many young people and young families, and so we wanted to have something that attracted them as well.”
The center received new exterior upgrades, such as new signage, pavement, landscaping, canopies, siding, paint and an overall modernization, Underhill said. The interior has all new bathrooms and plumbing, LED lighting and fixtures and renovated hallways.
Underhill declined to disclose the investment into the renovation. A.L. Post Inc completed the architecture and construction work on the project.
Pluris Real Estate saw an opportunity in Lyndon because of its access to the rest of the East End.
“This is the heartbeat of the East End, but for a little bit, it’s been forgotten and passed over,” Underhill said. “We’re a couple miles that way to Anchorage, and we’re a couple miles that way to Prospect, and we’re a couple miles that way to St. Matthews … we’ve known this area has so much to offer.”
Across the street from the retail center, Pluris Real Estate is developing Pickle & Social. The entertainment complex from Competitive Social Ventures will have a mix of 12 indoor and outdoor pickleball courts, along with a restaurant, bourbon bar and golf simulators.
Underhill said the retail center had about an 85% occupancy rate when the firm purchased it.
Lyndon Yard is now 100% occupied, with tenants like J. Estell Salon, Sassy Nails, Liquor World, Miles Ahead music shop and Mexican restaurant Cancun. The Goose Eatery and Hangout opened in the center last week.
Good for ‘The Goose’
The Goose Eatery and Hangout opened its doors in the shopping center to customer on June 21. The reimagined restaurant moved from 2923 Goose Creek Road, brought with it a new name and concept.
The Goose Hangout and Eatery was formerly known as Goose Creek Diner. Owner Chris Mike said the diner aspect did not really represent what the restaurant offered.
“The name diner was not what we were,” Mike said. “We were an American grill. We have a lot of home cooked foods, but we also had the grilled salmon and burgers and pastas and all the other stuff.”
The menu has changed some as well, specifically eliminating its cornbread and the entrees that went with it.
It added a selection of hot browns, however. Mike said the restaurant offers a classic hot brown, as well as unique takes like a Prime Brown (made with prime rib) and a Seafood Brown (made with blackened salmon and shrimp Mornay sauce).
Other changes include a blackened salmon BLT, mozzarella wheels and a dish called Goose Feathers, which is similar to a Bloomin’ Onion.
Another big difference is its focus on alcohol sales. At the diner, alcohol made up about 1% of sales. With the new drink program, Mike is anticipating that number to rise to about 20%.
“We want to be the neighborhood restaurant,” Mike said. “… Somebody came up with The Goose, and I didn’t want to do Bar and Grill, so we came up with Eatery and Hangout just as a little twist to let people know what we are.”
The restaurant takes up 3,300 square feet in the center. Mike said Miranda Construction completed the renovation work, and the investment into the project, including equipment, was about $1 million.