The Horseshoe Restaurant is not the kind of place where big changes are typically expected — or even wanted. From its softly lit interior to its old school menu, heavy on beef, the atmosphere and food have been mainstays of the iconic Hopkinsville nightspot for more than 50 years.
That’s why a construction project under way at the Horseshoe is turning heads this week on Fort Campbell Boulevard.
Not to worry, said co-owner Donna Landrum, the restaurant is just getting a new, open-air entrance so customers have a comfortable place to wait until a table is open.
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For a restaurant that’s admired because it’s a place where things rarely change, any kind of construction is noteworthy.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many of the regulars have been staying in their cars until a hostess tells them their spot is ready. The Horseshoe normally seats 65 to 70 diners, and Kentucky restaurants are currently operating at 50% capacity. That doesn’t leave any room for people to be socially distant inside while they wait for the next table to open up.
The new covered entrance will have room for several customers, said Landrum. In cooler weather, they might add a couple of outdoor heaters. And in the hottest months of summer, they can use fans to keep patrons comfortable.
“We’ll have a waitress out there to take drink orders,” said Landrum, who owns the restaurant with her brother, Jerry Hargrove.
Only one other restaurant in Hopkinsville — Ferrell’s, which opened in 1936 — has been around longer than the Horseshoe. However, the Horseshoe might rival Ferrell’s if you count all the enterprises that led to up to its current owners.
Landrum’s father, Frank Hargrove Jr., bought the restaurant in the late 1960s. When he died in 1972, his widow, Gladys, took it over. Following her death in 1981, Landrum and her brother inherited the business.
The Horseshoe has been on the boulevard since around 1968. The origins of the restaurant go back at least a few decades earlier.
Ben Wood III, a retired Hopkinsville liquor store owner, says his father bought a business named Swain’s Bar on Seventh Street between Main and Virginia streets in the mid-1940s. Swain’s became the Horseshoe around 1950, still operating on Seventh Street. It is first listed under that name in a 1951 city directory.
Wood’s father then moved the Horseshoe to the boulevard and a short time later sold it to the Hargrove family.
But local records indicate that the Seventh Street address where the Horseshoe started was the same address of a business called City Tavern Cafe, which is listed in the 1935 city directory, a year before Ferrell’s opened on Main Street.
Then, a 1938 calendar advertisement listed G.E. Powell’s Fine Wines and Liquors at that address, said Wood. After Powell’s, came Swain’s Bar, the business that Wood’s father bought and later rebranded as the Horseshoe.
Today the Horseshoe is managed by Landrum’s son, Brian Landrum, the third generation of his family to keep it going.
While the construction continues for several weeks, the restaurant will remain open. Customers will be using a side entrance, the owners announced in a Facebook post.
Of the main entry that’s getting an upgrade, one customer wrote on Facebook, “If that front door could talk.”
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
