The Baker Boy Sign Isn't Going Anywhere. The Restaurant Behind It Just Changed for the Third Time.
October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
Drive down Shelbyville Road past Trinity High School this fall and the Baker Boy Hot Donuts sign is still hanging where it always has, lit up over a building that hasn't sold donuts in years. Behind it, the space that was Dutch's Tavern and then Mellow Mushroom is being gutted for its next act: a Cajun seafood kitchen called Pier 17. The sign stays. The kitchen changes. That pattern is the actual story on this stretch of Shelbyville Road, and it says more about what this corner of St. Matthews is worth than any listing price could.
The building near Trinity High School has quietly become one of St. Matthews' more durable landmarks, not because of what's inside it but because of what's bolted to the front of it. Before it was Mellow Mushroom, it was Dutch's Tavern. Before that, it was an actual Baker Boy Hot Donuts shop, which is where the sign came from in the first place. Each time the business inside has changed completely, the marquee out front has stayed put.
That continuity is about to be tested a third time. Tao "Tom" Liu, who purchased the building for $1.7 million according to a deed filed with the Jefferson County Clerk's Office, plans to open a Pier 17 Cajun Seafood Restaurant and Bar in the space. Liu has confirmed the Baker Boy sign will remain on the building, though it might shift slightly during construction.
The sale price itself is worth sitting with for a second, because it tells you something the sign alone can't.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Asking price (2025) | $2.6 million |
| Final sale price | $1.7 million |
| Gap | $900,000 |
A landmark building with a recognizable sign and a location next to a high school still traded nearly $900,000 under its original ask. Recognition and foot traffic clearly matter here, but they didn't stop the market from negotiating.
Liu isn't a first-time operator testing a concept. He's also behind Yoki Buffet and Umami Buffet, two other local restaurants, and this will be his third Pier 17 location alongside existing spots on Hurstbourne Parkway and in Evansville, Indiana. According to Liu, the St. Matthews location is being built out with more upscale features than either of those sister restaurants, backed by a renovation budget of $800,000 to $1.2 million.
That's a meaningful jump in both scale and ambition for a brand that already has two working locations. When the transformation was first announced in January, Liu was targeting a June opening. Full renovations on a building this size don't always land on the date they're announced, and no local outlet has since published an update on whether Pier 17 opened on that original schedule or pushed back. What's confirmed is the direction: a more upscale version of an existing concept, placed inside a building whose only unchanging feature is a sign selling donuts nobody can buy there anymore.
Three different businesses have now made the same call on this building: keep the sign, replace everything else. A tavern, a national pizza chain, and now a Cajun seafood restaurant have all decided that whatever the Baker Boy name is worth to people driving down Shelbyville Road, it's worth more standing than coming down.
That's not sentimentality. Liu is investing up to $1.2 million to make this the nicest Pier 17 location in his portfolio, and he's keeping the one piece of the building that has nothing to do with seafood. The sign isn't decoration at that point. It's the thing that makes people slow down and notice a building has changed hands again, which is free advertising no amount of renovation budget can buy from scratch.
Pier 17's build-out isn't the only thing on a fall timeline in downtown St. Matthews. A few blocks away, the Chenoweth Lane project has been adding a center turn lane from Massie Avenue down to the railroad crossing, along with new sidewalks on the west side up to Brownsboro Road. The work spans the full corridor from the railroad tracks north to Brownsboro Road and is being handled by the Louisville Paving Company under Kentucky Transportation Cabinet jurisdiction, since Chenoweth is a state road and not one the city controls directly.
The city's own project page has listed an August 31 completion date. A more recent update to the city commission in February pointed to "early fall" instead, a small shift that matters if you've been timing errands around detours. The city has acknowledged that enough residents contacted Public Works with questions about the project that it built a dedicated page just to field them, which tells you this has been a visible disruption on a road most people in St. Matthews cross multiple times a week.
Two different construction timelines, on two different blocks, both aiming to wrap around the same season. Neither one is waiting on the other, but if you've noticed more orange cones and more plywood downtown lately, this is why.
While the Pier 17 renovation and the Chenoweth Lane work play out, downtown St. Matthews' fall calendar includes:
None of that calendar depends on whether Pier 17 opens on time or whether Chenoweth Lane finishes in August or October. It's just what St. Matthews does every fall, regardless of which sign is lit up on Shelbyville Road or which lane is closed for construction.
The Baker Boy sign will likely still be there next year, hanging over whatever the fourth business in that building turns out to be. That's the closest thing this corner of St. Matthews has to a permanent fixture, and it's stayed put through more change than most buildings in this neighborhood ever see.
If you're the kind of person who notices when a familiar sign gets a new business behind it or when a road project finally clears up, you already understand St. Matthews better than most spreadsheets do. The Sokoler Team keeps an eye on these blocks for exactly that reason, and we're always glad to talk through what's changing if you're curious about more than just what's for dinner.
When you work with The Sokolers, you’ll immediately understand why clients think of Greg and Casey as dedicated specialists who have mastered the skills needed for evaluating, marketing, and matching buyers and sellers.
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