LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Inside The Back Door on Bardstown Road, flowers rest in front of John Dant's portrait on the wall. His likeness is joined by hundreds of the bar's regulars.
In 2007, John had the idea for the mural. Bill Page has been working on it ever since.
"I can't tell you how many walls he's created for me," he said.
John started the business 38 years ago. Over the weekend, he died in the hospital from pneumonia.
Page is determined to finish the paintings and help complete John's vision for the bar. Taylor Dant, John's son, spent the last year-and-a-half learning how to run the place.
Carrying his father's business forward comes with lessons, some as simple as how to talk to people.
"How to keep relationships strong when you don't see somebody every day or every month," Taylor explained. "I learned so much from watching him interact with people who I knew loved him; and I knew he loved them."
John's legacy lives outside the bar too.
Shawn Reilly, former president of the Tyler Park Neighborhood Association, said the businessman was a frequent donor. Near Back Door, Beechwood Park has a pollinator garden and outdoor classroom John donated to. Down the road in Tyler Park, his name is on the newly-renovated pickleball and tennis courts.
One man playing there in the afternoon said he met his wife at John's bar over twenty years ago—then continued playing in the court the bar owner helped fund.
Long-lasting relationships are part of what made Back Door a success said Alan Hincks, a bar owner John mentored.
"If you walk in there tonight, or tomorrow, or if you've been in there in the past 25-30 years, you see the same faces, and that's everything. That's when you walk into a place that you feel like it is family," he said.
It's a feeling that lives on as the business passes hands from father to son.
"I've been in here, I think, almost every day since he passed. Just, keeping things running. Doing what I can. Fingers-crossed, if all goes well, we'll make it to 40. And then—who knows past then?" Taylor said.
With a couple years left to the 40th anniversary, business is still running with patrons coming by to buy John one last drink even though he's gone. Page said his drink of choice was scotch with water.