Downtown BGKY

21/12/2024

🍻🍻🍻

Exciting announcement!!!!

Tomorrow, Saturday 12/21 Shake Rag Bar & Lounge is hosting a pre-game at 1pm for the Christmas Blitz 🎄🍺
They were nice enough to let you use the grass parking lot behind Shake Rag Barbershop , first come first serve!
Come early, grab a great parking spot, and head into Shake Rag for a pre-game drink 🥃

Brewery doors open at 5pm ☃️

Please DO NOT park in the concrete lot at the barber shop, only the grass one where you will find our Christmas Squirrel parking signs!

20/12/2024

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

19/12/2024

WNKY Television did a Fountain Square businesses history story today! With over 200 years of stories to tell, this is just part 1. Part 2 airs next week!

Fountain Square has been the heart of Bowling Green since its founding in 1798. For over 225 years, business has been conducted on the Square. For the first 150 years of the City’s history – before the construction of the federal interstate road system – Fountain Square was absolutely THE plac...

17/12/2024

😁2024 Year in Review: Thank you to over a dozen neighborhood partners like Warren County KY Gov, SoKY Marketplace, Warren County Parks and Recreation Department, Warren County Public Library, BikeWalk BG, The Capitol BG, Bowling Green KY Trolley Tours, Historic RailPark and Train Museum, Unseen Bowling Green, Bowling Green Hot Rods, Bowling Green Area Chamber, WKU Alumni, Warren County Stormwater, City of Bowling Green, KY - and SO MANY MORE!

Let's share our memories!

The Shake Rag historic district is seeing lots of revitalization efforts with new businesses coming to life like The Mustang Club, The Southern Queen Hotel, and Shake Rag Spirits Lounge.

Leadership Bowling Green spent most of its annual Media & Arts Day exploring our venues and entertainment!

We created new Free Public Parking signs posted at all government-owned and managed free parking lots.

The annual Academy for New Americans program spent an afternoon touring our venues on the Trolley, bringing new eyes and access to Downtown programs and opportunities.

We created a free Downtown tour geared toward students, hosting middle school ESL students from Drakes Creek and Warren East. Bringing more education and access to our future leaders.

Downtown made the BG Chamber magazine's front cover and the magazine featured lots of our stories!

We installed new decorative Fountain Row sign posts all over our arts and entertainment district.

The 2nd Annual Duncan Hines Days celebration brought 17,000+ people to our community to celebrate the legacy of great food and entertainment from the real BG native, Duncan Hines.

We supported the inaugural Bigfoot Mini Con at The Capitol in August - returning next year too - and installed a Bigfoot in Capitol Alley.

We launched Fountain Row Fridays, celebrating our 40+ local spots to eat, drink, shop, or be entertained - with a huge video shoot and free live music on Fountain Square for 8 weeks leading from Summer to Fall.

We brought town to gown increasing our outreach to college and university students - at Welcome Back WKU, thru WKU Homecoming plans for Fun on Fountain Row and a Spirits and Speakeasies bar crawl, thru more WKU Campus Activities engagement, with stories in the College Heights Herald, and working with SKyCTC students on a photo booth. Look for more in 2025!

Corvette took over Downtown for its 30th Anniversary celebration and 5th National Corvette Caravan event - bringing a free concert to Circus Square, the Hall of Fame induction ceremony to SKyPAC, and a mixer to SoKY Marketplace.

We had a public art contest for commissioned pieces to line our traffic cabinet signal boxes around Downtown, thanks to the General Motors Foundation's placemaking grant. We also have some more public art locations and maps in the works for 2025.

We supported the annual Unseen BG historic downtown talking tours with fun themes - while also supporting the 2nd Annual Holley LS Fest Drift Cruise bringing hot cars to Fountain Square!

We worked with the City, County, and Warren County Public Library to launch The Fringe, the new part-time food truck park space next to Stadium Park Plaza.

Our annual Downtown BGKY Harvest Fest brought at least 15,000 people to our venues - Fountain and Circus Squares, SoKY Marketplace, Candy Corn Lane, and over 100 vendors and food trucks!

Scare on the Square presented by Downtown businesses brought several thousand families to Fountain Square with trick or treating and free entertainment - including the return of the Thriller dance to culminate the event!

The inaugural Downtown Duck Drop was both a fundraiser for Downtown and Duncan Hines Days events, but also a hilarious spoof of the infamous WKRP Turkey Drop gone wrong from late 1970s TV.

Downtown Lights Up brought Santa, the Grinch, Anna and Elsa, and lots of holiday fun across SoKY Ice Rink, Fountain and Circus Squares, SKyPAC, The Capitol, Candy Cane Lane, and the historic Venue on 7th's Mistletoe Market by SoKY Marketplace with help from The Mint Gaming Hall, Fast Freddy's Car Wash, and Green River Regional Educational Cooperative - GRREC.

WE HAVE SO MUCH TO BE GRATEFUL FOR, ESPECIALLY YOU! There's so much more that we probably missed on here - the events you all brought to Downtown and everything hosted outside of just our City-hosted and sponsored events. Post your memories in the comments.

Thank you for visiting Downtown in 2024 - see you in 2025!🥳🤩

17/12/2024

💚

The holiday parade is always a special event, but maybe it shouldn’t be so special. Maybe the magic of that day isn’t something we should pack away until next year—maybe it’s a blueprint. What if we designed our towns around their best days instead of giving residents just one fleeting day to feel connected, joyful, and proud of their place?

Think about it. Everyone loves mingling in the streets, visiting local businesses, and feeling that sense of belonging. Parades and festivals don’t just bring economic benefits; they offer emotional, social, and civic value. If it works so well once a year, why not make it the norm?

Walking through a holiday parade recently, I couldn’t help but think of Bedford Falls, the fictional town from It’s a Wonderful Life. We all love Bedford Falls because it represents something so rare today—a place where people know each other, where they gather and share life. But while Bedford Falls feels magical to us now, it wasn’t actually unique. That kind of community and charm was once ordinary. It likely felt like a holiday parade all the time.

Today, we’ve traded in Martini’s Bar for Applebee’s and Bailey’s Building and Loan for Bank of America. Main Streets like Bedford Falls have been replaced with strip malls and parking lots. It’s no wonder we only feel the magic once a year—our places are no longer designed to bring us together.

Our Towns Should Feel Special All the Time

If the Holiday Parade is showing us anything, it’s that people are hungry for connection. Residents are showing us what they want—we just need to have the decency to listen.

So what would it look like if we took the lessons of the parade and applied them year-round?
• Let people walk in the streets. Close them off to cars more often and give the space back to pedestrians.
• Encourage stores to stay open late so downtowns feel alive in the evenings.
• Make public spaces festive and beautiful year-round—not just during the holidays. String lights, hang banners, plant flowers.
• Create opportunities for people to gather. Schedule small events, farmers’ markets, street performances, or block parties.
• Focus on people, not parking. Cars don’t create a sense of community—people do.

Residents don’t want much. They just want a little bit of space to come together and have fun. They want to walk, linger, laugh, and enjoy their town. That’s not too much to ask.

So city leaders, maybe this year you can grant your residents one Christmas wish: give them a place to be together again. Bring the magic of the Holiday Parade into everyday life. Let’s design our towns to feel special all the time, like a modern-day Bedford Falls.

We know it’s possible because we’ve all seen it—for one day a year. Why not make it every day.

17/12/2024

16/12/2024

16/12/2024

15/12/2024

14/12/2024

Did you know that the 12 Days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas Day? After the hustle and bustle leading up to Christmas, celebrate the whole Christmas Season with our Twelve Days of Christmas Ice Cream Pack! Our 8 maids-a-milking really outdid themselves on this one! You get 12 EXCLUSIVE, never-before-made-by-us and not-on-the-menu holiday-themed flavors - two mini scoops for each day. Meant to begin on Christmas Day and run through Three Kings Day, but they’re ready to enjoy whenever you please! Pack contains a fun scratch-off flavor reveal, a spoiler alert key with allergens listed, and a V.I.P. (Very Important Pint) Club card that grants you the ability to purchase pints of the exclusive flavors - while supplies last! Tell your True Love to order your Twelve Days of Christmas Ice Cream Pack today - http://meltdown-ice-cream-soda-fountain.square.site

13/12/2024

We had a great morning with the Warren East Middle School ESL classes touring our venues! Thanks so much to our translators from the City of Bowling Green, KY International Communities division, Jose Gonzalez from Mercadito Hispano, Scooters Coffee for providing hot chocolate to keep us warm, The Capitol BG and Warren County Public Library for the backstage tour, Warren County Parks and Recreation Department for a SoKY Marketplace and Soky Ice Rink tour, The SKyPAC, and WNKY Television for a behind the scenes TV tour. Our community partners are top notch!

11/12/2024

Get coffee with The Bowling Green Police Department at Mill House Cafe on Saturday!

Saturday morning is a great time to head Downtown BGKY and visit us at Mill House Cafe.
We look forward to great conversation and hot beverages!
See you there!

11/12/2024

10/12/2024

👀❤️🌟 We spy Fountain Square Park! Love being part of the Caves, Lakes and Corvettes community in southern Kentucky!

10/12/2024

This BikeWalk BG event was so neat. 🌟

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – On Monday night, you can come out and see the sparkling lights of Fountain Square Park with BikeWalk BG. This ride will be about 5 miles downtown and on lower traffic streets. It’s a family-friendly cruise, and we encourage all participants to deck out in holiday lights and ...