Plan your stop at the depot

In 1882the Louisville & Nashville Railroad built this handcrafted wooden Victorian depot with a tin roof. Salesmen, college students, travelers to Lexington and Louisville, and thoroughbreds bound for New York and Baltimore all passed through these doors. Bourbon County cattle, sheep, hogs, hemp, and grain rode the rails to distant markets.

Expansions in 1908 and 1911 enlarged the station. Teddy Roosevelt once made a whistle-stop speech here. By the late 1960s the last regular passenger train left; the building sat vacant for decades (with brief lives like the Iron Rail Restaurant) while CSX kept the land and the city held a fragile lease.

In 2017 the Poynter family — Darrell and Debbie, sons Chris and Brian — acquired the depot and bought the land from CSX. From the beginning of that restoration they partnered with Dottie Spears. The wood, the windows, the colors, and the plan to fill the rooms again were a shared work. Roughly 80%+ of the original wood was saved. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Paris owes that partnership the depot it has today. The Poynters believed the station was worth saving. Dottie believed it should live as a restaurant. Because they did the whole thing together, from the first day, the waiting room still has its wood and its soul — and it is the restaurant it is now.

On December 1, 2018, Dottie opened Trackside here, with trains still passing the platform. Original ticket windows (once separate for white and Black passengers) were preserved as the Train Booth. The baggage room became the Winchester Room. The old waiting room is now the bar and dining room, and the original baggage scale still sits outside.

In 2025, Dottie took in a partner, Steven McNew, to help carry Trackside further — more tables, more neighbors, the same heart. In 2026 they purchased the property from the Poynters. For Dottie it is a dream come full circle: the restaurant she built is now home in every sense. She carries that chapter with gratitude — and with remembrance of her late husband, whose love of this community still lives in these rooms.