Indianapolis, IN
Openings and closings: Carmel gets Euro fine dining, downtown loses Mexican spot in February
Indianapolis restaurants: What closed and opened in 2024
Looking for which restaurants opened and closed in the Indianapolis area in 2024? We have you covered.
After a few frigid weeks, February concluded on a mercifully warm note. As blades of grass and a few brave flowers emerged from the snow, so did a fresh crop of new eateries around Indianapolis, including coffee on the east side, fine dining in Carmel and a pair of trendy chains in the rapidly developing Nora Plaza. Meanwhile, a decades-old westside bar and a downtown Mexican spot said good-bye.
Here are some of the restaurants that opened and closed around Indianapolis last month, with a couple of holdovers from January.
Restaurants that opened in February
Corridor (formerly Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta)
1134 E. 54th St., (317) 257-7374, corridorindy.com, opened Jan. 21
Named for the “corridor” of Mediterranean countries whose cuisines inspire its menu, this high-end SoBro lunch and and private dinner spot is the successor to Nicole-Taylor’s Pasta. Chef-owners Erin Kem and Logan McMahan, who purchased Nicole-Taylor’s from founders Rosa and Tony Hanslits in July 2023, have continued the restaurant’s renowned private dinners that run Wednesday through Saturday every week and regularly sell out months in advance.
Corridor’s lunch menu (served 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday) has expanded upon its predecessor’s focus on Italian food to include dishes from Portugal, Spain and the Middle East, with plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. The small, upscale plates include roasted sweet potato wedges with garbanzo beans and tahini butter ($8), pumpkin- and sage-filled cappelletti ($16) and a bitey citrus-forward maitake mushroom shawarma-style sandwich ($18). Corridor also operates a small market (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday) that offers deli meats and cheeses, spreads and a selection of Nicole-Taylor pastas.
Milk and Honey Coffeehouse drive-thru
8511 Southeastern Ave., opened Feb. 1
Owner Taylor Hummel last year told IndyStar she hopes her coffee shop will one day become a Wanamaker staple akin to longtime fish fry spot Wheatley’s, which closed in December. Milk and Honey currently operates a two-lane drive-thru vending craft lattes, smoothies and other beverages, with plans to eventually open a quick-service café in the spacious Southeastern Avenue building.
Cafe Oztara
1446 E. Washington St., cafeoztara.com, opened Feb. 7
The Damien Center, Indianapolis’ largest and oldest organization specializing in support services for people with HIV or AIDS, bills Cafe Oztara as a “welcoming space for everyone,” with an emphasis on Indianapolis’ LGTBQ+ community. The coffee shop/event space serves hot drinks and smoothies ($3 to $7), plus a slim food menu including small breakfast dishes, salads, sandwiches and soups ($1 to $9), in a colorfully furnished brick building on the Damien Center’s eastside campus.
Josephine
110 W. Main St. Unit 100, Carmel, (317) 548-3589, josephinecarmel.com
Josephine is a French-inspired eatery from Ambrosia Hospitality Group, which also operates Italian eateries Ambrosia in SoBro and Bocca in the Near Northside, plus speakeasy-inspired cocktail bars Nowhere Special on Mass Ave and The Commodore in Fountain Square. Offerings at Josephine include steak frites ($47), ratatouille ($12) and escargot ($16), with an expansive wine menu and select cocktails.
Freeland’s
875 Freeland Way, Carmel, (317) 316-9875, freelandsrestaurant.com, opened Feb. 12
The project of Tinker Street co-founder Tom Main, this fine dining spot in Carmel’s North End community occupies an 1845 house once home to generations of Carmel’s Freeland family. The staff includes sommelier Ashlee Nemeth and bartender Grace Donlon, both formerly mainstays at Tinker Street, as well as a handful of employees with intellectual and developmental disabilities who live in the North End apartments just steps away — and whom Main credits as the reason he decided to open Freeland’s in the first place.
Head chef and Fort Wayne native Matt Hamilton (formerly of farm-to-table eatery Rosie Cannonball in Houston), brings a nostalgic Midwesterner’s tilt to traditional Central and Eastern European flavors; menu highlights include lamb-stuffed Russian dumplings (pelmeni, $18), braised beef tongue with grilled and pickled cabbage ($18) and charred carrots in a smoky Balkan vegetable spread called zacuscă ($16).
Bovaconti Carmel
2 W. Main St., bovaconticoffee.com, opened Feb. 14
Nearly a year and a half after it announced a projected spring 2024 opening, Fountain Square-based Bovaconti finally opened its second location in Carmel’s Arts and Design District. Bovaconti brings a European flair to its coffees and Italian-style sodas, though guests will also find more familiar lattes and sweets on the menu.
Culinary Dropout at Nora Plaza
1320 E. 86th St., (463) 231-8050, culinarydropout.com, opened Feb. 19
As the Nora Plaza continues to develop, this eatery by Phoenix-based Fox Restaurant Concepts is among the new tenants. Culinary Dropout offers an upscale take on gastropub fare with items like slow-cooked pork ribs ($31) and Korean-style ribeye ($37) joining sandwiches, salads and a robust cocktail list. The Nora Plaza location is the chain’s 13th nationally.
Flower Child at Nora Plaza
1340 E. 86th St., (463) 336-9556, iamaflowerchild.com, opened Feb. 25
Joining Culinary Dropout at the Nora Plaza is Fox Restaurant Concepts’ health-centric eatery, Flower Child. The restaurant offers plenty of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options including salads ($10 to $15), grain bowls ($11 to $16) and protein-forward entrées (around $15).
Circle City Kolaches
1521 N. Green St., Brownsburg, (317) 456-2643, circlecitykolache.com, opened Feb. 28
This new Brownsburg eatery specializes in the Czech and Slavic pastries known as kolache (or as the savory variety are known to purists, klobásník), which rose to prominence in Texas and surrounding states around the turn of the 20th century. Located in the same storefront as Ritter’s Frozen Custard, Circle City Kolache offers sweet and savory pastries with fillings including spicy polish sausage and cheese ($4.25), assorted fruits ($2.50), Half Liter BBQ pulled pork ($4) and Nathan’s Hot Dog ($3.50). The eatery also offers coffee, and diners can add a scoop of Ritter’s custard to their order for $1.
Restaurants that closed in February
Grindstone Charley’s
5383 Rockville Road, closed Jan. 13
This small American bar and restaurant chain started in Noblesville in 1985 under Clancy’s Hospitality, which at one point managed more than 30 Clancy’s Hamburgers locations across four states. The second Grindstone Charley’s opened on Rockville Road on the west side in 1985. Another on Crawfordsville Road in Speedway has also since closed. The Rockville Road location’s closure leaves just one Grindstone Charley’s, in Kokomo, although Clancy’s Hospitality still operates upscale offshoots of the eatery with Grindstone on the Monon in Westfield and Grindstone Public House in Noblesville.
La Margarita (temporarily)
1043 Virginia Ave., lamargaritaindy.com, closed Feb. 8
After 14 years in Fountain Square, the storied Mexican eatery will move to the Near Eastside’s Factory Arts district with a projected March reopening. The move to the Factory Arts District will be La Margarita’s fourth in its 41-year history; the restaurant opened in Speedway in 1984, moved to the intersection of 86th Street and Township Line Road in 1990, to 96th and Meridian Street in 2006 and then to Fountain Square in 2011.
Nada
11 W. Maryland St., closed Feb. 23
A sign posted to the entrance doors of this cocktail and taco spot announced its Feb. 23 closure and thanked customers for nine years at the Circle Centre Mall. A spokesperson for Wisconsin-based Hendrick’s Commercial Properties, which acquired Circle Centre Mall in April 2024, said before the acquisition that Hendrick’s expected street-level businesses including St. Elmo, Harry and Izzy’s and Nada to remain Circle Centre tenants throughout the mall’s extensive redevelopment projected to begin this year. But Nada, a small chain from Cincinnati-based Bocca Restaurant Group, will not be among those tenants.
Know of a restaurant that opened or closed in your neighborhood? Let dining reporter Bradley Hohulin know at bhohulin@indystar.com. You can follow him on Twitter/X @BradleyHohulin.
Trump repeals landmark EPA climate endangerment finding
President Trump’s repeal of the endangerment finding eliminates the legal basis for regulations that target air pollution from greenhouse gases.
Indianapolis and the surrounding metropolitan area failed a number of critical air pollution measures in the American Lung Association’s latest State of the Air report.
The ALA’s annual nationwide report published each spring gives the Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie metro area an “F” in smog and soot pollution. The report analyzes emissions data over a three-year period from 2022 to 2024.
Smog is ground-level ozone pollution and soot is particulate matter. The two comprise two of the six commonly found air pollutants in the United States according to the EPA.
Both pollutants form in part when coal-fired power plants and diesel engines burn fossil fuels. Smog and soot can cause premature death and other serious health hazards such as heart attacks, strokes, preterm births, asthma and cognitive decline, according to the ALA.
The lung health report ranks the central Indiana metro area in a number of categories with the region performing poorly in most. Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie ranked the 11th most polluted area for year-round particle pollution and 14th for short-term particle pollution.
Indiana children at risk from air pollution
And the rest of the state fares little better.
More than 670,000 Hoosier children breath unhealthy levels of air pollution, the report says.
This year’s report focus on the risk to youth that polluted air can pose. Small lungs are particularly vulnerable, said Tiffany Nichols, ALA director of advocacy.
“Infants, children and teens have lungs that are still developing, which makes them more susceptible to the impacts of unhealthy air,” Nichols said.
To prevent today’s youth from developing diseases related to polluted air, the American Lung Association has been asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop rolling back clean air rules put in place by previous administrations. The Indiana chapter has also asked state lawmakers to take steps to protect air quality.
Nichols grew up on the northwest side of Indy where the neighborhoods had been demolished to build I-65. Nearby trees were torn down to make way for the highway that would bring cars and trucks emitting harmful exhaust.
“So, then you have these areas that are essentially like a pocket of unhealthy air, and then those neighborhoods also had a lot of factories,” Nichols said. “That exacerbated health conditions in many of those communities that are oftentimes less fortunate already.”
Data centers and rollbacks
While air pollutants have existed for centuries, the rise of data centers poses a new threat. State and local lawmakers, Nichols said, should also pay attention to these new potential sources of pollution both in Indiana and across the country.
“We’re asking that those companies that are interested in putting data centers in communities work with the local community,” Nichols said. “Since data centers have the potential to be another source of pollution we also ask that they use renewable, zero-ignition energy sources.”
The ALA report also urges the U.S. EPA to recommit to protecting people’s health from harmful air pollution.
This year, the EPA has gone on what Administrator Lee Zeldin has characterized as a deregulation campaign that environmental advocates in Indiana have charged will lead to “death by 1,000 cuts.”
The current EPA, the American Lung Association report says, has “retreated from its public health foundation by rolling back clean air protections.”
Karl Schneider is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach him at karl.schneider@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @karlstartswithk or BlueSky @karlstartswithk.bsky.social.
IndyStar’s environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Eagle Food & Beer Hall, a Southern-inspired restaurant at 310 Massachusetts Ave. in Indianapolis, is preparing for a Kentucky Derby party on May 2 and promoting a catering deal alongside its signature menu items.
The restaurant is known for its all-natural, brined and hand-dredged fried chicken, comfort-food sides, craft beer selection, scratch-made cocktails, and a blues-inspired atmosphere. It is part of Cincinnati-based Thunderdome Restaurant Group, which operates nine concepts across more than 50 locations nationwide.
Ricky Tindell, regional managing partner for Thunderdome Restaurant Group, highlighted the restaurant’s catering services and upcoming events. He said catering orders range from small gatherings to large events.
“We do a lot of catering. We do it anywhere from six people all the way up to 400,” Tindell said. He added that customers can take advantage of a promotion offering a $25 rebate on orders of $250 or more through July 4, 2026.
Tindell also described the preparation of The Eagle’s fried chicken, which is brined in-house for 24 to 36 hours, double-dredged, and pressure-fried. He said the restaurant uses a proprietary seasoning blend.
He also discussed the Mac and Cheese Burnt Ends Bowl, a popular menu item made with a five-cheese sauce, cavatappi pasta, pork burnt ends, lemon thyme ranch, crispy onions, and chives. Tindell said the dish developed from customer preferences and repeated add-ons to the restaurant’s mac and cheese.
He said the burnt ends are slow-roasted for two hours, deep-fried, and tossed in a Texas-style barbecue sauce. Portions are designed to be shareable for two to three people.
Tindell said the restaurant’s appeal in Indianapolis comes from its Southern comfort food offerings.
“It’s Southern comfort food. So people get that feeling,” Tindell said. “That’s why The Eagle is one of the top four or five reasons people recommend when asked where to eat in Indianapolis.”
He added that he personally craves the chicken if he goes a week without it.
The Kentucky Derby party is scheduled for May 2 from 11 a.m. to midnight and will feature contests, prizes, and giveaways, including a “Win the Eagle for a Year” promotion offering a $50 monthly gift card for 12 months.
The catering promotion, offering a $25 rebate on orders of $250 or more, is available through July 4, 2026.. For more information, visit eaglerestaurant.com/locations.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — State Sen. Andrea Hunley, a Democrat representing Indianapolis, has announced her candidacy for a bid to run for mayor of Indianapolis in 2027.
Hunley, who had previously teased a mayoral run, has scheduled a launch event for May 8 as her official kickoff her campaign to lead the city, said her campaign website. The Assistant Minority Leader in the Senate announced in January that she would not seek another term in the Indiana Senate, to which she was elected in 2022.
Hunley’s website says, “Indianapolis is my city. Our city. As someone who knows this city, someone who has served this community as a public school teacher leading our children and supporting families, I am committed to the future of the people of Indianapolis.
“Indianapolis is the economic driver and a key cultural hub for our state. Our city boasts creative entrepreneurs and long-standing local businesses, vibrant neighborhoods and corporate headquarters, community-centered nonprofits and public schools. I aim to champion a better quality of life by listening to and working alongside the people, businesses and neighborhoods that make up our great city.”
Mayor Joe Hogsett has not disclosed if he’s seeking a fourth four-year term.
City-County Council Member Vop Osili in January announced his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
In the same month, Pike Township Trustee Annette Johnson announced her intention to seek the Democratic nomination to run for mayor. She’s running this year to continue in the trustee’s job, which she has held since 2019.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears, who had been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for mayor, announced in January he would seek another four-year term this year for his current job. However, he did not rule out running for the Democratic bid for mayor in 2027.
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