Aww, CRAP.

Oh well, St Elmo's is still the first choice.

My GF and I enjoyed our dinner at St. Elmo. I ordered the strip and she ordered the filet. Her's was outstanding but mine was nothing special. I was also a little disappointed as I was told that the upstairs was full, so we had to sit downstairs.

We did order the shrimp cocktail and I haven't cried that much in a long time. Sure clears you out. Not sure if I would order it again as it was fairly pricey, but it sure was an experience.

The end of the night was awful. We opted for valet parking since we were running a few minutes late getting to the restaurant. After dinner it took more than an hour to get our car. There apparently was a high school football game in the RCA dome that got out a few minutes before we left the restaurant. The garage where they park was a zoo. I do blame the parking company for this as they easily could have told us when we arrived that there was an event and that it might take longer than usual to get the car if we tried leaving around a certain time. We would much rather have remained at our table and ordered dessert and maybe some more wine had we known about this problem. After standing outside for about 30 minutes with a few other very unhappy customers, we opted to go back inside and sit at the bar. The restaurant employees didn't seem to concerned that the valet company was making a lot of customers quite angry right outside the door.

This was an excellent dinner than unfortunately had a very bad ending due to the parking situation.

Is it sad that I can't wait to have some Steak n' Shake?

Nope! Took the kids there last night!

Monday nights are Bloomington Concert band rehearsal nights for me (I play the trumpet and am the Associate Conductor) but for St. Elmos -- I'd seriously consider playing hookie.

I'm sorry to hear you experienced those problems, and that your steak wasn't at the same level as your gf's filet. RE the valet parking, I've never used it as we typically just park across the street, so I don't have other experience to compare for you...but I'm disappointed that it left your dinner at StElmo ending on a sour note. Other than the disappointment of being seated downstairs the one time, I've never had anything less than an excellent experience with St Elmo.

I grew up in Indianapolis and recently went back on a Mileage Run just to relive the food of my childhood (which, like most American kids, was primarily fast food).

Number one on my list was Noble Roman's pizza. I've been craving the Breadsticks and Sicillian style pizza for years, sadly it seems to have changed hands and the is a mere shadow of what it was when I was a kid. The crust was ok, but the sauce was terrible. The breadsticks were still excellent.

Next up was White Castles, anytime I'm east of the mississippi I can't help but buy 'em by the sack.

Then of course there's steak & shake. Nothing like a good steak burger. I just wish they had better fries!

I should have planned for more than 12 hours on the ground!

Relating to the original post, My dad took me out for steak and shrimp cocktails at St Elmos on my 15th or 16th birthday. To this day its still one of those meals I can still taste in my mind.

If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? I spent most of my growing up years in Indy as well.... and I'm going on an MR to Indy next week ^

Noble Roman's was great... now I see the Noble Romans stand in Casino Royale in Vegas, and I think "crap". I'm definintely getting a sackful of White Castles while I'm there. I love how Steak n' Shake is open late.

What I'm really excited about is going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast... mmm

Funny thing... I never went to St. Elmo's when I was there.... perhaps I'll give it a go 'round next week

I used to miss Noble Roman's until I moved to Cgo, and then in recent years after it changed the pizza crust...it just isn't the same. Can't even think of how many packs of breadsticks we consumed off the back of those little trucks crusing campus in WL

As long as we're on IND favorites, I have to add Mug n Bun on 10th St in Speedway. Had the opportunity to stop through there last week...yum! And of course, another tenderloin favorite, the Ice House

Hopefully next trip I can twist a friend's arm into heading to StElmo with me ^

I'm 40, I think I left Indiana (sounds like I wasn't the only one who ended up at Purdue) in the early 90's and hadn't been back since. I grew up in the Carmel area, boy has that changed. I remember when fishers was just the little farming community best known for having a liquor store that would sell to us without asking for IDs. Now its sprawl central.

One of the most funny things about going back was everytime I would think of something to go check out and see if it was still there, it had turned into a starbucks!

In West Lafayette, I used to frequent the stuffed pizza place in the little shopping center off campus, I can't remember the name exactly but I vaguely think it was something like Garcias.

I"ll try not to hold that against you
Definitely Garcias -- spent a lot of time there too. The Flying Tomato Brothers, Garcias Pizza in a Pan

Anyone remember Campus Caboose?

I worked at Brad's my senior year. Still have the recipes for the cream cheese brownies, Chocolate-covered PB Rice Krispy Treats & "Stu's Cookies"

I'm very sad... we're going to a barbeque tonight, and that means steak. So that means no St. Elmo's tomorrow night.

I'm going to have to wait three more weeks.

You do realize you don't have to twist very much, especially if you're buying... ^

Oh how cool... I happened to grow up in Fishers, went to HSE and all that. I'm 27, and even for me things have completely changed, so I can't even imagine what it was like when you were there.

Talk about sprawl... when I left HSE, we were overcapacity (at 1200 students), so they spent $60mil to renovate the high school for 4000 students (the community voted to keep it one HS and not split it up). This was just about 5 years ago. They are now building a 2nd HS that's just as big

But yeah, back on topic.... mmm, steak! ^

I go to Indy every November with my wife's business. Saturday night dinner at Sullivan's has become something of a tradition, and they've yet to disappoint us.

I am, however, glad to hear that they've finally gotten a little new competition in the wake of George's closing. The reason I say this is because last year, Sullivan's had apparently become too arrogant to take dinner reservations (at least on Saturdays), unlike each previous year.

It took several phone calls, but I finally got through to a manager who apologized profusely and accepted our ressie.

Now why was a simple reservation such a big deal?

The short version is that after five 12-16 hour days, Saturday evening represents the first break of any sort. The last thing we want is spending an hour or more in "cigar bar hell" waiting to sit down for our first decent, relaxing meal of the week! (BTW, the manager also sent us a personal note in the mail thanking us for choosing Sullivan's).