On Tuesday, May 15th, Higher Grounds - STAR officially re-opened for business. Scott Thrasher Herndon, who was the manager of the old location on the corner of Wayne and Calhoun St., is now the proud owner of this location.
In 2009 I thought my coffee fanaticism had reached it’s peak. I had an Aeropress, in my opinion the geekiest of all coffee gadgets, and a brand new burr grinder. Armed with beans from Old Crown Coffee Roasters, I obsessively tweaked the brewing process for each mug of coffee I made and analyzed the results. I felt like a chemist; only without the lab coat. However, while wasting time on the internet one day, I came across a video that showed me I was nowhere near as serious about coffee as some people are.
I didn’t know what to expect from a dinner at The Publican in Chicago. Those in the know all agreed it was a must for people serious about food and it certainly looked enticing from the photographs I had seen. Had I known we were blithely walking into a James Beard award-winning, beer-focused, farm-to-fork restaurant, I probably would have studied the menu harder before arriving; and skipped breakfast and lunch.
Sleeping in is one of my favorite indulgences while on vacation. It’s one of life’s free luxuries, yet we rarely do it in our day-to-day lives. It’s even more rewarding for me after a long winter of forcing myself out of a warm bed, well before dawn, five days a week, to run off a few more of those stubborn holiday pounds. Aside from the potential embarrassment of peeing the bed, a grumbling stomach is about the only other reason I get out of bed at all on vacation. On our last trip to Chicago, this lethargy nearly made me miss breakfast at the one restaurant I really wanted to visit again; XOCO.
It was sprinkling when we stepped out of the hotel that morning. We were on our way to breakfast at The Bongo Room, a place we had discovered almost by accident last year, and a few rain drops were not going to dampen our enthusiasm about returning. The Bongo Room pulls out all the stops for breakfast and gives the first meal of the day the respect it deserves. Most breakfast joints are content to serve weak coffee, limp bacon, and starchy tasteless pancakes. At The Bongo Room, quality ingredients are creatively transformed into delicious new takes on the old standards. Fueling up here is our favorite way to start a day of urban exploration.
Just off interstate 465 on the west side of Indianapolis, down a tree-lined back road and across a narrow bridge, awaits a dining experience you can scarcely believe exists within the borders of our fair state’s capital. On a hill, overlooking grassy fields, sits a 19th century barn that is home to Trader’s Point Creamery’s restaurant, The Loft. It’s idillic country setting started to work it’s magic on us as soon as we stepped out of the car. It was a quiet evening and the air was crisp and faintly scented with the smell of fresh cut grass and wet earth. A farmhand was turning over the soil in one of the large gardens and a curious barn cat stalked us from a safe distance. We could feel our pulses begin to slow down and our shoulders start to unclinch after a day spent in the heavy traffic of Indianapolis’s north side. Although we had just arrived, it was so peaceful, dinner was becoming an afterthought.