Prime rib is back!
I’m so excited.
We celebrated a friend’s birthday over the weekend at Steak n Ale … excuse me, I mean Polo Club Steakhouse. It’s easy to see why I would confuse the two: same location, same furniture, same layout, same menu and same staff. When the national chain closed the doors on this 35-year favorite last summer thanks to its bankruptcy, Indianapolis southsiders were dismayed, to say the least.
Some stranger just shut down our memories of Prom nights, wedding receptions, Thanksgiving meals, business victories and those “just because I need a good steak” moments.
One patron, apparently, was honked enough to do something about it. He secured the general manager’s commitment, bought the business and reopened under the new name a mere 8 days before Christmas. I’m sure it was a fantastic gift to the nearly 40 former employees who had a job again.
Frankly, I was so delighted to be back, I nearly hugged the hostess.
Mike, our birthday “boy,” got his Kensington, a.k.a prime rib and lobster tail. His wife had her filet mignon again, and I was grinning ear-to-ear when I said, “I’ll take the herb-roasted prime rib, rare, please.” My husband, just as confident, asked for his favorite peppercorn steak.
lobster tail dance
And that was when our luck ran out. That one didn’t make the transition, which was side-splittingly funny if you know my husband’s history of asking for things that aren’t on restaurant menus all over town. And once you get our crowd in a mood to laugh, it goes downhill quickly. The teens salted my husband’s water while we were loading our plates at the famous salad bar, and Mike couldn’t resist using the lobster shell as a puppet to torment his tender-hearted daughter on the other side of the table.
Don’t worry — we weren’t the uncouth country cousins out of place among civilized society. Polo Club Steakhouse, like its predecessor, is what the business world labels dress casual. Sure, they’re about good food and special occasions, so they supply the trappings. But these are, after all, our neighbors, who don’t have a stuffy bone in their bodies and also appreciate the sound of laughter among good friends out for an evening.
Polo Club Steakhouse
4302 S. East Street
Indianapolis, In 46227
(317) 780-1711
Photographer credits: Larry&flo, Chiacomo,
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5 Responses
Just went there a couple of weeks for my birthday. Same great food and same great smiling faces.
Keep up the good work!!!!!
[...] thank them for their advice, but I already have my reservations at Steak n Ale … uh, I mean The Polo Club [...]
Wow, oh wow ! Thank you for posting this. I though that when we saw Steak and Ale closed down it was gone for good. The only reason I found that they were still here was that I thought they still had one location left down south and I was going to search it out. Needless to say I am overjoyed at finding our beloved restarant is still here. We are on our way to eat there now.
[...] up before heading to a restaurant from there. I was guessing we’d dine at our beloved Polo Club. Happy birthday at Hollyhock [...]
The Worst Thanksgiving Dining experience I ever had.
I’m a 61 year old single man, with no family to speak of so Thanksgiving is pretty much a non-event for me. Last year, I skipped it, and thanks to this year, I probably will skip it again next year, but I’ll feel a lot better about doing so. Based upon an on-line review, I decided to have dinner at the Polo Club Steakhouse (4302 S East St., Indianapolis, IN 46227.)
After arriving at 4:30 for a 5:00 pm reservation, I was sent to the bar despite the neon sign outside advertising “immediate seating.” After cooling my heels in the bar for 35 minutes with a glass of house white ($8.71, plus tip), I returned to the lobby to await my table. I watched patrons saunter in with no reservations to be immediately seated. I figured my reservation entitled me to a table in the dining room and assumed that a table for two was slow in coming up. I have dined alone many times before. I returned to the hostess station and asked “Is the dining room slow tonight?” meaning were tables turning over slow, and her response was “No, I’m just tired.” . Not wishing to be an overbearing patron I sat down in the lobby and after a while tried hints that I was hungry and waiting for my table, but nothing moved.
At 5:20 pm, famished, I asked to be shown to a table and said I didn’t care where. They had “forgotten” me, though I was sitting right there talking to the hostess. No apology, and I was shown back to a table in the near-empty bar where I had been waiting for 35 minutes. No table cloth, just a cloth napkin wrapped around the utensils. I could understand if they were swamped, but they were between late lunch and dinner rushes as my waitress informed me. Though a young man who appeared to be the manager was frequently present, not once did he inquire as to why I was sitting there. It also would only have taken him a stop by my table to apologize for the mix up, and in a classier place, probably offer to comp my desert.
The Thanksgiving special was Turkey, green beans, and your choice of potatoes, hardly imaginative, but at a price of $13.99 for the entrée, not a bad deal. Upon returning from the salad bar ($2.99 extra) and while sitting down, my main entrée was served, leaving me no time to eat my salads, if I wanted a hot entree. That set the pace for the meal which was “rushed” to say the least. I had to request the included cranberry relish. The lady behind me ordered the special and didn’t get any green beans with her plate. I almost told her she was lucky. The food was cafeteria grade. The green beans appeared to be and tasted as if they were out of a can, and the garlic mashed potatoes, the only nod toward a special dinner, were less than average. Despite the three nice thick slices of turkey, the rest of the meal was disappointing. The honey-whole-wheat loaf bread was warm and was the best part of the meal.
What is this place? If fine-dining, as the drink prices suggest, they have a long way to go. If local favorite with good food, they may be better off-Holiday, but the food has a long way to go. I would have gladly paid more for a special Thanksgiving Dinner that didn’t require me to order ala carte. An entrée priced at $29.95 would not have been out of line, with better food and including salad and desert would have been very reasonable and acceptable. As it was, with drink, desert, salad, glass of wine and tip, I spent $50 for one person, and I felt rushed and cheated. I would not have batted an eyelash at that price if the food had been better, and if the service had been timed better. When returning with my change, the waitress informed me that they would be open Christmas and New Years, but I’m sorry to say they are hardly worth a return trip.