And we thought the Golden Arches chain or the ubiquitous purveyors of coffee started the trend of having storefronts within a block of each other. Not so, friends. Check out this advert for White’s Restaurant from January 1910–sending their siren song to a visiting convention of Miner’s, meeting at Tomlinson Hall, and beckoning attendees to the southwest quadrant of the Circle or on the east side of Meridian, just south of Washington. And considering the inducement– menu items like “Fried Calves’ Liver and Lyonnaise potatoes” for 15 cents or “Sweetbreads Glace with Rosettos and Mushroom Sauce,” I’m pretty sure I would have been looking for a sandwich street vendor.
There used to be a fairly large “quick food” cafe/restaurant with a lunch counter at the southwest corner of Market and Pennsylvania; gosh, can’t remember the name! Very popular with the downtown crowd, and it stayed open failry late, although it wasn’t an “all nighter”…just east of the ubiqiutous Circle Tower…(I just misspelled the “u” word here)
White’s Restaurant and White’s Annex ( later White’s Cafeteria ) were part, I believe from my research, to be part of the Robert Keller Co. holdings in Indianapolis. The long time operator of the restaurants was Hubert H. Keller ( married to a distant Searle cousin ), one of the sons of Robert Keller ( 1850 – 1917 ). Hubert’s holdings on Monument Place aka the Circle or Monument Circle also included the Bates Hotel at the southwest corner of West Market Street and the Circle where the Test Buiding was later erected [ — not the more historic Bates House at the northwest corner of Washington and Illinois Streets ]. The Hubert Keller family eventually removed circa 1930 to Washington DC area where Hubert operated the Tally Ho Tea Shops.