Beverly Kane and her mother Beatrice Miller have fond memories of the former Iron Skillet restaurant.
The restaurant, at 2489 W. 30th St., opened in 1953 and closed last year after its owner retired. It was known for its home style comfort food, especially its skillet-fried chicken.
It was a place they would visit to celebrate special occasions like weddings or reunions with about a dozen family members at a time. As those family members have passed away over the years, the memories have become more precious.
“My dad’s gone and my uncles are gone now, but we still love the Iron Skillet,” Kane, 71, said.
But despite the treasured memories of some residents, the high cost of renovating the building led the Indy Parks board in August to approve the building’s demolition.
The city made the decision after hearing input from attendees at the Riverside Civic League meeting in May. In its place, they want to build a $9-10 million event center or a visitor center to welcome people to the neighborhood — which has recently upgraded with the new Adventure Park and 30th Street Bridge renovation.
The restaurant building is included in the National Register of Historic Places as part of Riverside Park and the rest of the city’s original park and boulevard system, but it’s unclear whether the Iron Skillet building has been identified as a historic place on its own.
No date has been set for its demolition, and no funds have been approved for a new building on the site. But residents are split on whether to welcome the demolition or fight to preserve the neighborhood’s history.
What residents want to do with the Iron Skillet restaurant
Some residents, like Kane and Miller, believe the Iron Skillet building should be preserved and that a new visitor center is unnecessary.
They believe residents already have places like the Riverside Park Family Center to use for events. Plus, they say they know what it’s like to lose history for the sake of progress.
Before they moved to Riverside, they lived in the Babe Denny neighborhood on the southside. The neighborhood was cut in half by the construction of Interstate 70 in the 1970s and most residents moved away.
Get the backstory
“They took everything,” Miller said.
But other Riverside residents, like Adelle Stokes, believe preserving the building wouldn’t benefit neighborhood residents.
“I’ve never felt like that building had any connection to this neighborhood,” Stokes said. “I don’t want to save it just because it’s a building.”
Stokes instead wants Indy Parks to figure out if there’s a way to preserve the building’s facade but modernize the interior in a way that would attract people to the neighborhood.
“The way that the Iron Skillet building is positioned, it’s such a beautiful view. Why can’t we showcase our neighborhood?” Stokes said. “I feel like the renovation is not worth the cost when we could have something new and beautiful here.”
She thinks the city could make it into an event center, like the former Stutz car factory, or something as useful, like the former Bush Stadium that was converted into apartments.
Assessing its historic nature
Indy Parks said it is looking into whether the Iron Skillet building itself is considered historic. That designation could determine what options Indy Parks has for the building.
The timing of that investigation — months after the decision to demolish — concerns Indiana Landmarks Vice President of Preservation Services Mark Dollase.
Dollase said Indy Parks didn’t consult with his organization, a nonprofit dedicated to saving historic buildings. Indy Parks said they didn’t do so because no federal dollars were being used, which is generally when Indy Parks reaches out to Indiana Landmarks.
The Riverside Regional Parks Master Plan, which was created by Indy Parks and other city agencies, notes some of the building’s history.
The Iron Skillet building was built on former farm land belonging to a German immigrant named August Wacker, who sold the property to Indianapolis in 1898. The Iron Skillet building was used as the home of the park superintendent until 1906. In 1917, the house was converted into the clubhouse for the private Highland Golf Club, the predecessor to the public Coffin Golf Course.
In 1953, through a deal with the city, the Kelso family opened the Iron Skillet restaurant. In 1996, the family sold the restaurant to Ronald Torr, who ran it until 2024.
Dollase said the Iron Skillet building is an example of an Italianate house, an architectural style that was popular in Indiana immediately after the Civil War. Some of the features include arched windows and roof brackets, called cornices, along the roof line.
Buildings with similar architectural styles, like Indiana Landmarks’ former headquarters at 413 W. Michigan St., have been preserved and reused. The former headquarters building is now owned by IU Indianapolis.
Although the decision to demolish has already been made, residents wanting to preserve the building may have some options left. Dollase said Indiana Landmarks has in the past paid fees to tear up demolition contracts with the city.
“I think there are a lot of possibilities here, and we would love to have that dialogue with Indy Parks, but that just hasn’t happened yet,” Dollase said.
What’s next?
Indy Parks is working with the Riverside Civic League to schedule a meeting for residents to learn more about the building’s future and the considerations that went into the board’s decision to demolish the property.
The meeting is expected to happen in November.
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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