Dinner and a show is coming to the Murat Shrine Center. As the IBJ notes, the south half of the distinctive building at Michigan Street, New Jersey Street, and Mass Ave is perhaps best known as the home of the Live Nation–managed Old National Centre, but now its northern half at 510 N. New Jersey St.—including its so-called Arabian Room—is getting a glow-up of its own. After a $100K upgrade, the Shrine Center will launch a musical theater series at what it’s now calling the Downtown Dinner Theatre. But it’s not exactly a dinner theater in the traditional sense (as some canny commenters noted). Instead, patrons will be seated in the building’s Oasis Lounge and Tunisian Room for a three-course supper provided by Greenwood-based catering company Grafton Peek. When finished, they’ll be shuffled over to the Arabian Room for the “musical revue.” The first event is in May, check its website for tickets and details as the project matures.
Another local chocolate company has ended its run. Via social media, Newfangled Confections owner Carrie Abbott announced this week that the company will shut down on May 1. The business, which got national attention for its original creation, Frittle (a peanutty marriage of fudge and brittle), purchased the 37-year-old local mini-chain The Best Chocolate in Town in 2020. Abbott says she’s hoping to sell the latter brand, which still has a shop at the Fashion Mall; if no sale is made, that spot will also close in May. “With skyrocketing costs of chocolate and supplies, this felt like the right time,” Abbott says. “Either way, I’m proud of what we built.” Newfangled’s sunset follows that of SoChatti, which closed its downtown operation last August.
Bee Coffee Roasters has changed hands. Launched in 2007, Bee Coffee Roasters was one of the earliest businesses in Indy’s third-wave coffee scene. Two decades in, founder Bj Davis and co-owner Andy Gilman pivoted from coffee shops to wholesale roasting (stay tuned for IM‘s story on Skyler Balta’s Gaia Cafe & Botanical, which opened in Bee’s former 5510 Lafayette Rd. space), then decided in recent months to sell the company to three-year-old Speedway coffee shop The Spark (1402 N. Main St.). In an Instagram post announcing the purchase, The Spark says it will launch “a new roastery and shop location later this year” but will continue to operate Bee’s wholesale and retail business “as we prepare to open a space that goes beyond serving coffee.”
We should brace for the wait at Bodhi to get even longer. Taelor Carmine’s lauded Thai restaurant at 922 Massachusetts Ave. (317-941-6595) was just named to USA Today’s 2025 Restaurants of the Year, the only Indiana spot in the newspaper’s rankings. The restaurants on the list were chosen using nominations from food writers at the U.S.-spanning network of publications owned by parent company Gannett, which means you can blame the Star when you cool your heels as you wait for a table at the reservation-free restaurant. (Just kidding, support your local food journalists; they are all that stand between us and paid-influencer slop!)
Bovaconti Coffee gets bigger today. The Fountain Square favorite opens a second shop in Carmel Friday at 2 West Main St., with daily hours of 7 a.m.–7 p.m. Offerings are expected to be similar to those at 1042 Virginia Ave., with the addition of a new on-site bakery, from which will come “a selection of homemade, European-inspired pastries.”
It might be time to trade that omelette for some toast. Friends, I am so sorry to keep beating the bird flu drum, but I strongly suspect the current farm-centered crisis is poised to have a huge impact on all our daily lives. In addition to the issues we’ve discussed here in the past, such as the prices restaurants are grappling with and/or passing on to customers, more and more grocery stores are now placing limits on how many eggs we can buy.
In a press release, grocery chain Trader Joe’s says egg purchases are limited to one dozen per customer (though, I haven’t seen a stocked egg section at that retailer for months). Warehouse company Costco is also limiting purchases to three cartons per customer; there, eggs are typically offered in two-dozen or four-dozen packs. Costco’s competitor, Sam’s Club, has also announced a two-carton limit, and Sam’s sister company, Walmart, says customers max out at two 60-count cartons. Whole Foods and Kroger have yet to set national limits but have placed local limits in regions where the shortages are most acute.
When you can find eggs, they cost around 15 percent more than they did this time last year, CBS reports, and that’s not expected to change any time soon. “We have this nutritional trend, and as people incorporate more protein in their diets, that increases overall egg demand and sets a higher base for demand,” says Texas A&M University agricultural economics professor David Anderson. “Then when we get this supply shock, lo and behold, we get higher prices.”
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