8-11-2019 Yelp Bottleworks Event

I (Cara) was lucky enough to go to a Yelp Elite event that showed the plans for the new Bottleworks District, which will be in the old Coca-Cola plant on Massachusetts Avenue in downtown Indianapolis.

We were treated to Mimosas, as well as donuts and veggie quiche from a nearby restaurant called The Garden Table.

This was originally supposed to be a hard hat tour of the facilities, but because they were
fixing the roof of the building at that time, a small group of Yelpers met at the offices of Hendricks,
the company doing the renovation and development.

Megan from Hendricks was super bubbly and gave a nice presentation about what is being planned for the space. Everyone
was happy to hear that they are preserving as much of the beautiful building as possible. So, the renovated and updated space
will house a food hall (different than a food court because it showcases unique, local restaurants), a boutique hotel, a movie
 theater, a bowling alley (with duckpin bowling and regular bowling), apartments and condominiums, office space, and lots
of retail space.

At the time of the event, there were 12 vendors committed to places in the food hall. There is space for about 27 vendors.

An overview of what the new space will look like.

8-3-2019 Gen Con and Bates-Hendricks Street Fest

We bicycled downtown with our friends, Mark and Annette, and their daughter. We hoped to catch the parade of costumed
attendees of Gen Con, a gaming convention. We arrived at the tail end of the parade, so Mark got some photos, but we did
not. We went inside, and it was packed with people.

This shows a couple of people kind of dressed up.

Some people obviously couldn't wait to play the new games they had purchased, so they just found a spot on the floor.

Afterwards we continued south to the Bates-Hendricks neighborhood for their Street Fest. This is a new "up-and-coming"
area that is new to us. Apparently, people are moving here instead of Fountain Square because it is more affordable.
(Fountain Square used to be considered an "up-and-coming" neighborhood, but now we'd say it has arrived.)

There were several nice craft booths to explore.

There were free hot dogs, chips and drinks provided by a local church. Another church booth (not pictured) offered free Root
Beer Floats.

We also sampled food from this food truck. Cara had seen it before but wrote it off figuring they only had meat items.

However, the food truck had Vegan Tacos, with tofu that was seasoned and smoked the same way their chicken is! Cara and
Annette split an order and loved them.

8-2-2019 Propylaeum Open House & August First Friday

We saw that there was going to be an Open House at the historic Propylaeum, which is just down
the street from where we were going to start our First Friday, so we knew we had to check it out.
It was a lovely event that we really enjoyed, and we met some very nice ladies.

There were lots of free samples from the menu of the new restaurant opening in the Propylaeum.

There was also free beer and wine.

The entire house was open to explore, so we did. We didn't realize that some of the rooms are actually available to rent for
short stays (like an Inn).

Other rooms displayed historic photos about the Women's Suffrage movement.

The Propylaeum Club was started in 1888 by May Wright Sewall to mobilize women to play larger roles in society.

Antiques

Another rentable room.

Next we headed to the Big Green Food Con at the nearby Harrison Center.

There was some amazing art that was not related to food. (Very unexpectedly, we happened to meet the artist featured here at
our last stop of the evening.)

Most everything else had to do with educating people on healthy, local, organic food. These three salad samples, as well as
the herb-infused water, were delightful.

This display was to educate people on the water and other resources required to produce different types of food. Another
room had a small farmers market, though we failed to get any photos of that.

 

We love to do First Friday with our friend, Mark and Annette. Here they are at our next stop, the Indiana Landmarks Foundation.

Their theme this time was French Impressionism. They featured the work of several local artists who had gone to Provence 
and did paintings en plein air (outdoors).

We stopped briefly at McGowan Hall at the Knights of Columbus because we saw they had
live music going on.

They also had several craft booths to browse.

On our way back home we decided to stop at a new place called Reclamation for drinks.

We all loved the old safe door at the entrance.

The old cash register was pretty cool too.

They have a nice selection of games for customers to play while they are hanging out, which is a nice touch.

This place had a great old-timey vibe that we all enjoyed.

There was even a gangster gambling scene under the floor at the entrance.

The back patio was the real winner of the place, though. It reminded us of New Orleans. This is where we met the artist of
the mandala-like pieces we saw at the Harrison Center.

8-1-2019 Yelp's Indy Fringe Preview Event

As a Yelp Elite, Cara gets to go to some really cool and fun private events. This one was a preview of several of the acts performing at this year's Indy Fringe Festival in downtown Indianapolis. It's a non-juried event, so you get all kinds of acts, some really good, and some that just don't resonate. But, it's a good venue for up-and-coming and experimental artists.

While the Yelpers filed into the event, we were treated to the beautiful, soulful sounds of Allison Victoria Music. She had an
incredible voice and presence, despite claiming to have mostly lost her voice that day. Her father was on the saxophone.

There were nice Grilled Cheese samples from a local restaurant, Rooster's Kitchen.

There were also free smoothie samples from Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Carmel, Indiana.

Cara had the Blueberry Bliss smoothie with blueberries, strawberries and banana, and it was good.

A song preview from Make Me A Match.

Christian and Catalina, the husband and wife team performing mind reading tricks from their act, Mind Tripping Show.

A scene from Game of Crows: Winter's Coming, a parody of Game of Thrones.

Taylor Martin doing a bit from his show called Tasty Bits.

Improv from Stroopwafel.

Beyond Ballet - Cara failed to get an action photo of their lovely, improvisational dance.

A scene from Orgasmo Adulto Escapes From The Zoo.

The Amazing Barry, with a helper he picked from the audience, doing his "yoga card trick" from his show, A Fine Collection
of Magic.

This was Cara's favorite act. He actually picked out the card from between his feet while doing a headstand.

Michael Swinford doing an honest and depressing monologue about coming out from the show,
The Only Worse Thing You Could Have Told Me.

A scene from Another Mulligan, a show about times you want "do-overs" in life.

"Joan of Arc" singing a funny rendition of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" from Mad Women's Late Nite Cabaret.

Cool art inside the Indy Fringe theater.