Small Bites (aka Tapas)!

Everything is coming up tapas, or as Michael Bauer over at the SF Chron calls it "the blatant misuse of the term 'tapas'" Along with Bauer, I'm officially over non-Spanish restaurants calling small plates "tapas" in an effort to get in on the craze. It's silly, really, when so many ethnic food cultures have similar concept with their *own* terms. Tapas, everyone!

Downtown O'Malia's Renovations Underway: Finally, at long last, the downtown O'Malia's is getting an expansion and face lift. Marsh backed off their request to ask the city for tax abatements and work started right away. Store employees say the project will be completed by November. (Maybe they'll finally get rid of that funky smell back in the dairy section.)

City Market Gets a Loan: IBJ is reporting the City Market has gotten a bank loan for $700K to complete the unfinished renovation work. This whole thing has been such a sad, screwy, misguided project from the beginning. There's just nothing to say, really. Estimated completion date is now mid-November.

Bar Project Falls Through: We've all seen the application in the window of the former Nicky Blaine's space but no one knew quite what was going on. Apparently the application/notice is gone and Cory reports the brokers are looking for a new tenant for the space.

Of Brownouts and Blackouts: Or, power vacuums, you might say. Several local restaurants have fallen victim to the high temperatures and weakened power grids. L'Explorateur lost power last weekend in Broad Ripples brownout, and word had it yesterday that Peterson's was hit in an outage in Fishers.

Opentable.com: In the "you'd think they'd fix that" department, we found a glitch in opentable.com over the weekend. In a rush to make reservations for the Twisted Oak dinner at L'Explorateur, we found the restaurant had *disappeared* from their listings! An email to Neal and he rebooted their internal reservations system but one wouldn't think that a computer outage in a restaurant would cause them to vanish from the Opentable.com roll. Hmmmm. Someone should get a man right on that.

Day of Miscellaney

Up Go the Prices at Starbucks, Again: If you, like me, have been noticing that your daily venti bold has been getting more expensive, brace yourself. Starbucks, citing rising milk prices and other business costs, will raise the price of lattes, coffees, and other drinks an average of $.09 per drink. It's the second price increase in less than a year.

Christopher Browne, the old Fox: Loved the piece in last week's The Dish about Christopher Browne, former executive chef at the The Restaurant at the Canterbury, taking over at The Snooty Fox, just off the Monon Trail up by 82nd St. Browne is planning to update the menu with some fresh, innovative dishes and hopes to revitalize the place with entire neighborhood.

Steak and Shake Chili in Cans is A-OK: This is just depressing. There was a recall. Chili sauce and canned chili. Steak and Shake brand is apparently OK, they want us to know. Whatever.

Marsh Holds Downtown Hostage? Marsh has asked the city for $50,000 in tax abatements to renovate the downtown O'Malia's (to the tune of $1.5 million). As much as I'd love to see that store renovated, do you really think Marsh needs $50,000 of city money to do it? They're not expanding the space or adding employees. Proposal goes to hearing next month. Via Property Lines.

Update: Marsh has dropped its request for a tax abatement for renovations on the downtown O'Malia's. Via Cory at Property Lines

Holy Grocery, Batman!

Just when I was about to post a rant on how Indiana has more grocery stores per capita than any other state in the country, Marsh decides to face some hard corporate facts and announces closings of 10 locations. Closings including Marsh, LoBill, Village Pantry, Arthurs Fresh Market, and O'Malia's locations in Indiana and Ohio. The stores are scheduled to close by Thanksgiving. How close to home does this hit? For some closer than others. I've often shopped at the O'Malia's on 86th St. Others may miss those Arthur's, but I'll guess they're expensive stores to run. The good news is there's another grocery store on every corner except for downtown (where we still have the crappy O'Malia and the ghetto Kroger.) No plans yet from Kroger to expand on 16th St. What to complain? Blame the King's Park neighborhood association who has halted the grocery company's efforts by asking for expensive and impractical mixed use development.

Meanwhile, the closing Marsh locations?

Marsh - 936 E. Washington, Winchester
LoBill - 990 Chester Blvd., Richmond
LoBill - 3919 Madison Ave., Indianapolis
LoBill - 1033 Indianapolis, Greencastle
LoBill - 190 Old Farm Village, Danville
LoBill - 1107 N. Arlington Ave., Indianapolis
LoBill - 3737 E. Washington, Indianapolis
LoBill - 395 Martin, Greenville, OH
O'Malia - 2342 W. 86th St., Indianapolis
O'Malia - 7405 W. 10th St., Indianapolis
Arthurs - 107 W. Pickwick Drive, Syracuse
Arthurs - 5802 West US 52, New Palestine
Village Pantry, 2005 W. Memorial Drive, Muncie
Village Pantry, 3715 E. Jackson St., Muncie
Village Pantry, 312 N. Phillips, Kokomo
Village Pantry, 4 West Main St., Chesterfield

More from Marsh via Inside Indiana Business.