John’s Famous Stew

This place is an amazing place that I’ve eaten at since I was 11 years old! 34 now and I’ve learned that its the quality and not the quantity. As a Johns stew regular I’ve read alot of posts some surprise me a lot. As in 1 guy suggesting that the stew was made hotter by using cayenne pepper (nope) that is like saying cherry Pepsi has cherries in it. The truth is a medium stew is a mixture of hot and mild stew and that is why you mix them. I myself enjoy the hot stew!!! I also like the turkey Manhattan and the blackberry pie!!! They use my grandmothers recipe for the stuffed bell pepper and my family has been involved here for 20+ years!!! Trust when I tell you as an executive chef I’m happy to eat here!!!

Exactly what you imagine when you think of a divey yet delicious lunch spot that all the locals frequent. I stopped in for a Wednesday lunch, and nearly all the tables were filled by 11:15. Don’t be discouraged though– service is quick, especially if you order the Famous stew.
Now, the stew itself was great– I just ordered a mild bowl, which came with two thick and soft slices of white bread, perfect for mopping up your bowl. It was a pretty large portion, filled with large chunks of veggies and a huge piece of tender, lean stew meat.
The crowd was a mixture of people — as a young woman dining alone I felt completely at ease. I fully intend to return when my work takes me to the area, and really want to try the blackberry cobbler!

Went to John’s for lunch with friends and it is great. I always stick with the tenderloin supreme. I can never figure out what condiment to put on a fried tenderloin and the answer is only spicy stew. Stew is not too spicy, even in hot, but very good. You can tell they have not changed a thing, waitresses, menu, recipes or décor for over 100 years and it works. This place is a real Indiana gem that cannot be replicated in other cities.

Great place for comfort food especially on a cooler day! It’ll warm you up for sure. Their stew is amazing. I suggest pairing it with a grilled cheese for dipping. Everything I’ve had on their menu is good. It’s an office fave for lunch.

I love the hot stew. Definitely one of my favorite lunch spots. The stew smothered tenderloin is a great item, too.

One-​hundred and fourteen year-​old STEW restaurant. Yes, you read that correctly. Only in Indiana can you taste ancient Macedonian stew.
This tavern (it’s Indiana, so no one under 21) remains true to its working class roots. You want beer, it had better be Miller or Bud. The décor concerns beer and racing and horse racing. Trust me, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
And the food? They have all the working man’s classics. Burgers, Hoosier pork tenderloins, and the eponymous stew (which can be served on burgers or tenderloins — mmmmm). The stew can be had mild or spicy or can be served «goulash» style (apparently with beans – I dunno, maybe Macedonian goulash). The stew is beef-​based and has carrots, potatoes, onions, and stewey spices. It’s delicious on its own or on anything else they serve. Speaking of the anything else they serve, they also have some Eastern European staples like cabbage rolls. I haven’t tried those yet, but certainly will on my next visit.
Finally, they have really good cobbler (peach and blackberry in the summer).
The waitresses are mostly from Appalachian Kentucky and Tennessee and are as nice as can be. I suspect there are some Macedonians around somewhere (the Slavic kind, not the Greek kind).
Closed on Sundays (the workingman’s day of rest!). Highly recommended.

A Cornucopia of stews.
I had the goulash. Yum. Stick to your ribs with yummy veggies and pot roast beef.
You can order the level of spiciness.
Impossible to finish the whole bowl and they send you on your way with extra bread and top off your to go stew with a little more sauce.
Service is like from your best friend’s mom who fed you all the time as her second son.
I will return on next trip to Indy.

Went here for lunch with a few coworkers and had a terrible dining experience.
1. If you are vegetarian, enjoy the grilled cheese! There is nothing else on the menu for you.
2. Don’t get extra meat! It’s $ 6 and did not seem like there was any extra in there. In fact, I think she messed up the order and gave it to the wrong person.
3. Actually the waitress told us, «I was going to tell you the extra meat was pretty expensive, but that’s bad for business.»
4. The waitress was pushing bread down everyone’s throat. It was weird. She kept saying «eat more bread! I’ll bring you more!»
5. Stew/​chili was cold, like it had been sitting out a while.
6. At the end when one guy hadn’t finished his sub-​par meal, the waitress says «are you sure you don’t want to take that since you paid so much for it?»
7. Waitress told us we could have gone downtown for the same price.
Never again. Save yourself the experience and actually go somewhere downtown.

Black Sabbath blaring over the speakers thanks to the dude who threw his quarters in to the jukebox. Bad, bad decision. Hands over ears. Stew and angry music? GAHHHHHHH.
It wasn’t the bad music that turned me off, it was the not so fly service. I get it, some places pride themselves on their lack of «frills». I grew up in a small town filled with establishments that specialized in a lack of frills but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice smiles and a simple menu recommendation.
As for the stew, the meat was delicious. I ordered the goulash version which comes with «garden fresh vegetables» and «butter beans». Note that the veggies are frozen vegetable medley and leave much to be desired. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the big chunks of carrots and potatoes that come with the base stew. If you can handle a little kick, go for the medium spice level. Perfect for cleaning out the sinuses.
Lastly, this place is like walking into 1981. Charm central. Neon beer signs and weird celebrity images galore.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of stew, it is hard to beat a hot bowl of it at John’s when the weather is cold and gloomy. The inside of this place is nothing special — most of the furniture and décor is older than I am. But that’s also part of the charm. The stew itself is good with lots of chunks and is very filling. They have a variety of other menu items, but I’ve never tried them. The most adventurous I get is ordering my stew hot instead of medium.
John’s Famous Stew — like eating a hot bowl of Indianapolis history.

I like John’s stew. The stew is delicious. It’s loaded with chunks of onions, celery, carrots, and all-​around goodness. The meat is tender and wonderful. I like the hot, the wife likes the medium. The inside of the restaurant looks just like you would expect. Old school. And it’s perfect for what this place is.

It’s a frigid, blustery day here today, so a group of us decided to try out a bowl of steaming hot, stick to your ribs stew.
Having never been here before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Walking in at noon, the place was packed with a line of hungry folks waiting for a table. It’s «seat yourself», so we waited only a few minutes before we were able to find a spot to settle into.
There are only 3 waitresses working today. We waited about 15 minutes before being approached and shortly thereafter placed our orders.
I got the Hot/​Spicy Stew — it did not disappoint on heat or flavor. The meat was tender and swimming in the bowl with a variety of stew vegetables such as carrots, celery and cabbage.
Sopping up every last morsel with a thick slice of hearty bread was enough to top of my appetite.
The checking out process included, we were there for a little over than an hour, so be sure to leave room for extra time if heading out around lunch.

I love this place for what it is. Unpretentious, nice older ladies as waitresses, great stew, and a cozy, clean atmosphere. I’ve seen the owner in the place every time I’ve visited for lunch. It’s not close to my home or work, but I try to make it there for lunch at least twice a year (always during winter) and have done so for years. I’ve never been there for meals other than lunch.
I had a particularly good experience today. After finishing my excellent «Stew Burger Medium», the waitress asked if I was full. I waffled for few moments before saying «yeah, I think so». She responded by getting me more stew! «We can’t have you leaving hungry, dear. Here you go.» Just like she was my mom. Love it!

After passing by this place (and hitting its portal on the mobile geolocation game Ingress) a number of times, I finally got around to stopping in for lunch. (I work at Eli Lilly Tech Center, just across the street.) I found a homey atmosphere, and a lot of good food. The waitress was quick to notice and seat me, and brought me my food right away.
Since the place was named for its famous stew, that was just what I had. It was offered on the menu in three levels of hotness – mild, medium, and hot. I picked medium. In retrospect, I might go with mild next time; medium was almost too hot for me. (And apparently it was just made that way by sprinkling cayenne on it; the waitress told me to stir it before eating because all the heat was on top.) Apart from the standard bowl offering, the restaurant offers several other ways to have the stew, including served over potatoes.
I thought that the $ 8 cost was a little pricey for a bowl of stew, but ordered it anyway… then I got a big bowl that was filled literally brim full of tasty stuff, and I had to change my mind. It came with a couple of thick slices of bread.
Stew isn’t typically one of those things you go to a restaurant for. To my knowledge, I’ve never ordered it at any restaurant other than this one. It’s one of those traditional comfort foods you get at home, usually made by your mother. But this stew… well, I’m not going to say it was BETTER than homemade (because my Mom would kill me! :) but it was definitely in the same league (and light years beyond Dinty Moore canned stuff). It was loaded with carrots, potatoes, candy-​bar-​sized chunks of tender beef that yielded perfectly to the fork… wow. I ate every last bit of it, and used the bread to swipe up the last of the broth.
For dessert, I ordered a bowl of blackberry cobbler with ice cream, feeling nostalgic for the blackberry pie my folks used to make from berries grown on the farm, and it was as good as the stew.
The one sour note in the experience was that instead of butter, there was only Country Crock spread on the table to go with the bread. I guess it’s possible they might have real butter on request; next time I go I’ll ask and see. But then, I didn’t really need butter on the bread anyway since I mainly just dipped it in the stew.
It’s a little pricey to eat there regularly, but given how close they are to work I expect I’ll go there at least a few more times, and perhaps try some of their non-​stew home-​cooking lunch specials, such as their country-​fried steak. In the end, if you like a good bowl of stew, this is definitely the place to get it!

This place is a hidden comfort food gem just a few minutes from the heart of downtown Indy. Don’t let the exterior fool you. It is very nice and clean inside and the staff is wonderful. During our first visit, they even provided us with samples of the stew so we could decide what we wanted. The stews come in Mild, Medium and Hot. I always order the Mild and it is delish!
Others dining with me have ordered a variety of items on the menu and no one has ever been disappointed. If you are looking for comfort food, I highly recommend giving this place a try!

An Indy Classic. If you like comfort food and being called «Hun» this is your kind of joint. The medium Stew has just enough spice and the bread/​butted is ideal for sopping up broth.

You step into a time warp when you enter this place. And I mean that in a good way. It feels like the dive bar/​diner you got to go to with your dad circa 1988. Well, not your dad. I don’t know what he was doing at that time. But I digress.
The stew was really a sauce, so that was a bit of a letdown. Still, the beef Manhattan and tenderloin were both stick-​to-​your-​ribs good. Service was a bit lacking — not rude, but slow and indifferent.
To summarize: Good food, big portions, relatively cheap. Will go back.

John’s Hot, now Famous Stew has been a staple in our life for decades. I so enjoy how the stew consistency remains year after year. When I crave hot stew only Johns Hot Stew with bread for dunking can satisfy. I do miss the days of the lively dining with the GM employees at lunch or dinner but still an interesting crowd remains. You’ll find blue collar folks, construction workers, executives from Lillies, downtown office workers, all with the same common goal of a tasty, inexpensive meal.
The tenderloins are enormous and they will provide an extra bun and plate for a small upgrade. Smother your tenderloin with hot stew for two of their most popular items in one meal. Sandwiches, Salads, Manhattan’s, Burgers, Chicken Fried Steak with mashed potatoes and cobblers are just a few other items on the menu. All favorites with people near and far who find themselves inside Johns.
The outside of the building needs a major facelift but this is just part of the history. Decent service, strong cocktails and good food at a reasonable prices. Within viewing distance of Lucas Oil Staduim.

This place is something special. The stew is varied, unique and filling. Many other good options on the menu. The ladies there who seat and serve you are a hoot. Totally organized chaos which is really entertaining. I got a big laugh out of them and they were beside themselves when I ordered a salad. The salad was a good price, filling and fresh. No complaints. The whole lunch group was happy.

Went here yesterday with a few friends to try out the famous stew. Everyone got a different «stew-​based» item, including the tenderloion with stew, John’s Stew Burger, Stew n Mashed Potatoes, and a bowl of the famous Hot Stew.
I got the stew and mashed potatoes and it was really good. The mashed potatoes almost out-​shined the actual stew. They were smooth and really creamy. I ordered my stew medium, which for me was the perfect amount of heat. It was loaded with veggies and was really good. The stew and tenderloin looked good and the stew burger got good reviews as well.
The atmosphere is nice and reminds me of a 50’s. The waitress had probably worked there forever and was actually quite funny, in a wry, ironic way.
Good comfort food at a great price. I would love to come back and try and few other items as well.