Business Owner Watches Over Indiana Landmark

The tortured strains of blues music filtered through the building as Hal Yeagy sidled up to the tiger-striped oak bar.

The southside Indianapolis resident is the owner of the Slippery Noodle Inn, which has been like a second home. He can point out  the back room where John Dillinger and his gangster buddies congregated.

In the basement, owners used to make bootleg beer during Prohibition. On weekends, Indianapolis jazz maestro Wes Montgomery used to play all-night jam sessions.

For more than 25 years, Yeagy has watched over the Slippery Noodle, an Indiana landmark and one of the most colorful taverns in the state. The establishment is the oldest continuing running bar in Indianapolis and a staple of the local blues scene.

He’s helped bring in musicians ranging from Buddy Miles to Edgar Winter to Big Head Todd and the Monsters. In the same place where Alfred Brady used to take target practice, people now gather to watch bands seven nights a week.

“You stay in business for 160 years as a bar, you’ll have some odds and ends coming through,” he said.

With an establishment as old as the Slippery Noodle, atmosphere isn’t something that needs to be cultivated and designed. Yeagy’s bar comes fully stocked with its own history and character.

Neon signs cast the place in shades of pink, red and aqua and reflect off of the gold-plated tin roof.

Images of the Blues Brothers, the Slippery Noodle’s official logo, cover every wall. Life-size replicas of Jake and Elwood Blues greet patrons as they work their way to the back room.

In the concert room behind the bar, a wall-sized mural of blues greats decorates the otherwise drab brick space.

“It’s always been a very homey, college-type of bar,” he said.

Yeagy’s parents purchased the bar in 1963. His father, Harold Yeagy, was losing his eyesight due to diabetes, and the family wanted to give him something to do after he lost his vision.

They moved into a sturdy brick building at the corner of Meridian and South streets, finding a structure filled with character but crumbling in places.

Hal’s two brothers focused the business solely on being a bar, staying open late and attracting local musicians. They built a small stage and bought an upright piano so that local musicians could stage weekly “Friday Night Hootenannies.”

Harold Yeagy had been involved in civic theater and USO shows throughout Indianapolis, so he had the connections to bring in some of the area’s best musicians.

One of his employees was Montgomery, a now-famous jazzman who would play late into the night, pounding on his guitar in the smoky sitting room.

Eventually, Yeagy’s parents transitioned the business from a simple nightclub into more of a lunchcounter and after-work hangout. His mother, Lorean Yeagy, would cook up portions of pork tenderloin and French fries in the bar’s kitchen, serving it to factory workers and businessmen alike.

Yeagy took over ownership of the Slippery Noodle in 1985 after his father died. The younger Yeagy was a systems analyst at Eli Lilly at the time but had stayed close to the family business even when he didn’t work behind the bar.

“I always wanted to take the place over. I was enough in it that it was more or less like home,” he said. “Mom couldn’t run it by herself, and it wasn’t worth anything to sell. I thought, ‘Why not?'”

Yeagy essentially ran the bar by himself. Friends would come in and help with bartending or to work the grill.

When he started, he didn’t have a clear vision for the bar and tried to find a balance between being a drinking establishment, restaurant and nightclub.

But as a longtime music fan and drummer, he decided to return the Slippery Noodle to its musical roots.

He started an acoustic show on the Slippery Noodle’s small stage, which soon became focused on stripped-down blues music. Some of his friends in a band took the stage with a Chicago big-band sound, using a lot of horns.

Another group of musicians, all servers from St. Elmo’s just a few blocks away, started frequenting the bar on Friday nights.

“We always laugh. When we started playing music, there were usually more of us working and playing than there were paying customers,” he said.

Right about that time, downtown Indianapolis was experiencing the first twinges of regrowth. The area had been dying for decades as businesses moved out.

But when the Colts relocated to the city, leading to the construction of the Hoosier Dome and the expansion of the convention center, more and more people started coming back downtown.

Yeagy and nine other local nightclub owners banded together to form the “Downtown Top 10,” a conglomeration of drinking establishments that worked together to promote the area.

“That was the beginning of renewal downtown,” he said. “Everybody being downtown, and not having the convention business we have now, and no one living down here, we needed to do everything we could.”

With a focus on music and a newly interested audience slowly coming to downtown, the Slippery Noodle began to grow in popularity.

Business got to the point where there was a line out the door three times a week. To deal with the crowds, Yeagy had to open up the back building and moved all of the music back there. Eventually, the Slippery Noodle was hosting musical acts seven nights a week.

Yeagy’s wife, Carol, took over the responsibility of booking the bands. She set her sights on the best the blues world had to offer and often convinced them to come to an up-and-coming blues bar in the middle of Indiana.

“We don’t necessarily think the same way, but it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and to tell you to get over yourself and do what you have to do,” Hal Yeagy said.

The bar got to be an automatic draw and helped foster a burgeoning Indianapolis blues scene, said local musician Gene Deer.

“Without the Noodle, there wouldn’t be a blues scene in Indianapolis. There was no other place to play regularly before it, and though people have tried to come in and open up other places before, none are as popular,” he said.

Deer has performed on the stage for 25 years. He appreciates that it’s always brining in a new crowd and the next generation of blues fans.

The success with the Slippery Noodle turned Yeagy’s attention to another business venture — opening a Vegas-themed restaurant on the southside.

Carol Yeagy had convinced him to take a chance with it as a kind of transition to retirement. Yeagy would leave the Slippery Noodle and focus on this new place, eventually passing on control to his sons.

He envisioned a good steakhouse that would be near his southside Indianapolis home. As he and Carol Yeagy thought about different themes, they kept coming back to their trips to the Las Vegas strip for shows, performances and a little blackjack.

“I love Vegas. I’m not a huge gambler, but being in the nightclub and having really weird hours, Vegas works on my timetable,” he said.

His most recent venture is called Hal’s Vegas Bar and Grill in Greenwood. The Yeagys hope to bring the spirit of Las Vegas to central Indiana.

They outfitted his new restaurant with a ’50s Rat Pack feel, complete with framed photos of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the rest.

A black-and-white framed photo of the old Las Vegas Strip, with the illuminated Golden Nugget sign shining in the foreground, greets diners.

A panoramic photograph of Las Vegas covers one whole wall. A large roulette wheel and slot machines are set up throughout the dining room.

Though he’s still heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of both restaurants, Yeagy can see he and his wife eventually allowing the next generation of the Yeagy family to take over.

His two sons, Josh and Brian, have followed their father into the family business. Josh Yeagy has been instrumental in the finances and operation of the restaurants for years, and Brian Yeagy has come on in the past year to help as well.

Eventually, they could fill Hal Yeagy’s spot. But that won’t happen for a few years.

“I don’t think it’s something that will happen tomorrow. Carol and I are still very detail-oriented, so we know everything what’s going on,” he said. “Plus, we still enjoy doing this.”