Greetings, AEA365 readers! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. Registration for this year’s conference is officially open, and our local hosts at the Indiana Evaluation Association (IEA) are working with the AEA team to ensure our time in lovely Indianapolis is a fulfilling one. This week’s posts feature the voices of IEA’s members. Happy reading!
Welcome to the last post of Local Arrangements Working Group Week on AEA365. I am Robert Hoke, an Indianapolis- based independent consultant, an AEA Conference attendee since 2001, and a member of this year’s Local Arrangement Working Group.
For this post, we decided to crowd-source the material by asking the members of the LAWG and others from the Indiana Evaluation Association to share with us their favorite places and things in Indy that they always recommend to their out-of-town visitors.
Feel free to contact us at indianaevaluation@gmail.com if you have questions about activities or places in Indianapolis.
Restaurants
Recommended by an IEA Member:
- Café Patachou (0.3 miles)
- The Garage at the Bottleworks (1.8 miles)
- Rathskeller (in the historic Athenaeum!) (1.3 miles)
- Bluebeard (1.5 miles)
- The Eagle (1.1 miles)
- City Market (lunch only) (0.9 miles)
- Goose the Market (3.1 miles)
- Harry and Izzy’s (0.5 miles)
- St. Elmo’s Steakhouse (an Indianapolis institution) (0.5 miles)
- Shapiro’s Delicatessen (another Indianapolis institution) (1.0 miles)
- Milktooth (1.3 miles)
Many of these restaurants are our members’ favorites for special occasions, and we recommend evaluating their prices in advance.
And Visit Indy’s Recommendations
Bars
Recommended by an IEA Member:
- Slippery Noodle Inn (the oldest bar in Indiana) (0.7 miles)
- Rathskeller (in the historic Athenaeum!) (1.3 miles)
- Liberty Street (1.5 miles)
- Sun King Brewery (1.4 miles)
- 1933 Lounge (0.5 miles)
- Ball and Biscuit (1.1 miles)
- Chatterbox (1.3 miles)
And here is Do317’s list of Indy’s Best Bars. (Bars in the Wholesale District are walkable, Mass Ave Bars are about 1 to 1 ½ miles away.)
Shopping
Our Recommendations:
- Right across the street from the host hotel are the Eiteljorg Museum of Western and Indian Art and the Indiana State Museum, which have excellent gift shops accessible to all. A block further away is the Indiana Historical Society.
- Circle Centre Mall is very close to the conference location and has a food court if you want to combine shopping with lunch.
- Many of the recommendations for downtown shops are along Mass Ave including Silver in the City, Homespun, and Global Gifts but there are many more shops to explore and many bars and restaurants.
And Downtown Indy’s Map of Places to Shop
Things To Do
Our Recommendations:
- Many of our members echoed the museum and cultural activities recommendations found in Susan Foutz’s AEA365 post on Tuesday.
- Kayaking and peddle boating on the canal
- A literary tour of Indianapolis
- Atomic Bowl Duckpin (Fountain Square)
- White River Park
- Cultural Trail
Some additional lists:
- A calendar of events
- Visit Indy’s Things to Do
Rad Resources
We also shared these resources in our first post.
Visit Indy (https://www.visitindy.com/evaluation2023/ ) has been the LAWG go-to site for information to share with our fellow conference attendees. An excellent site for information on things to do, events, restaurants, and general tips for Indy visitors.
Downtown Indy (https://downtownindy.org/) compliments the Visit Indy site with more detailed information about downtown neighborhoods and events.
AEA’s Visitor’s Guide: (Coming Soon). The Local Arrangements Working Group is preparing a tailored visitor guide for the AEA Conference. Look for more details in pre-conference announcements. The LAWG will also be staffing an information table throughout the conference, so please plan to pick up the visitor’s guide or learn more about things to do in downtown Indy.
We’re looking forward to the Evaluation 2023 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to AEA365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to AEA365@eval.org. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.