The Red Garter (Indianapolis, Indiana) | restaurant, bar, night club, gentlemen's club

 restaurant, bar, night club, gentlemen's club

437 South Illinois Street
Indianapolis, IN 46225
(317) 637-0829
www.redgarterindy.com

In 1972 the Najem family started the bar known as the Red Garter at the corner of Washington Street and Senate Street in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Based on the idea of good food and good entertainment, the Najems kept up a good menu of food items with regular adult feature entertainers.

In the late-1980s and early-1990s, the City of Indianapolis wanted to annex the property the Red Garter was sitting on for the construction of a hotel. The Red Garter then moved to its current location at the corner of Illinois Street and Henry Street, across from the old Calderon Textiles plant. The walls of the building were constructed of thick, solid brick, and the roof of the building was held on by large wooden posts (8x8 square posts, to be exact) that ran in two rows down the middle of the building. The main stage was arrow-shaped in the "Entertainment" section of the room; a small feature-entertainer stage (later the DJ booth) was directly to the left of the entrance to this section. The main bar was to the right of this stage. Two pool tables were in the back of the room, and the couch was alternately on the left and right side of the room.

The front of the building consisted of a "Dining" room with seating for approximately 30 people, and a "Bar" room that was the local watering hole for regular guests. John Najem (one of the previous owners) would spend countless hours at this bar, telling stories with friends.

The bar was bought by the Kritikos family in 1994. Their second venture into this business, Pete would have a slightly different outlook on how the bar should be run. The secondary bar was closed, as was the dining room. The kitchen was never scuttled but scaled back to serve the entertainment patrons. A lot of the building was wasted space in this configuration; nevertheless, the cost savings proved beneficial 4 years later.

July 1998 started the most ambitious makeover the Red Garter has ever seen. The bar was shut down for almost seven months for a complete remodeling, from the concrete floor up. At one time, the building had 4 walls, 3 doors and a safe -- the concrete floor was busted up, the roof was nonexistent, and the safe was too heavy to move without machinery. Slowly, the new building (complete with a steel-reinforced roof, removing the large wooden beams) began to take shape. A VIP room and entertainer dressing room became the second story; a large main bar was constructed in the front of the room, and three smaller stages (supported by a perched DJ booth) were constructed and placed.