So you have The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, The Godfather 2, Terminator 2, even Rambo: First Blood Part 2. They all are sequels that are better than the original, even when the original was a classic by itself. Why can’t I apply that to the tenderloin blog? When the Fort Wayne Tincaps decided to rename their baseball team to the “Hoosier State Tenderloins” in response to a bill introduced in the legislature in Indy to make the fried breaded pork tenderloin the official “Sandwich of Indiana”, I knew I had to make it out for the weekend, even though I just wrote about Fort Wayne the year before. Well, the bill failed in congress, but I didn’t fail to acquire some sweet tickets and spend yet another weekend in Indiana’s second most populous city to hopefully create a sequel even grander than the first.
The Tenderloin
The ITC Facebook list of places I “follow” are mostly tenderloin joints. My newsfeed then sometimes populates with other tenderloin restaurants I haven’t seen yet. This was the case with ACME by Full Circle when a local reporter had posted about a giant tenderloin they like to eat in Fort Wayne. I was looking for a new tenderloin place for the baseball game and this seemed to fit perfectly. In the residential area north of downtown, a bbq place in an old storefront with a Googie sign boasts “The ACME, Where neighbors meet.” A smaller restaurant called “The Full Circle” then moved into the vacant building last year, hence the name. So does their tenderloin stand up to some of the biggest and best in Indiana? Well, of course, or you wouldn’t be reading about them right now. This sandwich is giant; spanning top to bottom of the large metal tray it comes out on. The breading is cracker crisp and you have a plethora of flavored hot sauces to choose from to pour or dip it in. The meat thickness is a bit then, but it is expected on a humongous patty of this size. We had to share it among us on this trip, but it was all gone by the time we had to pay the bill. It was a good choice for a town tenderloin sequel, but I need to find a sequel to visit to this place again to taste all their smoky bbq.
The Town
Running through lists on the internet, you come upon a bunch of must see, must do, must eat. You also get a lot of hidden gems and bucket list items. Well, I stumbled upon one for you in the City of Fort Wayne. Beyond centerfield in Parkview Field, the home of the Tincaps, lies a hotel with a rooftop bar called Conner’s. Anyone (over 21) can go up there and get a drink and order some food while sitting outside and being able to see the field and watch the game. There are a few hightops and a couple layers of stadium seats to hang out at. I happened to go up there the night before our Tenderloins game and watched the last inning. The game ended and the fireworks then began. I have never been so close to them in my life. It was one heck of a show with explosions at a 180 panorama and directly overhead. The lady a few seats down had a lighted spark hit her on her foot. A spent shell landed about 3 feet from where I was sitting. I’m pretty sure this is not the safest thing in the world to hang around during, but if you are brave you will get a spectacular show. I’d say everyone should go up there once, not sure if I’d increase the risk of potential burns by seeing it all the time.
I never take a pass on a tour of an old house while in a town. The Bell Mansion, two blocks north of the Tincap’s Stadium, offers a very special kind of tour – a ghost tour. You can walk in and out of the rooms with the tour guides and what them interact with the ghosts that still live there today. It was built in 1893 as a home for Robert Bell, a state senator and energy investor. In the 1920’s the place sold and was turned into a funeral home which it remained for the next 90 years. Although being a funeral home not necessary for a building to be a haven for the paranormal, it sure doesn’t hurt. For the believers this is an exciting venture into the creepy areas of the house where personal ghost stories and encounters are shared. For the skeptics, well… you can enjoy the show too as not only are the historical aspects interesting, but the tour guides do a really good job at the storytelling and using all of the bells and whistles of the handheld equipment to create a spine-chilling atmosphere of creepiness. As my 12-year-old son and I (who are both admittedly skeptics) exited the building we discussed how much fun we had in there and how good of a show they put on for us. We didn’t roll our eyes during the tour nor did we make fun of it afterwards. Even without the ghost tour, the Bell Mansion would be an informative venture into a 130 year old house turned funeral home, but the ghost tour added an extra layer of enjoyment.
The Allen County Public Library hosts a unique display that is surprisingly located in Northern Indiana. The Rolland Center for Lincoln Research holds a large collection of photos and papers related to Abraham Lincoln and his family’s life. Many original articles are on display, but even the rest of the collection can be accessed digitally by interactive kiosks. This is an impressive collection for any amateur historian or kids that just want a real connection to the past. I was hoping to see the picture with Mary Todd Lincoln as an old lady with the appearance of the “ghost” of Lincoln touching her shoulders. That photograph wasn’t available for viewing, but I was able to bring up a digital version of it. Maybe it was taken at the mansion about a block west?
The morning after the Tenderloins Game I wandered around downtown looking for some coffee. I stumbled upon GK Café & Provisions right on the corner of Harrison & Berry. You are greeted with a long display case of baked goods that are reminiscent of the café’s of Western Europe. Granted, the closest I’ve been to a bakery of Western Europe is the Munich Airport, but the Munich Airport is pretty darn fancy, so I was impressed with the selection of pastries and breads spread out for my choosing. Upon ordering a cup of American coffee, I asked, “Do you have any signature items to get?” They replied to try their Signature Croissant. I agreed to it before even asking what was in it, but luckily I didn’t end up with something like goose pâté and rakfisk. The Signature Croissant contains Creme Mousseline (the vanilla filling in éclairs) and strawberries in and on top of a giant croissant. It was enough to eat half and take the rest back to the hotel in a to-go box for my wife to finish off. There is also a selection of specialty grocery items on the shelves in the back half of the store, similar to items in a Whole Foods or a Trader Joes.
With a couple of days in downtown Fort Wayne, we had a non-tenderloin choice for dinner on the first night. There were a couple of good dining options and we all decided on the brewery / specialty taco place called The Hoppy Gnome. It has a traditional brewery on one side where you can brew your own beer in a lab type setting and a full service restaurant on the other where you could relax in their step-up booths. The tacos are their signature offering, but in addition to the traditional ground beef and carne asada types you can also get selections like “The Bob Marley” (Jamacian Jerk chicken) and “Release The Kraken” (fried calamari). My favorite choice was the “Dante’s Inferno” that had pulled chicken, a fried stick of jack cheese, and 7 layers of hell sauce. The beer wasn’t too shabby either including the Wrong Way Down Wayne. I didn’t realize it was 11% when I drank it. If I had another I probably would have been wandering down the wrong way in Fort Wayne to make it back to the hotel.
Located in an old power plant just north of downtown, Science Central is a hands-on kids museum focusing on physics, electricity, and nature. Numerous displays let you and your kids do things like build arches, design mosaics that are projected on the wall, and talk to your neighbor through a whisper tube across the room. There is a giant illuminated sphere in a display room that projects the earth and any other celestial body. You can sit attend a show or just wonder on in there and see the running programs that broadcast throughout your visit. It’s been 7 years since we had been there, but the boys at 10 & 12 still enjoyed going through all of the exhibits; maybe even more as they understood them a bit better. I think that COVID has taken a toll on the place though as about a quarter of the exhibits have degraded or don’t work anymore. The high rail bicycle and the giant slide have closed too. The Demonstration Theater was also empty on a Saturday and didn’t seem to have the shows every couple hours that I remembered from the last visit. But, at $10 an on-line ticket, it still remains well worth the cost to take kids to have a fun time for a couple of hours.
The Fort Wayne Tincaps decided to combine two of my favorite things – tenderloins and baseball. When I saw earlier this year that they were going to play as “The Hoosier State Tenderloins”, the date was marked off on my calendar. No business trip, home project, or wedding was going to make me miss this game (literally, I missed a wedding for this – sorry Todd & Michele). Got the t-shirts and front row tickets when they went on sale. I even hyped it up about on the social media. Turned out – it was pretty cool. I loved the carnival type colors and striping on the uniforms and the memorabilia. The tenderloin looked huge on it too (although I could go without the lettuce and onions shown J). There were carnival games in the outfield, tenderloin themed contests between innings, and it was just really cool to hear them refer to the team as “The Tenderloins”… “Batting now for The Tenderloins… The Tenderloins hit a home run”. The only real downer for the day was the rain came in and the game was ended after the 5th inning, but it was a long trip with a lot of activities, so we made the best of the down time. I really look forward to see if he Tincaps will do this again; even keep my eye out on the other promotions to check out for next year.
I had just visited Fort Wayne the year before for the blog and even attended a Tincaps game, so I wasn’t sure if I would be repeating by doing a second Fort Wayne one less than a year after the first. Luckily the city holds many nooks and crannies to check out and I think it stands apart and even expands from the first one. From the hidden gems of the rooftop fireworks, the haunted mansion, and the Lincoln collection, to the well known classics like the restaurants, museums, sporting events, and tenderloins… Fort Wayne always has enough to see and do. Should I make it a threequel next year?
To read the first Fort Wayne blog click this link
We are all just one Spiderman away from becoming a meme
by Michael Tomko
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