Blackstone

503 Westbury Drive Suite 1 IC
August 2008

Blackstone is pretty obviously a new restaurant in a new building, it just looks very modern. And it has a pretty decent atmosphere. Apparently it has become fairly popular- there aren’t many other restaurants on the Eastside to choose from. My partner and I went on a Thursday night and there was a 15 minute wait for the restaurant side. We chose to eat on the bar side, which was a nice experience. The tables are tall with a view of the long bar and the 5 tv monitors above it. 1 of the monitors had Fox News on, but they quickly changed it which may or may not have had something to do with the look of disgust on my face.
There is a room of red pool tables, darts, and a few games. The room was empty when we were there, but being closer to dinner time and not quite late enough for bar time, that’s understandable.
The menu doesn’t have a lot to offer for those of us who don’t eat meat from the pig. The burgers, sandwiches, even the mac & cheese all came with some form of pig meat. But I did find a few chicken options and at least one vegetarian option. I got a salad that was a mix of greens, tomatoes and deep fried appetizers- chicken strips and onion rings, all with a bleu cheese dressing. It sounds strange, but it wasn’t bad. And it was filling, which it should have been for $10.
My partner got a penne pasta dish with “roasted ratatouille”. It was a vegetarian dish with plenty of cheese on top. For $11, it would have been nice if it came with a salad or something in addition to the garlic bread.
They have a decent selection of beer on tap, and a few more bottled beers. It’s not a great selection, but if Okoboji Grill had Blackstone’s beer selection, I would go there about twice as often. The “good” beer- Goose Island and New Belgium- was $4.75 for 22 oz. We had 3 between the 2 of us, so if you do the math, it was over $40 with the tip.
I wouldn’t be too excited about going back except that they have a selection of flatbreads that sound very interesting and at $10 each, it would have been too much to have with dinner, so we talked about going back for beer, flatbread and pool sometime.
In looking up their address, I noticed their website- it’s a great website, as far as restaurant websites go: www.blackstone-ic.com.
Environmentally: good, reusable, I can’t remember what the napkins were. There wasn’t enough food to have leftovers, so I don’t know what they use. In a nutshell, I really don’t know what to rate them. They do have bike racks out front though.