I hear it all of the time: “Kokomo sucks, there is nothing to do here” or “You gotta drive to Indy to do anything fun in Indiana.” There is everyone’s favorite: “There is nothin’ but corn in Indiana.” A quip about the Kokomo hospitality industry, or lack thereof, can be heard around any water cooler. I myself have DEFINITELY been critical of this town for its desperate lack of excitement nine days out of ten, and there are some days I still afford myself a snide comment about the city I once called home. However, I am constantly reminded that this city is not as stale as I make it out to be in casual passing. While the cynical townies here might love to hate their home, it does seem to foster local business start-ups better than most.
Over the past year or so, we have witnessed the opening of a number of businesses about town. Some are brick-and-mortar institutions occupying the worn-out husks of former buildings around the town square, while others are hosted from a kitchen table. Every month, my Facebook pages light up with a casual school acquaintance giving it their shot at entrepreneurship, or an eager business posting their newfound store online. So, when a new restaurant opens up in town and they offer pizza, I just have to be one of the first in the doors.
It’s rare that a new restaurant pops up in Kokomo that I don’t know about well in advance. That’s not said to be braggadocious; I am not the all-seeing food guru. However, in a town as small as Kokomo, when you make it your mission to eat all the good food in town, you tend to keep tabs on restaurants exploding onto the scene. Then one day, a small eatery/bar starts coming up on Kokomo’s business-centric Facebook posts and I can’t help but be interested. Just before we rolled into 2023, Home Plate Bar and Grill began posting updates on their grand opening. A new menu, a fresh facelift on the old Little Daddies building along Home Avenue, and a very engaged owner keeping consistent and upbeat on his advertising, just hoping his dream gets to grow some wings.
I decided to try out Home Plate on a dreary Sunday just before the NFL playoffs. What could go better with football than pizza, amirite? The exterior gives off dive-bar vibes upon first inspection, but families ARE going there with youngsters far too little to enjoy the adult beverages. It is odd to watch a kid walk hand-in-hand with Dad into a “bar” like it’s just another restaurant. The outside doesn’t scream “GREAT PIZZA FOUND HERE”, but we don’t judge books by their covers here.
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| Photo Credit: The Kokomo Post |
And color me impressed, they did a bang-up job giving that building a make-over. The once-mortifying interior received a complete overhaul, transforming into a modern, roomy eatery with a bar to boot. The layout is open in the main dining space, lined with few tables to allow more open travel for patrons from front door to back tables. Judging by the outside, you’d think the place would feel small, cramped. Not here. I walked right up to the bar without tripping on an outstretched shoe or sliding between any backed-out chairs.
When I am trying out a pizza place in Kokomo, I also try to do a bit of research before I dive in and eat the food. I feel that it helps to better understand a restaurant’s place in our town’s heritage when you know a little about them, thereby making the taste test more about the eatery overall, rather than solely by how good the chef in the back was able to whip up their pie of the day. Home Plate, being less than a week old at the time of trying their food, didn’t get that luxury. My research was limited to a handful of Facebook posts, publicly accessible license info for food service, and a handful of online announcements of their intention to do business in Kokomo. So, when I sat down at the bar, I tried to make up for lacking resources and chatted with the bartender. “What is good to eat here?” “Have you been here since opening?” “What are the owners like?” Etc, etc. Ashley, the poor bartender subjected to my inquisitive barrage, answered me patiently and enthusiastically. And while none of the answers really helped me form a prior opinion on the place, I did learn that I should try the chicken wings (perhaps another time) and that she was only on her 2nd day. Everyone was new, customers and employees alike.
Home Plate calls their pizza menu the “All-Star Pizza” menu, and the selections make good use of baseball puns, which I can always appreciate. I settled for the Grand Slam, and a side of fries for good measure. Pair that with a cold beer and I was ready for football Sunday. The food came quickly, which is surprising for a new bar restaurant just getting its footing in place.
I only ordered the 7”, so it was rather small. It appeared a mess and it was piled high with toppings, but in a good way. This was a traditional barroom pizza, reminiscent of a few college spots I remember from a while ago. While I expected it to taste like a bad Totino's frozen selection, I was pleased to find that it carried some heavy flavor. The toppings were uniformly cut, which typically screams bagged toppings, but they tasted more or less like fresh-cut ingredients. There didn’t seem to be a lot of grease, but the cheese did ooze (it passed the stretch test).
Now, I know what we have here is a small-time PIZZA blog, but let me tell you…
The pizza was good bar food. It hit all the notes I needed it to, and it satisfied my craving for a topping-heavy, crunchy-crusted pizza to go with football and beer. However, the star of my trip was the FRIES. I cannot capitalize that word enough. These fries were, very possibly, the best fries I have had in my lifetime. Again, I expected bagged, frozen string fries and was met instead by these golden brown pockets of goodness. They were seasoned. They were crispy. They were perfectly cooked in a vat of perfectly-tempered oil. I could sing their praises for days. I am not shitting you when I say, pizza be damned, the slices I want to talk about are the sliced bits of potato that graced my face that day. Hell, I might just change my logo from a pizza wedge to a Yukon Gold for a month.
Not every restaurant impresses me. I like to highlight how good each place I visit can be, and all the charm they carry inside and out of the kitchen. But Home Plate manages to deliver on both, and I do not feel strained to say that. The pizza did its job, but the fries locked me in for another visit. The atmosphere was dive-bar-esque, but the family inclusions made this place comfortable to sit in for longer spans of time. The buddies hanging out over shots of tequila made me feel twenty-one again, and the kid on his iPad reminded me I am thirty. This place was a bit of a conundrum, but as a restaurant, it gave me a good feeling.
Kokomo may suck, but it’s not a dead town. Thriving here is a chance for little businesses to emerge and impress the masses. Home Plate epitomizes the growth here. Sure, there isn’t much to Indiana but the rows of corn and frigid winter weather, but the goddamn potatoes at Home Plate Bar and Grill sure make me think twice before I discount this town as useless.
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