The Slippery Noodle Inn is a large

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

bar and restaurant with two performance stages in downtown

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

. It also has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating bar in the state of

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

,Bird, pg. 320 having opened in 1850 as the Tremont House. The Inn served as a stop on the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. During

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

it was called a restaurant, although

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

was still being made in the basement, and later it housed a

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

until 1953. The Inn is the oldest commercial building in the city. Its tin ceiling dates to 1890 and the oak bar is also over a century old. The Inn has operated under its current name since 1963. It has hosted many legendary blues performers during that time, and is now one of the most prominent blues venues in the region.

References

Notes

External links

* * {{National Register of Historic Places Blues venues Restaurants in Indianapolis Underground Railroad locations Restaurants established in 1850 National Register of Historic Places in Indianapolis Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Restaurants on the National Register of Historic Places