Remembering Joe's Shelby Street Diner

For more than 40 years, a simple 1950s-style diner operated on the Southside of Indianapolis walking distance of the campus of the University of Indianapolis and its previous iteration, Indiana Central University.

It was still in operation as of November 2019, based on a customer’s review of the establishment that I found online from that date. But at some point thereafter, it closed. And it did so without fanfare, apparently. I could find no record of news stories documenting its official closure.

While on a recent shoot at UIndy in late June, I drove past the site of the former diner, Joe’s Shelby Street Diner, conjuring memories of the many, many times I'd driven past the place in my years living in Indianapolis. My son Ben and I even stopped there to eat once, sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s. 

When I concluded my recent shoot at UIndy, I decided to grab the photos of the diner that you see in this post. Afterward, I did some research to see what I could learn about Joe’s operation over the four decades that it was open.

I moved to Indy’s Southside in 1983, and in those early years of driving past the diner at 3623 Shelby Street, I remember its name being Shelby Street Diner. 

At newspapers.com, I found a December 2016 obituary for Phillip Joseph “Joe” Long, 73, in which Long (obit picture is shown at right) was identified as the diner’s owner and operator for 10 years. At the time of Joe’s death, he was residing in Port Richey, Fla., and the obit identified him as a former resident of Beech Grove, Ind., an Indianapolis suburb.

And in a late 1990 feature story in The Indianapolis News, the writer said Long had purchased the diner in June of that year and that Joe's son, P.J. Jr., helped his father run the business. Betty Croasmun is identified in the story as a cook at the diner and a former owner-operator. The story said she and husband, Bill, co-owned the diner from 1984-88 and that the Croasmuns decided to sell because they had grown tired of the long, daily hours of work.

Betty went by the last name Harris when she first started working there for Bonnie Webster, whom Harris said had owned the diner for 10 years before Betty and Bill took over in the mid-1980s, according to an interview she gave Rex Redifer of The Indianapolis Star in February 1985. She also told Redifer that the eatery was closed for about a year in the transition before Croasmun and Harris decided to jump-start it again. 

The Star article also says a “local businessman,” Dale Middleton of Greenwood (an Indianapolis suburb), bought the property and spruced it up. At the site of his 2022 online obituary, family posted a memories video containing a montage of life pictures that includes a photo of a package beer and liquor store and Quasar TV that shared space in a building at 3601 Shelby Street on property immediately north of the diner. The photo below is how that property looks today. 

Bonnie Ellen Pratt Webster died in January 2018. According to her online obituary, she had worked in restaurants all her life — at RCA, the Shelby Street Diner (as owner), Dutch Oven and Ryan's Steakhouse in Indianapolis. “Bonnie was an excellent cook,” the obit said. “She enjoyed canning, and many people asked and were after her homemade fudge recipe, better than any fudge you can commercially get.”

The math in the timing of and years of ownership between what the 1985 Star article assigns to Webster and what the 1990 article in The News assigns to the Croasmuns doesn’t quite line up. It’s the later News article that states Joe Long took over in June 1990. 

But all that isn’t too important at this point, given that the eatery has been shuttered ... yet again. That’s  the bottom line.  

In several editions of The Indianapolis Star from 2011, I found a substantial-sized ad for Joe’s Shelby Street Diner in the newspaper’s weekly Dining Guide. The ad details some of the eatery’s top breakfast menu items (pancakes and biscuits and gravy were two items cited as customer favorites). But the illustration with the ad is a large photo of a cheeseburger and fries, which are cited as favorites by customers in restaurant review sites such as Yelp, Trip Advisor, Reddit, The Reflector and LoopNet. 

Said one reviewer in an online discussion board thread in which she had learned Joe’s no longer was open: “I used to go there when I was a little kid. They had awesome chicken sandwiches and vanilla Coke. Dang, childhood memories right there.”

Interestingly, the diner’s Facebook page is still active and contains some pictures of the diner’s 1950s-style decor, right down to its narrow black-and-white-square — and extremely narrow — checkered floor. It contains this promotion for the place:

Looking for an authentic diner experience? Come to Joe’s Shelby Street Diner! It’s a ’50s place! We’re  home to the one-pound burger, the hub cap tenderloin, half-pound footlong hot dog, and much more! We are open Monday thru Saturday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. We also offer daily lunch and dinner specials.

I was unable to ascertain the diner’s ownership from 2000 thereafter, or in the years before the Croasmuns, but as the photos I grabbed in my shoot in this post attest, the shuttered diner still was using the “Joe’s” name on the signs to the very end. 

Below are close up shots of the animated characters still on the outside windows:

Return to Marian Univ. … 13 years later

The landscape of Marian University in Indianapolis has changed dramatically since I was last there in November 2011. 

The lead sentence above seems like a simple declaration, but given all that I had read about the university's development in the past 13 years, and given what I saw when I made a return visit to Marian on June 27, 2024, I assure you that declaration is packed with awe and appreciation. 

And all in a profoundly good way.

In this second of two “revisits” to school campuses that I first profiled here photographically in the early 2010s (see the first, the University of Indianapolis, in Saturday’s post), let’s begin with the gorgeously designed four-level E.S. Witchger School of Engineering, illustrated in the photo leading off the post and first photo below. 

This Marian University building is named for Eugene S. Witchger, patriarch of Marian Inc., Indianapolis, a private family-owned firm that supplies parts for the medical, electronics and automotive industries. The Witchger family contributed $24 million — more than half the $45 million cost — toward construction of the engineering school, which opened in summer 2023.

The school offers degrees in biomedical, chemical, civil, computer and mechanical engineering, along with engineering physics. In a page at the school’s website, university President Daniel Elsener said Marian has an engineering school graduate program in development as well, which could begin in the very near future.

To view a full gallery of images from my 2024 shoot at Marian, follow the link in this sentence. To view a recent Photo Potpourri post reviewing photos taken during the original visit in 2011, follow the link in this sentence. The post at this latter link also contains extensive history of the university.

Above: Another view of the E.S. Witchger School of Engineering. 

Above: A bronze sculpture of St. Patrick, which stands outside the engineering school building. St. Patrick is considered the patron saint of engineers because he oversaw construction of churches and, it is said, taught the Irish to build arches of lime mortar instead of dry masonry.

Above and below: Two views of the St. Joseph Chapel attached to Caito-Wagner Residence Hall. This view faces the campus green, the heart of campus. The Chapel is one of four on campus. The others are the Bishop Chartrand Memorial Chapel, the largest, in Marian Hall; St. Francis Chapel in Oldenburg Hall; and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel in Evans Center for Health Sciences. 

Above: The Allen Whitehill Clowes Amphitheater is adjacent to the campus green. This view looks north, with the E.S. Witchger School of Engineering in the background. 

Above and first two photos below: A few views of the Franciscan Heritage Fountain in the center of the green mall on campus. 

Above and below: Mother Theresa Hackelmeier Memorial Library, named for the woman who helped establish the Oldenburg Sisters (and Sisters of St. Francis) in Oldenburg, Ind., the original home of Marian University. 

Above and first four photos below: Marian's College of Osteopathic Medicine was founded in 2010 but classes did not begin until three years later. The school shares a 140,000-square-foot building, the Michael A. Evans Center for Health Sciences, with the Alan and Sue Leighton School of Nursing. Evans, CEO of Indianapolis-based AIT Laboratories, contributed $48 million toward the facility's construction cost. 

Above and first three photos below: This garden near the Allison Mansion (Riverdale) on the north end of campus was designed by prominent Danish-American landscape architect Jens Jensen and has been partially restored.

Above and first four photos below: In 1936, the Sisters of St. Francis purchased Riverdale, the home of businessman and auto racing pioneer James A. Allison, on the north end of what would become the new location of Marian College the following year. Today it serves as a conference center and houses the the Office of school president Daniel Elsener. The former Allison estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

Above: The Paul J. Norman Center is home to the Byrum School of Business as well as campus safety and police services.  

Above and first two photos below: Marian Hall is home to administration offices and the school's College of Arts and Sciences. The south wing serves as home to Marian University Theatre (see third photo below).  

Above: Clare Hall serves as a residence hall on the upper floors. On the main floor are the Dining Commons and a variety of other university service operations.  

Above: Drew Hall, another residence hall, is between Caito-Wagner Hall/St. Joseph Chapel and University Residence Hall. 

Above: The Overlook at Riverdale Apartments, on-campus housing for graduate students on the northwest end of campus. 

Above: The Paul J. Norman Cycling Center, which is a part of St. Francis Hall. Marian University's cycling teams have long been competitive in various national competitions. The program is sanctioned by USA Cycling, the country’s governing body for cycling, and Knight cyclists compete in all five collegiate cycling disciplines: track, mountain bike, cyclocross, BMX, and road. Marian Cycling is a member of the Midwest Collegiate Cycling conference, which includes Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri. Marian University operates the Indy Cycloplex near campus. Cyclopex is a 42-acre park that includes the Major Taylor Velodrome, BMX track, cyclocross course, and mountain bike trails (including dual slalom and singletrack). While this is primarily a community park, Marian cyclists are a primary user group and have access to the facilities for training and racing. In addition, Marian Cycling has a recently-renovated indoor training studio in the pictured Paul J Norman Cycling Center. 

Above and below: The Wheeler-Stokely Mansion, which today houses Marian University’s Office of Admissions. The home was built in 1911 for automotive businessman and Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder Frank Wheeler, who named his estate Hawkeye. Wheeler ran a carburetor business, starting in 1914, out of a building known today as Wheeler Arts Center in the Fountain Square neighborhood of Indianapolis south of downtown. This mansion was purchased by William Stokely, president of Stokely-Van Camp Packing Co., in 1937, and the university acquired it in 1963.

Above: Steffen Music Center.

Above and first two photos below: Three views of Alumni Hall, a gathering place for students on the east end of the campus green and near the university’s main entrance. Alumni Hall contains a bookstore, a food court featuring Oath Pizza, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. It also contains a banquet hall and a full catering kitchen.