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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWelcome back to IBJ’s video feature “Inside Dish: the Business of Running Restaurants.”
Our subject this week is Bonge's Tavern, which has managed to become a destination eatery and bastion of upscale dining
despite its out-in-the-boonies locale and laissez-faire atmosphere. Ensconced in the rural Madison County town of Perkinsville,
Bonge's attracted some 28,000 diners in 2009 and likely generated more than $1 million in gross sales. Not bad for a 68-seat
eatery in a 173-year-old former hardware store.
Chef Tony Huelster, a veteran of several Indianapolis-area fine-dining establishments, purchased the business and property
in 1999 after helping develop the free-wheeling eatery with its former owner, Don Kroger. Thanks to some high-profile press,
business boomed in the first year. "It was almost too much, too soon," said Huelster, who didn't have adequate
arrangements for parking and thus miffed the bucolic town's residents. More challenges followed, including a devastating
lightning strike in 2000 that closed the restaurant for four agonizing months and resulted in an insurance claim close to
$500,000. In the early 2000s, Huelster was forced to find a new solution for the disposal of wastewater from the restaurant,
an unexpected $200,000 expense.
In the video below, Huelster discusses the origins of the restaurant and how he handled some of these setbacks.
The restaurant's casual atmosphere, middle-of-nowhere location, and no-reservations policy (for groups fewer than 10)
have conspired to create a tradition of tailgating in the parking lot. It has become such an integral part of the Bonge's
experience that many parties know to arrive before 4:30 p.m. to secure a spot in the dining room for later in the evening,
and then ask to delay their seating when their number is called. In the video below, IBJ wades into the sea of revelers
on a recent Saturday night, and Huelster recalls some of the strangest sights.
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