Roundup: Retro arcade bar coming downtown; Love Handle relocating to Mass Ave

There's robust retail activity downtown to report in this roundup:

• 16-Bit Bar+Arcade has agreed to take 6,890 square feet in The Whit mixed-use project under construction at 307 North Pennsylvania St.—the former site of The Indianapolis Star.

The Columbus, Ohio-based arcade bar has three locations—one each in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland. Ownership did not respond to a request from Property Lines for more details on the Indianapolis outpost.

Each location boasts more than 40 old-school arcade games, including such classics as Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Space Invaders.

“With a name coined from the computer architecture that several of our 40-plus vintage arcade games were built on, 16-Bit appeals to those looking for an alternative to the monotonous,” the bar’s website says.

“Old school cocktails” on the menu are named for actors popular in the 1980s, including Kevin Bacon, Burt Reynolds and Patrick Swayze. “New wave cocktails” honor female stars such as Molly Ringwald, Janet Jackson and Cyndi Lauper.

TWG Development LLC is developing the nine-story, $70 million The Whit (formerly Park at Pulliam Square). The project will feature 334 apartment units, 3,900 square feet of office/retail space on Pennsylvania Street, and the nearly 7,000 square feet on New York Street that 16-Bit Bar is taking.

TWG expects to deliver 200 units in June 2018 and the rest the following October.  

• Breakfast and lunch spot Love Handle at 2829 E. 10th St. is moving to 877 Massachusetts Ave., in the building already occupied by Yats and Natural Born Juicers.

Owners Chris and Ally Benedyk are expanding to include dinner, as well as adding beer and wine to the menu, and hope to open in November.

Love Handle opened on East 10th Street in September 2015.

• BoxFox CEO Chris Palmer is opening a coffee-and-pingpong joint downtown. It's called SmashHQ, and it will open in November, Palmer told IBJ. It'll offer coffee, beer and wine, light food and "five or six pingpong tables."

Occupying about 3,600 square feet of space at 600 E. Ohio St., SmashHQ is in the same building as the firms BoxFox and SupplyKick. Palmer founded online retailer SupplyKick in 2012, and went on to start BoxFox, a liquidation marketplace, in 2013.

SmashHQ will be open from morning ’til night, probably "7 to 10ish," Palmer said.

• Broken English Taco Pub should open downtown by the first of November, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based restaurant said. IBJ reported on Sept. 27 that it plans to occupy the first-floor space vacated earlier this year by Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery at 141 S. Meridian St.

Now venturing outside downtown:

• The Wine Market at Fountain Square is set to open Oct. 12 in the building at 1031 Virginia Ave. that last housed Skip’s Market.

Co-owners Kris Bowers and Zachary Davis in May signed a five-year lease for the two-story, 3,100-square-foot building. Constructed about 1950, it sits along the Cultural Trail at the northwest corner of Woodlawn Avenue.

• African restaurant Madina, known for its fried plantains, has opened at 3703 Commercial Drive in the International Marketplace near Lafayette Road and West 38th Street.

• Ross Dress For Less is opening three stores in central Indiana on Oct. 7, bringing its total to six in the area. The new arrivals are at 3487 W. 86th St. on the northwest side, 10123 U.S. 36 in Avon and 1030 N. Morton St. in Franklin.

• Castleton Square Mall welcomes three new tenants—clothing boutique Akira, Glow Golf, and Christmas Town. The latter will be open through the holiday season.

• Enterprise Rent-A-Car opened Oct. 2 at 4310 E. 96th St., east of Keystone Avenue. The 2,780-square-foot facility is more than double the size of Enterprise’s previous location at 9800 Association Court.