Hot fudge and history
Indiana town adds faithfully restored ice cream parlor to other architectural gems
COLUMBUS, Ind. -- In this small southern Indiana town famous for modern architecture, the newest attraction is actually quite old.
The historic Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor and Museum is scheduled to reopen Saturday with a big bash that tops off two years of meticulous multimillion-dollar renovations. Tourism officials predict as many as 5,000 people will turn out this weekend for parlor tours, a brass band concert and other festivities aimed at welcoming back an old favorite.
(Lori Rackl/Sun-Times)
ZAHARAKOS ICE CREAM: 329 Washington, Columbus, Ind. Grand reopening is Saturday, with a brass band concert at 10 a.m., tours led by guides in period dress from noon to 7 p.m. and a free showing of a short film about the restoration project at nearby Yes Cinema. Zaharakos will be open seven days a week; (812) 378-1900, zaharakos.com.
ARCHITECTURE: The Columbus Visitors Center, 506 Fifth St., runs bus tours of the town's architectural highlights at 10 a.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, March through November. Tours last two hours and cost $10 a person. A new option this year is to buy a self-guided cell phone tour kit for $10 from the visitors center. You get a map and a pack of cards detailing notable architecture and public art. As you walk or drive from site to site, you call a number on your cell phone to get more information about that location; (800) 468-6564, columbus.in.us.
DON'T MISS: The laid-back Columbus Bar, 322 Fourth St., serves a tasty breaded pork tenderloin sandwich ($6.50) and fried pickles you can wash down with one of its many microbrews; (812) 375-8800.
GETTING THERE: Columbus is 43 miles southeast of Indianapolis, or 220 miles from Chicago. The drive, mostly on Interstate 65, takes about 4½ hours.
STAYING THERE: The new Hotel Indigo, with its convenient downtown location at 400 Brown, has 85 hip, modern rooms, along with a bar, restaurant, indoor pool and fitness facility. Nice touches include free Wi-Fi in the rooms and funky Indigo touches like staff-written haikus scattered around the property and a fluffy white dog who hangs out in the cheerful lobby. Rates for a standard room generally average about $149 a night. Check the Web for deals, especially on weekends, when rates sometimes dip as low as $109; (812) 375-9100, ichotelsgroup.com.
Hotel IndigoOpened as a sweet shop in 1900 by a trio of Greek brothers, Zaharakos became an instant classic in Columbus. Over time, the beloved ice cream institution fell into disrepair. When the third-generation owner died in 2006, it looked like his shop was headed for the same fate.
That's when a local businessman -- whose ice-cream background consists of a Dairy Queen job when he was 14 -- decided to step in.
"It's been an amazing adventure," said Zaharakos' owner, Anthony Moravec, president of a Columbus-based pharmaceutical company. He'll soon be offering a different kind of over-the-counter product: homemade ice cream, sundaes and old-fashioned sodas made from machines used at the 1904 World's Fair.
This grandfather has spent much of the last two years traveling around the country, visiting museums and auctions in search of authentic artifacts and picking up tips from some notable ice cream shops like Chicago's own Margie's Candies. That's where he learned this valuable lesson: Serve your hot fudge on the side to avoid a melty mess.
"There's nothing like this in the country today," Moravec said about Zaharakos, where the original maple floors from the 1890s are the stage for a slew of antiques. The shop's 1908 Welte orchestrion, a self-playing organ that sounds like an orchestra, is all tuned up and ready to roll. The 50-foot-long double backbar of mahogany, marble and mirrors looks good as new, even though it's nearly a century old.
"Lots of places have gone back to the '50s," he said, "but you're not going to find anybody who's gone back to the turn of the century to this extent."
Moravec's bid to save Zaharakos from the wrecking ball is the latest example of a local businessman making his mark on Columbus.
The town looks the way it does today largely thanks to the late J. Irwin Miller, former CEO of Columbus' biggest employer, the Cummins Engine Co.
Miller, a modern architecture fan, persuaded Eliel Saarinen in 1942 to design one of the country's first contemporary houses of worship for Columbus. The resulting buff brick and limestone First Christian Church whet the town's appetite for more.
Miller went on to enter a pact of sorts with the community: Cummins would foot the bill for the design fees for new schools and other public buildings if the town would pick from a short list of favored architects.
Banks and private businesses followed suit and before long, big-name architects were clamoring for contracts in this small town.
Columbus now boasts more than 70 buildings and public art works by internationally noted architects and artists, including a Henry Moore sculpture and a whimsical glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly.
I.M. Pei, whose illustrious portfolio includes the Louvre's glass pyramid and most recently, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, designed the town's library in 1969.
Edward Charles Bassett and Myron Goldsmith of Chicago's Skidmore, Owings & Merrill created Columbus' city hall and the glass and aluminum offices of the Republic newspaper, respectively.
Irwin Union Bank, one of the first banks made of glass, came from Eero Saarinen (Eliel's son), who also designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
These are some of the reasons the American Institute of Architecture ranks Columbus No. 6 in a Top 10 list of U.S. cities for architecture design, behind Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C. Not bad for a town of 40,000 people.
Back in the '40s, Zaharakos is where Miller used to talk about modern design with the likes of Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames over ice cream. This also happens to be where a pretty little soda jerk caught Miller's eye.
"He met his wife here in Zaharakos," Moravec said. "She served him his first banana split."