The Hoppy Gnome Brings new Dining Trends and Choices to Downtown Fort Wayne

203 E. Berry Street, Fort Wayne. Locals would recognize this as a downtown address. Downtown is changing, though - there are condominiums, and parking in this high-rise building, and what else? Now, there's The Hoppy Gnome. Trendy food is not traditionally Fort Wayne. The old institutions in town - family owned Casaburos restaurants (Casa D'Angelo and others), Bourounis family (Cosmos), Hall's family restaurants, the Oyster Bar, etc., and others have consistently good (often excellent) food.

The owners of Baker Street Steakhouse seem to understand that folks are sometimes looking for new options and experiences. Generation X'ers and more significantly, Millenials, are looking for new dining and taste choices. Smaller plates, tasting menus, tapas-style dining, and sampling of beers and appetizers are all ways to try new things. The foods themselves are often fresher (more farm-to-table) and more globally styled. So Baker Street has branched out and created this - The Hoppy Gnome.

The Hoppy Gnome claims to specialize in tacos, but these are not the traditional Mexican variety. One can order choices including duck confit, Korean short rib, and ahi tuna. The menu rotates regularly. A guest may choose from flour or corn tortillas, and the tacos are served in beautiful stainless steel V-shaped tool trays.

The restaurant also serves some wonderful small plates, including kimchi chicken fingers, pan-seared scallops, steamed clams, short ribs, and tuna tartare. There are also vegan and gluten-free selections, and a great kids' menu. Soups full of vegetables and unique salads round out the menu.

The Hoppy Gnome is much more of a beer place than a wine bar. So I'll talk more about the beers - there are dark stouts, Belgian beers, ciders and IPAs. If you like good ol' American, have a blast from the past and order an Old Style lager made by Pabst. Want a pale ale with a sexy label? Order the Six Foot Blonde from Nashville, IN. Hey, I should go get a Honey Badger, brewed in Granger, IN, since I like the animal so much. You can get small servings of five different beers or so brought to you on a tray holding small glasses if you want to sample and choose for next time.

The decor looks fresh, modern and new. I like the polished stainless steel tables, and the large windows make for outstanding views. I was treated to an amazing, full-length panorama of the wonderful, historic Allen County courthouse and the skyscraper behind when I was recently there. If you're looking for something new to visit when you're out in downtown Fort Wayne, give The Hoppy Gnome a try if you want to push your taste buds and have a new adventure.

Fort Wayne's Civic Theatre, holding court for 90 years, gives performances at the city's Arts United Center

There's quite a history to Fort Wayne's Civic Theatre. For over 90 years, it's been the home for local, volunteer talent to perform. Singers, dancers and actors have a showcase for their takes on Broadway musicals and plays, performing for community audiences. In 1927, Fort Wayne established a Community Theatre Guild. By 1931, it was called the "Old Fort Players" and was housed at the Majestic Theatre, 220 E. Berry Street. It must have been quite grand - a website describes a Ben Hur production with live horses in a chariot race on a treadmill.

In 1940, the name changed to the Civic Theatre and the organization became tax-exempt. It's remained so to this day, and the Civic has performed in the same location since 1973. What was then called the Performing Arts Center is now Arts United Center, renamed in 2004. Some of the productions I have seen over the years have seemed a bit amateurish, and that's to be expected - these are volunteers, not professionals. Recently though, the Civic pulled off a very professional production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with local casting.

If you're not familiar with Rocky Horror, here's a bit of the story: two sweethearts are stuck in a storm, and they come upon an eerie mansion. There they meet unusual characters and break into song and dance. When they are introduced to a Frankenstein-like character, Rocky, lots of shenanigans ensue. The film digs into our moral codes, and also parodies many science fiction and B-horror movies of the 1930s-70s.

I fondly remember the Rocky Horror film from the 1970s. The movie featured stars including Susan Sarandon and singer Meat Loaf, among others. I just read that the writer of the whole show and who created this musical for theatre in Britain's West End, a man named Richard O'Brien, also portrayed the character Riff Raff on the big screen.

The show has always been famous for visitor participation, which helped spur a nearly cult-like following at midnight movie showings. Toilet paper, newspapers, water guns, flashlights, party hats, playing cards and other props all have their place in the story. At the old midnight showings of the film, audiences brought these things with them and some of the stuff would fly through the air.

The show is just fun. The music is catchy and and makes one want to sing along. It explores societal assumptions about sexuality and other cultural norms, blithely moving right on past these in its alternate reality. How can I describe it? The Civic's website called the work "kitschy rock 'n' roll," "sci-fi gothic," etc. It brings in lots of themes. O'Brien managed to tweak in and play off our ideas about language, authority figures, and notions about gender without seeming to get serious at all. Touché, Mr. O'Brien, and praise be to our local Civic Theatre and Arts United Center; and especially to the cast and crew of this production of the wonderful Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Brookside Mansion, formerly known as Bass Mansion, is a Fort Wayne gem

Fort Wayne is full of history and landmarks. While there are many fantastic modern structures, I think it's important to stay in touch with history, our heritage and older local structures. One favorite of mine is the mansion constructed with hand carved sandstone by industrialist John Henry Bass in 1902. It was his family's private residence until 1944, when it was purchased by an order of nuns for their college.

Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration bought the home and 65 acres, then relocated their college to the spot. On 1889, John Bass employed architects Wing and Martin to build a Romanesque summer home. A gas fire explosion burned and destroyed most of the home in 1902, but the place was rebuilt in 1903. Stone, steel and concrete have enabled the home to remain much the same to this day, after some restoration in 2009-2010.

The mansion now serves as administrative offices most of the calendar year. But every December, the home is opened for the public for five days or so, four hours at a time.

Professional decorators compete by dressing up the home for the Christmas holidays. Eighteen trees were trimmed with ornaments and tinsel in 2016, and strategically placed in rooms around the house. Winding staircases allow for tours on all three floors. Antiques, ancient tapestries, expensive sculptures and paintings, and stunning granite firplaces charm and entrance visitors.

The old home is topped with a starlit ballroom on the third floor, windows giving sweeping views of the heavens. This mansion, located at 2701 Spring Street, has been wonderfully maintained and promises delightful surprises around every corner. I was particularly stunned by the numerous large murals in many of the rooms.

Fort Wayne certainly has some fascinating history. This particular house jewel nestles discreetly on the edge of a well respected institution of higher learning. I hope future generations will continue to value and invest in it, and work to continue to preserve it.

Transform photos from your phone into printed books with Groovebook

Sometimes, a person wants a few prints, whether to send to one's mom, put on a bulletin board, or use in a project for school. Living in this digital age, many of us take lots of photos; alas, the pics often stay on our smart phones. Are you old enough to remember exposing film in a camera, then rewinding the roll and taking it to the shop or drug store to be developed?  Ah, the good old days.  Polaroids, cardboard disposable cameras - but I digress. I've been using an application called Groovebook to order monthly photo books of my prints, delivered to my home.

I simply log into the app and choose photos to upload every month.  The company prints the photos, up to 100 a month, and binds them in a small, 3" X 5" bound booklet with tear-out pages.  If you upload less than 100 photos per month - you can just send them a few at a time - Groovebook will make duplicate copies of your choices for a total of 100 copies per book.

The prints are not the greatest quality - that is my biggest problem with the app.  But every month I am mailed a new book, and the pages are perforated so they can be torn out and used elsewhere. You can also reorder or gift copies of books you like.  I pay only $2.99 a month for my subscription, and because I defaulted to the standard shipping (14-21 days to wait) my shipping is free.  You can get your books faster if you pay a little more to upgrade.  

The site also offers other gifts such as magnets, ($5 each), mouse pads, playing cards, and notepads, but I haven't tried any of those yet.  You need to find a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 100 photos a month, but you can go back in your photo archives each time and pull up old ones if you don't have enough recent ones.  

I've liked using Groovebook - I've mailed parts of books to family and friends, and have kept most for myself.  Colorful covers change every month.  This app does not replace the local CVS or Walgreens, Tiny Prints or Shutterfly for me, all of which I sometimes use for my photo products.  I'll probably decide to end the subscription at some point. But, for now, I'm glad to have a handy way to not have all my photos stuck just on my computer, phone, drive or cloud.