Chris Benedyk is a big believer in the power of love. And breakfast.
Together, Benedyk and his wife, Ally, have served up eclectic daytime eats at their popular restaurant, Love Handle, for more than a decade. The duo started out with a tiny counter-service operation in Milwaukee in 2013 before moving to the Indianapolis’ Near Eastside in 2015 and then relocating to the north end of Mass Ave in 2018.
And while Love Handle has changed locations and experimented with different flavors over the years, the restaurant’s commitment to early-morning coffee and smothered biscuits (and far more beef tongue than you might expect) hasn’t gone anywhere.
Breakfast, after all, should be a celebratory occasion with friends, often coming after a night of revelry, Chris said. “It’s usually like: ‘Yo, man, we’re all getting completely twisted, let’s go out to breakfast tomorrow.’ So then you have something to talk about, and it’s all the best memories in your head,” he said.
Love Handle has become a common destination for morning meet-ups, cementing the laidback yet boundary-pushing diner as one of Indy’s most distinct brunch spots and earning it a James Beard semifinalist nod for Outstanding Hospitality in 2020. The Benedyks and co-owner Dominic Senibaldi, a longtime friend who joined the business last year, attributed much of the restaurant’s longevity to their love for food and cooking, which for each owner began at an early age.
For Chris, it was the meals his mom would curate from frozen pizzas and movie theater popcorn to eat while watching a movie on VHS. Some of the Chicago native’s earliest memories center around his father and uncles towering above him in a smoke-lined house where “everyone’s eating a bunch of ham and great stuff at midnight.”
Ally grew up on the south side of Indianapolis a devout viewer of the Discovery Channel, mesmerized by stand-and-stir chefs who inspired her to bake a pineapple upside-down cake for her family when she was 10. Similarly, Senibaldi’s foray into cooking came after his parents in Washington State gave the 5-year-old a junior cookbook that he followed to mix pizza dough. Both he and Ally now harbor strong suspicions that their families weren’t completely honest in their glowing reviews; nevertheless, the kids were hooked.
Ally went on to study pastry at Sullivan University in Kentucky, while Chris and Senibaldi went to school for film and fine arts, picking up food service jobs to pay the bills. The Benedyks’ paths crossed in 2008 when Ally was a server and Chris a customer at MacNiven’s, the longtime Scottish pub on Mass Ave that closed in 2020.
At the time, Chris was preparing to move from Lafayette and looking for work. Ally pointed him toward the recently opened Goose the Market, where he became a master of meats over the next few years. Shortly thereafter, Ally decamped for a job at legendary chef Greg Hardesty’s Meridian-Kessler restaurant Recess and eventually became a pastry chef there.
In 2013 Chris and Ally, then recently married, moved to Milwaukee to open the first incarnation of Love Handle in what they saw as a promising food scene.
While both have been involved in all aspects of the business since its inception, Ally has primarily lent her baking expertise while Chris oversees the restaurant’s savory selections. The two generally follow a thesis of cooking whatever seems fun to them, be it towering pork belly sandwiches, aspic-jellied eggs or Ally’s increasingly inventive takes on classic desserts.
Two menu mainstays are the waffle with egg and meat plate and cheesy jalapeño grits with egg and meat plate, both of which I became acquainted with on a recent visit. My brunch date chose fried chicken to adorn her waffle, while I answered the low, bovine call of the beef tongue.
Love Handle’s chicken sports a crackly outer crust and a tremendously juicy interior. The waffle, which boasts roughly the dimensions of an Olympic-regulation discus, still delivers a respectable amount of fluff. The iconic Southern duo then receives a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of hot honey, rounding out the dish and nudging it squarely into the not-quite-dessert-but-maybe territory so many beloved breakfast dishes occupy.
For a heartier option, the beef tongue is hard to beat. Chris cooks the famously tender cut to a texture somewhere between a slowly braised pot roast and state fair cotton candy, packing in plenty of griddle-charred flavor along the way. As for the grits, the marriage between jalapeño and cheese remains one of the more simply beautiful combinations in all of gastronomy.
More or less anything on Love Handle’s menu pairs wonderfully with a cup of black coffee, which guests can pour themselves into a selection of mugs that are as mismatched and colorful as, well, pretty much everything else in the restaurant.
As much as Love Handle is defined by its food, its décor is just as crucial to its identity and overall appeal. Outlines of torso-less legs with pig’s tails curling out the back, an arcade cabinet and a generously rusted Coca-Cola sign adorn the diner’s pale pink walls. Senibaldi and the Benedyks source their artwork and assorted tchotchkes from the finest art curators in the state of Indiana, namely Goodwill stores and their own customers.
Much of the ambience contains traces of the owners, be it a portrait Senibaldi painted of his wife or a painting of a cat rendered in thick, bold lines by the Benedyks’ school-age daughter. On the wall opposite these curiosities, a projector screen displays a rotating selection of VHS tapes from Chris’ robust collection. At some point a contingent of customers got it in their heads that the Benedyks really liked pictures of clowns, hence the “clown corner” by the entrance.
The slowly accumulated “mishmash of stuff,” as Ally called it, is a reminder that Love Handle’s identity wasn’t contrived overnight, Senibaldi said.
“I think people feel the miles in it and feel everybody who’s involved with it (and) their little piece of their heart in the restaurant,” he said.
Chris echoed the sentiment, saying the restaurant reflects a certain unashamed imagination and strangeness that many people lose as they age.
“Maybe that’s the thing that people like about the place,” he said. “The invisible thing that’s inside of everybody that’s like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. There’s a little hole in your heart; there’s a little hole in my heart, too.’”
None of this, however, fully explains how Love Handle has managed to survive as long as it has, especially on a block that has seen a revolving door of businesses since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For that, the Benedyks credit the comparative simplicity of their operation, the size of their staff — currently just five full-time employees — and the support of longtime customers. At one point during the pandemic, Ally said one of their regulars gave them a $1,000 “tip.”
Post-pandemic, the Benedyks said it took Senibaldi’s arrival to truly shake them from the “survival mindset” that gripped so many restaurateurs during that devastating stretch. Even small things like adding booth seating, throwing on a fresh coat of paint or restructuring the dining room to feel less “walled-off” initially struck the Benedyks as somewhat daring concepts when Senibaldi suggested them.
So far, the moves have paid off. The restaurant has had one of its best years to date, with the threat of burnout kept comfortably at arm’s length, Chris said.
“We all love each other very much, and it’s dope to be able to work with each other,” he said. “We don’t mind what we’re doing as long as we’re in the same room together.”
Over the next few weeks, the owners plan to expand their operations to dinner on Fridays and Saturdays with dishes like hamburgers, wings, sandwiches and steaks spearheaded by Senibaldi. Still, the emphasis on those big, messy breakfasts where friends can unpack memories from the night before — or in some cases, not-quite-memories — isn’t going anywhere. For now at least, nearly 15 years in, Love Handle is staying the course.
“You ask yourself, ‘Is this worth it?’” Ally said. “Most of the time the answer is, ‘Yes, absolutely,’ and sometimes you question yourself. But we’re still here.”
Contact dining reporter Bradley Hohulin at bhohulin@indystar.com. You can follow him on Instagram @BradleyHohulin and stay up to date with Indy dining news by signing up for the Indylicious newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: After 10 years in Indy, Mass Ave brunch spot is still keeping it fun
Reporting by Bradley Hohulin, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
