At long last, the most important Final Four to take place in Indianapolis in 2026 has arrived.
After more than 15,000 votes, IndyStar’s Fried Chicken Challenge is down to a four-piece meal of contenders vying for deep-fried glory. It will be a showdown of the small towns here in the Frynal Four, as Indianapolis’ two remaining competitors — No. 7 Mississippi Belle and No. 11 Papa Bears Chicken — fell in the Elite Ate.
As predicted last week, we have a clash of the titans on our hands as the tournament’s Cinderella-turned-juggernaut, No. 16-seeded Sgt. Pepper’s Chicken of Martinsville, squares off against a foundational Hoosier chicken establishment, No. 6 Kopper Kettle Inn of Morristown.
One of these breaded behemoths will take on the winner of this week’s contest between No. 4 Wilson Farm Market of Arcadia and No. 8 Putnam Inn of Greencastle.
The winner of the Wilson-Putnam Inn matchup will have an uphill battle, as Sgt. Pepper’s and Kopper Kettle have both proven nigh unstoppable so far. But the Chicken Challenge is not played on paper (unless, of course, you count the grease-stained wax paper in your takeout box).
As always, you can find the full round one results and the polls for round four below. But if you enjoy your chicken dredged in history as well as flour and egg, I have another sprinkling of Hoosier chicken lore for you.
In fried chicken history: Hoosier hospitality a family affair
For much of the last 75 years, fried chicken in central Indiana was defined by a trio of classic restaurants: Indianapolis’ Hollyhock Hill and Iron Skillet and the Kopper Kettle in Morristown. The connective tissue between this Hoosier poultry oligarchy had largely dissolved before the Skillet shuttered in 2024, but for a time in the mid-1900s the restaurants’ bond was, quite literally, as thick as blood.
Hollyhock Hill is typically considered the central Indiana fried chicken establishment, founded in 1928 by what newspaper archives suggest to be a man with some fascinating hobbies named Vincent D. Vincent and his wife, Elizabeth. The Vincents opened up their dining room to anyone with a few bucks for a family-style meal and named the restaurant for the flower-studded hillside on which it sat. The rest is (mostly) history.
Around the same time, a woman named Muriel (or Merle, depending on which reporter copied down her name at the time) Talbert was preparing to open a little restaurant of her own about 40 miles away in Morristown. Per the July 23, 1950, Indianapolis Star, Talbert in 1923 bought an 1800s building in Morristown that had served as a hotel and tavern.
Talbert had long wanted to own her own tea room, so she renovated extensively and filled the old tavern with antique furniture including a robust collection of copper kettles. The Kopper Kettle operated as a hotel and tea room for a couple of years before dropping the hotel business in 1925. Over the next few years Talbert remodeled the kitchen, and in 1931 the American Automobile Association listed the Kopper Kettle in its restaurant guide.
In 1932, Talbert married Robert Vredenburg, a traveling salesman eager to hang up his hat. But when the newlywed Mrs. Vredenburg suggested she sell the Kopper Kettle, he soundly refused.
“I’ve traveled long enough, and I’ve eaten enough bum food around in restaurants and hotels,” he purportedly said. “Let’s stay here and sell good food.”
And so they did, for decades with Muriel staying at the helm until 1972, a run of nearly 50 years. In 1959 when Vredenburg died, his Indianapolis News obituary listed a handful of surviving family members, among them his daughter from a previous partnership, Mrs. Hubert Kelso — co-owner of Hollyhock Hill.
When the Vincent family sold Hollyhock Hill in 1947, they did so to Hubert “Hugh” Kelso, an early 30-something fresh back from the war. Kelso grew up in Rushville just east of Morristown, and records suggest he had married Robert Vredenburg’s daughter by the early ’40s. Together, the Kelsos expanded Hollyhock’s operations substantially until 1992.
I don’t have any specific statistics, but I’d guess it’s fairly unlikely for any given family to include even one member whose job could be described as “fried chicken tycoon.” By the late ’50s, the Kelso-Vredenburg tribe had three: Hubert, his mother-in-law Muriel and his brother Charles, who in 1956 took over at the three-year-old Iron Skillet on the west side of Indianapolis.
When it comes to younger-sibling privilege, it’s hard to beat the leg up Charles would have had. Not only were his brother and his in-laws established names in the chicken game, but according to a 1976 Indianapolis News profile, the up-and-coming restaurateur cut his teeth as a waiter at the Kopper Kettle. What bold innovations did Charles bring to his business to set it apart from those of his relatives, you ask? Said the cunning entrepreneur in the same 1976 profile: “We fry our chicken in lard. We always have.”
Stunning. Ultimately, I am simultaneously quite charmed yet slightly concerned about one extended family controlling so much of central Indiana’s fried chicken interests for so many years. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to respect such a powerful dynasty. Mostly, I just shudder to think of the heated debates when it came to deciding which unit of the family would prepare the main meal for family gatherings. Although, who knows; maybe they just made it easy and got takeout.
See the full results from round three of the Fried Chicken Challenge
No. 16 Sgt. Pepper’s Chicken (Martinsville) defeated No. 4 Hilltop Family Restaurant (Spencer), 2,793 to 534
No. 6 Kopper Kettle Inn (Morristown) defeated No. 7 Mississippi Belle, 1,539 to 194
No. 4 Wilson Farm Market (Arcadia) defeated No. 2 Stone’s Family Restaurant (Millhousen), 737 to 330
No. 8 Putnam Inn (Greencastle) (324 votes) defeated No. 11 Papa Bears Chicken, 324 to 212
Vote in the final four of the Fried Chicken Challenge
Below you will find the two matchups for our Final — or Frynal, or Thighnal — Four. You can vote as many times as you’d like between now and noon on April 2, though as a reminder, IndyStar reserves the right to remove votes where there is reasonable suspicion of fowl play. And if you’re particularly aggrieved by a result or snub from our bracket, let me know why (nicely, if you could) at bhohulin@indystar.com. I will admit I am becoming somewhat desensitized to the taste of battered and fried poultry, but no greatness is achieved without suffering.
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: Underdog meets icon in the Chicken Challenge. Vote in Final Four now
Reporting by Bradley Hohulin, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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