Although I never lived in Indianapolis or anywhere in Indiana, Al Green's holds special memories for my wife and me. We were actively involved in a car club from the Chicago area, and showed our car at the Car Craft Magazine Street Machine Nationals car shows that were held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on 38th Street every June from 1977 to 1981. A good friend of ours, who also belonged to the club and participated in these shows, had grown up in Indianapolis in the 1950's and was very familiar with Al Green's. He inspired our whole car club to make the 'pilgrimage' to Al's on evenings while the Street Machine Nationals were going on. Our club would bring 10 to 20 cars to Al's on these evenings. In 1981, I spent the evening of my 30th birthday dining at Al's with a group of fellow car nuts, complete with a birthday cake that someone managed to bring down all the way from northern Illinois. Al and Belle each received a piece of the cake.

Reading the anecdotes and recollections on this site has brought back memories of those weekends in the late 70's and early 80's. Belle was indeed quite the vivacious personality, and would remember our names from year to year - even though we were only there one weekend per year! Their motto "Same Day Service" was funny, but true ... you didn't order food there if you were in a hurry. We can remember some of the locals would come in, place their food order, and tell Belle that they were going shopping and would return in an hour or two. Sometimes their food would be ready when they returned, sometimes not. We met many of the regular patrons who told us stories of the “glory days.” The place was obviously declining. For example my wife had occasion to use the restroom and remembers being directed downstairs to a facility with only one stall (obviously the men’s room as shown on the recreated floor plans on this site). 

By the time you got your food you were usually so hungry that you could have eaten an old shoe, but the food was always good, definitely freshly prepared and massive in quantity. French fries or breaded mushrooms came in only one size: "one pound." By this time, they were no longer pressing and breading their own pork tenderloins, but instead offering THREE commercially purchased patties served on TWO standard issue hamburger buns, plus all the trimmings. You did not leave hungry!

Thanks to all those responsible for this website. These are some great memories.

Bill Pritchard

- Former member of the Golden Mile Street Machines club from Joliet & Aurora, Illinois

Note: See the the full set of photos in the Gallery .

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The wives of some of the Car Club members (including mine) striking a pose. They had fashioned some crude aprons to wear that evening, the night of my 30th birthday, and actually delivered food to people out in the parking lot, as carhops. We all got a kick out of that (including Al and Belle), as it was quite possibly the last semblance of any car hop service at Al Green's. Needless to say, with the notoriously slow service, the girls were not overworked!