Indigo restaurant lands in Minden Village

Walls painted the color of plums, purple lamp shades hanging over the bar, all make the interior of Indigo Restaurant & Bar in Minden Village seem, well, indigo. But besides a vivid color scheme, the newly-opened restaurant offers eclectic food and wildly-concoted drinks.

"This is the kind of place Lori always wanted to open," said the restaurant's manager Randy Meyer, referring to the restaurant's majority owner Lori Baxter.

The restaurant is a close-knit operation. Meyer's wife, Carolyn Owens-Meyer, works as a server. Her mother and Randy's mother-in-law, Judy Dreyer, works as a hostess and has been friends with owner, Lori Baxter, for years. Baxter herself, who also owns Wasabi Sushi in the same building complex, has two sons and one daughter that work at Indigo.

"There's no place like this in the Valley," said Meyer.

He said the restaurant offers a variety of small-plate dishes, which customers typically share. He said during brunch hours, the most popular dishes are filet mignon eggs Benedict, crab cake eggs Benedict, and strawberry and blueberry crepes. For lunch and dinner, favorites are shrimp tacos, crispy pulled pork and the shrimp and crab Louis salad.

"Customers are always impressed we use real crab," said Meyers. "My favorite dish is a chef special: crab-stuffed salmon poached in a chardonnay bath."

Meyers said the small-plate concept came from the Spanish word "tapas," meaning appetizers, and lets people eat a variety of things in one meal.

"Everything from Kosher dogs to filet mignon," he said.

It also gives people the opportunity to mingle and enjoy the live music the restaurant hosts Friday and Saturday nights, not to mention drinks from the bar.

"We have all sorts of custom drinks," said Meyers.

Meyer invented one of the most popular drinks, the Feeling Randy.

"It's very sweet. The ladies love it," he said.

Other popular specialty drinks include the Centerfold, another sweet and fruity concoction, and the Fat Elvis, a shot of gin set in a pint of Fat Tire amber ale with lime garnish.

Indigo Restaurant & Bar is located at 1665 Lucerne Street and is open Wednesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to midnight, and Sunday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. For more information, call 782-4300.