Local Flavor
house of como
A Family Place The House of Como returns to its rightful place among local diners By Victoria Grabner • Photos by Michael Wheatley
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Photo by adena rasure
t’s so far south on Kentucky Avenue that, these days, you’re not likely to find it by accident. But that’s the allure of the House of Como. You go there on purpose with a pocket full of cash and know that you’ll most likely be surrounded by regular customers. They might be owner Martha Hage’s classmates when she was in the first grade, who walk in cracking jokes and giving hugs. It might be the chief financial officer of an Evansville business, who’s quick to laugh and just as comfortable sitting at the bar. It might be Robin Bentley, a waitress from Henderson, Ky., who’s worked at the restaurant for 15 years. And it might be a complete stranger who makes a threehour drive just to eat a plate of djage. “This is a great establishment,” the man says as he takes a break from his baked chicken with meat, white rice, and pine nut stuffing. He’s an unusual patron of the restaurant in that he declines to introduce himself, but it’s clearly not because of his feelings about his meal. He’s been to the House of Como around 25 to 30 times, mostly before he moved to St. Louis. The djage was the first dish he ever had there, and it’s just one of the restaurant’s many Lebanese dishes including kibi seneya (baked fine ground meat and wheat) and yebra malfoof (rolled
94 september | october 2013 Evansville Living
cabbage leaves with meat). Yet even with all those choices, this older gentleman always selects the djage. “I said, ‘This is it.’ You won’t go any place and find chicken with cinnamon on it.” Martha’s husband, George, a Chicago native, opened the first House of Como in 1960 at 2802 S. Kentucky Ave., about a block away from its current location. He dreamed of owning a restaurant that served his family’s Lebanese cuisine. “The expressway was just being thought about at that time,” Martha says, adding that the original House of Como was flanked by various businesses fairly nearby like the Family Drive-In Theater and the Farmer’s Daughter. That’s changed now. Most of those businesses have closed or moved due to the new geometry of the Lloyd Expressway. These days, much of S. Kentucky Avenue south of E. Riverside Drive is lined with auto stores, and the House of Como is one of the last stops before the Veterans Memorial Parkway. The restaurant moved to 2700 S. Kentucky Ave. in 1968-1969 after faulty wiring caused a fire in the bandstand area of the original location just a block away. In May 2011, a smoke fire in the kitchen caused the restaurant to close for about a year and one-half while various repairs and changes were made. Yet the décor has remained substantially the same. Strings of Christmas lights line the edge of the walls near the ceiling, and a life-sized Santa Claus stands near the bathrooms — and on the roof. “Christmas was a favorite time of year” for George, Martha says. “It was something that George knew that kids liked.”
food friendly // House of Como owner Martha Hage visits in the bar with John Gasser, left, and Alex Shain. For many who come to the House of Como, favorite dishes include the Mediterranean salad and thin Arabian bread, and the grilled T-bone steak covered with a secret blend of seasonings. At roughly $45, this one-inch (at least) steak could be a meal for two when paired with the homemade loubia, a green bean dish. Regular customers return again and again for the ambiance.