Bar Louie, a bar and eatery at the Greenwood Park Mall, permanently shut down on Dec. 31, surprising customers and employees.
Waylon O’Donnell | Daily Journal
A Greenwood bar and eatery suddenly closed at the end of 2023, leaving residents and employees wondering what happened.
Bar Louie, which was located at the Greenwood Park Mall, closed its doors on New Year’s Eve. The Greenwood location of the Texas-based chain had been in the city for about seven years.
Exterior signage for the bar has been taken down, and potential customers walking up to the door are greeted by a sign informing them of Bar Louie’s closure.
“This location is now closed,” the sign says. “We are proud to have served the Greenwood community over the years and are thankful for our loyal patrons.”
The location has also been scrubbed from the chain’s website. Searching for it on Google gives users a “permanently closed” message.
Former employees alleged on social media that they had no idea that the bar would be closing and only found out on or just after New Year’s.
Company officials said in an emailed statement that they are working alongside their franchisee to provide resources to affected employees.
“The Bar Louie team has made the difficult decision to permanently close our Greenwood location,” the company said in the statement. “We are working alongside our franchisee to provide resources to affected team members. We thank our loyal guests for their support and hope that they will visit our nearby bar in Carmel.”
The Carmel location is the nearest location to Greenwood. Bar Louie maintains two other Indiana locations in Evansville and Granger.
Customers of the bar were taken aback by the news of the closure. One said on social media they were just there on New Year’s Eve and had no idea it was closing.
Emily Ketterer, a former Daily Journal staffer and self-described “Bar Louie enthusiast,” had gone to the bar many times over the years. Over the last two years, it had become a usual hangout for her to reconnect with high school friends.
“It kind of became our hangout place because we loved the food, we loved the martinis, we liked going out on nights when they were $6, which is basically almost half-price,” Ketterer said. “So it became a place for us to get together regularly amidst our busy lives and sit and talk.”
When she learned of Bar Louie’s closure, she couldn’t believe it and was “devastated.” She and her friends had just been there three days before New Year’s Eve, and neither they, nor the employees, seemed to expect a closure, Ketterer said.
“Our waiter even told us, ‘See you again.’ … He told us, ‘See you soon.’ I guess not,” she said. “So that’s clear — he had no idea. Nobody had any idea.”
The atmosphere at Bar Louie did become “weird” in December, Ketterer said. Whenever she and her friends would go, the bar always would be out of ingredients for popular drinks on the menu, she said.
In hindsight, this seems like an indicator that the bar was on its way out, Ketterer said.
Bar Louie also appeared to be busier than usual in December, with a waiter telling her that he made $500 in tips on one night alone, she said.
The closure has been on Ketterer’s mind throughout the week. Although there is a Bar Louie location in Carmel, she doesn’t plan on going to it as it is out of the way, she said.
She is also wondering what will replace her and her friends’ usual hangout. They still haven’t agreed on a new location, she said.
“It was the perfect location and we’d liked it so much,” Ketterer said. “Now we can’t agree on any place.”
In a call out for information on the closure to social media followers on the Daily Journal’s Facebook, other Bar Louie patrons expressed similar sentiments.
They said they will miss the burgers, drinks and flatbreads and the fact they rarely had to wait for a table.
Others on social media also said it seemed like the bar was on a decline in recent visits. They noted the bar was often out of alcohol and service had grown worse than what they were used to getting at the bar.
