EVANSVILLE, Ind. — When I first moved to The University of Southern Indiana in 1991, a friend who knew I liked worldly cuisine took me to The House of Como for Arabian food.
I’ll never forget driving to the nether reaches of South Kentucky Avenue, seeing nothing that looked remotely like a steakhouse and Arabian restaurant… then pulling into the pitted rock lot of a tiny building garnished with tattered Christmas ornaments. I blinked as we walked to the door past all the Cadillacs and BMW's. Finally we entered through the narrow bar covered with race horse memorabilia, and I was served the first Arabian salad and flat bread I’d ever eaten along with cinnamon-scented chicken Djage, which for an embarrassing number of years I thought it was actually called “Chicken George.”
As college students, we couldn’t afford to eat at The House of Como often, but I went back when I could, enjoying eggplant casserole, cabbage rolls, Djage and always the wonderful salad and bread.
Three decades and one large fire later, I still make it over to Como a couple times a year and everything is exactly like it was the first time, but with nicer bathrooms.
Recently, I received a note from Steve Alley, who has run the front room at the House of Como for over 25 years, reminding me that the restaurant is celebrating its 60th anniversary this month.
It was on July 17, 1960, that George Hage opened The original House of Como just down the street from the current restaurant. At that time, Kentucky Avenue was a busy thoroughfare with many restaurants and businesses — including the original Roca Bar.
Hage was a Chicago man, born of Lebanese immigrant parents in 1919. He served in World War II and spent six months in a Nazi prison camp before coming to Evansville in 1953. Upon arrival, he leased the Roca Bar and started selling new-fangled pizza pies.
“He was selling pizzas in Evansville when nobody here knew what a pizza was,” said Alley. “He made the first one in town.”
Eventually, Hage wanted a different kind of restaurant, a steakhouse that offered some of the favorite Lebanese dishes he’d grown up with, so he bought the old Brown Derby restaurant building and The House of Como was born. A fire destroyed that building in 1969, and he moved to the current building.
“There are a few stories as to why there are Christmas ornaments up all year,” said Alley, “but my favorite is that when George was in the Nazi camp he said, ‘when I get out of here, it will be Christmas all the time.’ It might be something else, but let’s not let anything interfere with a good story.”
All maintain that it was George’s character that turned the tiny spot into a local icon — how he was at the restaurant and bar every day, greeting old friends, making new friends, seeing that the food was just how he liked it.
“I think it was my husband that made people keep coming in,” confirmed George’s wife Martha Hage. “He was the one that was down here a lot. When he passed away (in 2004) my daughter and I decided to take it over instead of closing it or selling. We’re gonna keep hanging in there.”
And hang in there they have. In May of 2011, a fire shut the restaurant down for over a year. The interior was almost completely rebuilt with careful attention paid to making it just like it was, except for improvements to bring it up to code with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This spring, the dining room shut down due to COVID-19, but carry-out business continued briskly while Alley put up new Christmas lights around the ceiling and some of the decorations got a buff-up.
At 81 years old, a masked Martha still mans a greeting station four days a week, ensconced at her personal table between the bar and dining room, accepting and returning the enthusiastic hellos of almost everyone that comes in.
“Not changing a bit doesn’t hurt,” Alley said. “People like consistency. If a place has been there for forty or fifty years, they must be doing something right.”
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As always, the steaks at Como are prime, the t-bone so enormous it fills the plate. The pork chops come two-to a plate, cut about two inches thick. You may choose seafood or a rack of lamb. Favorite Arabian dishes also include Kibi Seneya, which is finely ground beef baked and served with rice, and Kibi Nea, which is made with raw minced beef, bulgur wheat, onion, butter, herbs and spices, served with onion petals for scooping.
“We sell raw and cooked kibi, but 90% of what we sell is the raw,” Alley said.
There is also an Italian menu section with pasta and lasagna made with the house-ground pork sausage.
George and Martha’s daughter Libby Hage now manages the restaurant and plans to continue to do so for decades to come.
The most important thing to her?
“I’m going to keep everything exactly the same,” she said.
If you go
The House of Como is at 2700 S. Kentucky Ave.
Phone: 812-422-0572
No credit cards accepted. Cash or check only.
Hours:
Tuesday – Thursday 5-8:30 p.m.
Friday – Saturday 5-9 p.m.
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Evansville's iconic House of Como going strong after 60 years and 'not changing a bit' - Courier & Press
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