Indy "RIB-OFF"

Do I love ribs!

Sure, at my present size that's not hard to imagine. (I wore a grey suit the other day...and an admiral wanted to board me! ) Ask anyone at The Montgomery Inn Boathouse how often that I'm there!

Yet, the Indianapolis Rib America Festival left an awful taste in my mouth. I'm sitting here writing this blog on my off day, Labor Day, because of the lousy feeling left from a quick weekend in Indianapolis. You know, getting tricked is the ultimate insult. "You fooled me annnnnnnd you took my money." Ouch! It didn't start that way.

With great promise, I made plans to stay in Indianapolis this past weekend. Everything came together nicely for a terrific family weekend. My son had a football game in Indianapolis, my 24th anniversary was this weekend and a rib festival featured The Doobie Brothers who happen to be family friends. (The Doobies still ROCK!)

Let me say, right up front, Indianapolis is a great city. Vibrant, exciting, and interesting all come to mind every time I visit. There's great dining options, comfortable places to stay and fun things to do. This is why it's hard to imagine why city leaders miss the point on the Rib America Festival.

The day started early at 5:30 in the morning! By the time my son's team won and finished at noon, we were all in a great mood and ready to chow down on some festival ribs. You can picture it. Booth after booth with award winning ribs.( In fact, the ribs were delicious.) However, it all went downhill from there.

After paying a $7 cover to get in, we went straight to booth number one excited to sample some ribs. Ooops! We were told, we need to pay with tickets. Oh, Ok, no problem. there's the ticket booth. Wait a minute! 7 tickets for 10 bucks. Hmmm! This seems expensive...little did I know.

6 bones ran from 12-14 tickets! Now, only because we were all famished and hadn't eaten since 5:30, I decided to let Rib America's avarice win! Check the math: 6 bones each for 4 people equals...$80 bucks! Hold on now, we need something to drink. "Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade" was the cheapest drink around and that cost $7 bucks a piece. Ok, now it's $80 to eat and $28 to drink. $108 dollars for lunch...at a festival! Wait a minute, let's remember it cost $7 each to get in the gates. The grand total $136 dollars for the Rib America Festival for a family of four. Would you classify this as a good value?

What seemed more disturbing was the working class, downtown families struggling with the prices. I spoke to, and overheard many, people remarking about the ridiculous costs. " Here are your million dollar ribs!", said the guy next to us!

This festival can be done better and certainly cheaper. I've been to the country's great rib festivals. The most notable is perhaps Memphis in May's Barbecue Cooking Contest where worldwide contestants actually build two or three story condos around the cooking pit and serve ribs. Ribs that are reasonably priced!

The chief question remains, "Why doesn't such a class city like Indianapolis reign in a festival like this. It's apparent from the website that this is a private production run by Festival Partners LLC. But, shouldn't the city oversee something like this so it's citizens and guests have a good time?

Even thought I'm a big believer in " CAVEAT EMPTOR ", there's still occasionally a time for for a city or larger entity to act in the best interest for all. So, please wake up Indianapolis and take a good look at what goes on downtown.