Back to School Breakfast in Butler-Tarkington

School is back, which means the 7 a.m. stretch at 56th and Illinois gets busy again. Here is what is in the case this month, what is on tap, and the two dates worth putting on the calendar.

We are at 5550 N Illinois Street. Open Monday 7 to 3, Tuesday through Friday 7 to 5, Saturday 7 to 2, closed Sunday. You can order ahead for pickup if you are working against a bell schedule.

Breakfast before the bell

The bakery case is stocked when the door unlocks at 7, not at 9. Head baker Sherry Culpepper runs that program, and the case is what she baked that morning: cinnamon sugar twists, apple fritters, danishes, muffins, and the sour cream coffee cake that has outlasted most of the restaurants that opened around us.

Coffee is from Julian Coffee Roasters, an Indianapolis roaster. If a pastry is not going to hold anyone until lunch, the breakfast menu runs all morning, and the granola parfait travels better in a car than a fritter does.

Afternoons are the quieter version of the same idea. Pick the kids up, come in, let them choose something out of the case.

Lunch, and the sandwiches worth knowing

The sandwich board is where the neighborhood shows up in the menu. The Tarkington Chicken, the Rocky Ripple Roast Beef Special, the Meridian Kessler Melt, the Butler Tarkington Delight. They are named after the streets you drove in on, which tells you roughly how long we have been doing this.

The more useful thing in August is the deli case. Chicken salad, potato salad, pasta salad, coleslaw, and pea salad are all sold by the pound. Buy a pound on the weekend, portion it during the week, and packing lunches gets shorter.

SausageFest is August 14 and 15

SausageFest is St. Thomas Aquinas's largest annual fundraiser, and it runs Friday August 14 and Saturday August 15, 5:30 p.m. to midnight both nights. Admission is free. The parish is at 4600 N Illinois Street, about a mile straight down the road from our front door.

We are a community partner this year, so our food is on the line alongside Sun King and Kincaid's. Band lineup and the rest of the details are on the parish's SausageFest page.

Sun King Lemon Shandy is on tap

Sun King's Lemon Shandy is on for a limited run. It is a light ale with lemon at 4.2 percent, which is about the ceiling for something you drink outside at two in the afternoon. Sun King is an Indianapolis brewery, same as the beer at the festival.

The tables out front are the place to drink it while the weather still cooperates. When the keg is gone it is gone; this is not a permanent tap.

The s'more cookie, and one catch

The s'more cookie is new. It is a chocolate cookie with marshmallows baked into the dough, chocolate chips through it, and a graham crumble across the top, so the marshmallow melts into the cookie instead of sitting on it.

The catch: it is in store only. It is not on the online ordering menu and it does not ship, so do not build a pickup order around it. Come in for it, or add it when you are already here.

The cookies that do ship are the iced sugar cookies at shop.isfeindy.com, which is a different product entirely.

Labor Day catering, and the 24-hour rule

Labor Day is Monday, September 7. If you are feeding people, order before the Friday before, because catering takes a 24-hour minimum and a 10-person minimum. The Saturday of a holiday weekend is not the day to find out.

Sides by the pound, sandwich and dessert trays, and cookies by the dozen all travel. The catering menu has the full list. We have also written up how we handle summer parties and office and corporate orders if you want the longer version.

The short version

Come in before 9 for the case at its best. Get the Tarkington Chicken if you have never had it. The s'more cookie is worth the trip but only in person. Order catering a day ahead, not the morning of.

Ernie and Sue Kobets opened this place in 1979 and Matthew Williford owns it now. Same corner, same scratch kitchen. 5550 N Illinois Street, 317-253-9513.