Iozzo’s was originally opened in 1930 as Naples Grill by Fred Iozzo, an Italian Immigrant who built a grocery chain of 21 stores which shut down due to the Great Depression. It was Indianapolis’ first full-service Italian restaurant, and it quickly became very popular. After a few years Fred moved the restaurant to the corner of Illinois and Washington where he ran the restaurant with his sons Vincent and Dominic and then named it Iozzo’s Garden of Italy. The restaurant became one of the largest in the entire Midwest. It featured three bars, a banquet room, two kitchens and a bandstand. It could serve 850 customers at a time. The restaurant went out of business due to an unfortunate “accident” in 1941. The downfall of the original restaurant began with a drunken sailor hitting on one of the Iozzo daughters. When Dominic intervened, the sailor pulled a knife and went after him. After Fred noticed what was happening, he pulled out is gun, and shot the sailor. As you can imagine, an Italian immigrant killing a sailor just shortly before the United States going to war with Italy did not prove to be very popular with the Indianapolis community and the original Iozzo’s went out of business quickly. Fred spent about 18 months in prison as the warden’s personal chef. He died shortly after getting out in 1944.

The Restaurant at 946 South Meridian was opened in July of 2009 by Greg Harris and his fiancé Katie Cummings. Katie is the Granddaughter of Dominic Iozzo. Using inspirations and recipes from the original Iozzo’s restaurant, they plan on turning it once again into the premier Italian Restaurant in the Midwest.