Simeri's Old Town Tap — and Dorbin's after it

1980 — 26 April 2024; Dorbin's Old Town Tap 2024 —

Forty-four years: Simeri's Old Town Tap, at 1505 West Indiana Avenue on the west side, dated itself "a neighborhood tradition since 1980," and WNDU's account of its last day gives the family frame: founded by the mother of the family in the 1980s, run in its later years by a brother-and-sister team — Tony Simeri, its longtime owner-operator in Notre Dame Magazine's phrase, among them — and sold after forty-four years. The bar's documented public life is the neighborhood tavern's: homemade food, live bands on the patio on summer Fridays and Saturdays, and a standing Friday-lunch crowd the Cathedral of St. James's newsletter called the "James Gang," whose fourteen years of Friday lunches at Simeri's the parish marked when the end came. The trade's friction is documented too: in 2001 the Tribune covered a neighbor's loud-music complaints against the bar's beer garden, handled through the city's Neighborhood Task Force — the ordinary licensing-era sequel to the Five Points wars, fought with a task force instead of an ordinance.

The last day and the succession: Simeri's celebrated its last day on 26 April 2024 — the Cathedral's last Friday lunch fell the same day — and the business reopened under new ownership as Dorbin's Old Town Tap, the name changed, the room and its trade continuing at the same address. Tony Simeri himself came out of retirement across the neighborhood, as the bar manager of the revived Joe's Tavern — the west side's two tavern stories of this decade, the closing and the resurrection, sharing one bartender.

Sources:

1. WNDU, "Simeri's Old Town Tap moving to new ownership," 26 April 2024 — the last day; forty-four years; the mother who started it in the 1980s; the brother-and-sister team; the sale and the reopening as Dorbin's Old Town Tap. Simeri's Old Town Tap, house site — "a neighborhood tradition since 1980," 1505 West Indiana Avenue, the patio bands; the Cathedral of St. James's eConnections newsletters, April 2024 — the James Gang's fourteen years of Friday lunches and the last lunch of 26 April 2024.
2. South Bend Tribune, 2001 (indexed) — the beer-garden loud-music dispute and the Neighborhood Task Force; Notre Dame Magazine, "Another Round at Joe's" (2026), and the Tribune, 20 March 2026 — Tony Simeri, longtime owner-operator of Simeri's, as Joe's Tavern's bar manager after its reopening.