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38th Street Tee Pee (can't find a photo of Madison Ave)

Tee Pee

After World War II, the drive-in restaurant craze really caught on among high school students.  It became a destination, a place teenagers could go with their friends after school and on weekends.  The original Tee Pee was especially popular with Shortridge, Broad Ripple, Arlington, Tudor Hall, Park, Cathedral, and St. Agnes students.   It was the place to “see and be seen.”

The Tee Pee was the brainchild of Albert Ray McComb (1892-1964), a Terre Haute native who moved to Indianapolis when he was in his late Thirties.  According to some sources, the first Tee Pee Restaurant opened in 1928 (some say 1932) at 3820 Fall Creek Boulevard.

The Tee Pee was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week.  The restaurant prided itself on using only choice meats, as well as fresh vegetables and fresh fruit.  Besides its well-known “Big Chief” and “Big Teep” hamburgers, the Tee Pee’s seafood, special salad dressing, and freshly baked pies were legendary.

After the success of the first Tee Pee on the north side of Indianapolis, McComb sought a location for a second Tee Pee on the south side of town.  In 1954, he opened another Tee Pee at 2830 Madison Avenue.  It was a mile south of Emmerich Manual High School and a couple of miles north of Southport High School.

In 1978, the widowed Dorothy McComb sold the Madison Avenue Tee Pee to McDonald’s. Within days, the Tee Pee was demolished, and within weeks, a golden arch beckoned its first customers.

(from HistoricIndianapolis.com)
 

After school, we would sometimes go to Morgan's Restaurant, on Madison Avenue, for a coke and to talk about what happened that day and what was planned for the week-end.   If we had any extra change, we'd share french fries.  Morgan's had good cokes  - especially the vanilla coke with cream.

Loved those Tee Pee salads.  There is a restaurant on Madison, north of Manual, that serves a "copy cat" salad that is similar to the Tee Pee salad.  The only way I eat beets.

Submitted by Charlie Overton.