Editor’s Notebook: Trojan Horse not dead, just moving up the road

Word travels in Bloomington the way it does in most places, which means sideways, and across several uncertain channels, but eventually gets settled somewhere in a bar, by an authority who has answered the same question a hundred times already.

On Friday night, that someone was Pat, who is a veteran server at The Trojan Horse on the southeast corner of Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street.

Pat confirmed what had started circulating as rumors on social media a few hours earlier: The Trojan Horse is moving in August to the former Wee Willie’s spot in Ellettsville.

Congratulations to the residents of Ellettsville. The gyros, tacos, cheeseburgers, and saganaki will be so much more convenient for them. Inside of a year, the place will probably feel like it has been there for decades.

I am glad that The Trojan Horse will be staying close enough to Bloomington that it won’t mean an expedition to get there from here. Trojan Horse’s move actually helps make the case for something that does not yet exist, namely a public bus route between downtown Bloomington and Ellettsville. Such a route would get a half dozen rides a month from my household, just to eat at The Trojan Horse.

Typically, Editor’s Notebook items are dedicated to status updates on The B Square Bulletin as a publication. This one still fits that description, because the publication was named in part after the courthouse square, and The Trojan Horse has anchored the southeast corner of the square for almost a half century, since 1978.

For the record, I am sad the Trojan Horse is leaving. It turns out I am one of the Nostalgia People, a term I learned from a barkeep at The Trojan Horse. Here’s a review I wrote exactly a month ago, to complete my bingo card for a Kirkwood Avenue promotional effort.

Trojan Horse: A review

On Thursday night (April 2) I headed over to Trojan Horse, the longtime Bloomington restaurant on Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street founded in 1978. Locals who are trying hard to be recognized as locals will call it The Troj. But those who count themselves as true foodie insiders, and I do, will call it the Tango Hotel, borrowing from the NATO phonetic alphabet.

The place is the same as I remember it from 1987, when I first pulled open the big heavy wooden door, with its thick iron chain for a door handle. With me then was Mary Morgan, as she mostly is nowadays, too. But not on Thursday.

Upstairs, Pat was working the bar area. She knows me well enough to ask a question that only a regular gets: “Are you on your own—is she gone again?” Usually that means Mary Morgan has driven down to Texas to visit her sister. This time it meant Mary was home sick. Either way, Pat knows what comes next: a double cheeseburger with bacon, which means just bread, meat, cheese, bacon. Pat recites the list of ingredients every time to confirm.

Menus in restaurants change over time. When Mary Morgan and I first started coming here in the summer of 1987—when we were young and stupid and falling in love—the Tango Hotel offered galaktoboureko for dessert. Now, I cry a little to myself every time I visit, to lament the loss of that golden, syrup-soaked Greek custard pastry—layers of crackling phyllo wrapped around soft semolina cream.

On Thursday, the cheeseburger arrived exactly as ordered, with a knife plunged straight down through the center, possibly to keep the layers under control, but also, I think, because it just looks dramatic.

It tasted exactly like a cheeseburger will always taste when it comes with a side of good memories—it tastes like love.

11 stars out of 10.