The Neely House is a new restaurant in Muncie and had it’s grand opening today.
The restaurant is inside of Thomas Neely’s old home that he built himself in 1852. It is located at 617 E. Adams St. in Muncie.
The owners removed anything that was added to the house after Neely’s death.
One of the owners, Russell Irving said, “We’ve tried to curate it to show what it might have looked like at the time of his death in 1901.”
Their specialty is ensuring that the food is coming from regional or local farmers.
The restaurant concept is farm-to-table, which is based on Thomas Neely’s diaries that he kept about the food he was growing at his time of residence in the home. The restaurant owners and employees took the time to go back and re-plant everything that Thomas Neely planted while he resided in the home, of course this information came from those same diaries.
The owners hope that The Neely House will be the finest dining in Muncie.
“You don’t enter a race to come in fifth,” said Irving when asked why fine dining was so important to them as a restaurant.
The grand opening consisted of a ribbon cutting and bell ringing. The bell in use is that of the one that Neely raised money for.
This is the large bell that hung in the bell tower of the original Muncie High School, engraved with Neely’s name as recognition for his civic contribution. That bell will be rung on the hour from 4 pm to 8 pm.
