Daddy, Kona & Apres Jack's

Kona Jack’s Restaurant, Fish Market & Sushi Bar

Kona Jack’s Restaurant, Fish Market and Sushi Bar, named Best Seafood Restaurant for ten years running by Indianapolis Monthly, and Best Seafood Restaurant by Nuvo Newsweekly, boasts the widest array of fresh and salt-water fish, shellfish, clams, oysters, and sushi in the Midwest. Enjoy dinner, cocktails, and fine wine in casual comfort, surrounded by the beauty of salt-water aquariums, or let the experts in our Fish Market help you select impeccably fresh seafood to prepare at home. Kona Jack’s Fish Market & Sushi Bar is right next to Daddy Jack’s at 96th and Meridian. Reservations are recommended but not required.On a mountain road overlooking the Kona coast stands a fish market named Stan’s.  For over a decade, Daddy Jack drove his Jeep up the rugged trail to meet the fishermen bringing in their afternoon catch.

The big haole would open a Primo, listen to the stories of the day at sea, banter with Stan in his own version of Pidgin English, and fill the shop with his ebullient sense of wonder and joy at being a Hoosier on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Stan would be about his work, arranging the rainbow of fresh fish taken that day from the warm Kona waters:  ahi, mahi-mahi, ono, pink and red snapper, fresh-water prawns.  He’d place the fish carefully on a snowy bed of ice, taking them up one at a time to prepare them for his customers.

Daddy Jack watched with pleasure, considering the gleaming display before him and designing the perfect meal for his friends and family back at the beach house.  Perhaps it would be grilled mahi mahi for his growing sons, sautéed prawns for the girls, blackened snapper for the weekend guests, or maybe baked ahi and candlelight for his wife.

One day, Daddy Jack stayed later than usual and watched Stan at his art, slicing and teasing the fillets from their delicate bones, handling each piece as it were a rare Oriental sculpture.  Beyond Stan, through an open-air window, Daddy Jack could see the sun setting over Kealakekua Bay, fiery orange melting into ocean blue.

Stan looked up and followed Daddy Jack’s gaze.  “Watch for green flash,” Stan whispered.  “Green flash like night’s first star.  Make wish and it will come true.”

Daddy Jack had heard this Hawaiian legend:  Watch the sunset very closely under perfect conditions, and at the very moment between sunset and twilight, you may see a brilliant green flash – perhaps once or twice in a lifetime of watching.

That very evening Daddy Jack saw his green flash.  The little shop was flushed with the brilliant light.  Daddy Jack raised his large square fists in the air and echoed the traditional cry of Hawaiian fishermen:  “Hana hou!  Let’s do it again!”

Daddy Jack’s wish has come true – to serve and revel and feast with friends and family again and again and again, and someday to bring to his friends in Indianapolis a place just like Stan’s.  Fresh fish at fishermen’s prices; a relaxed, healthy atmosphere; a hint of the tropics on Indy’s north side – that’s Kona Jack’s Restaurant & Sushi Bar.  We hope that you will enjoy his dream.

Hana hou!  Let’s do it again!