Stepping into Larrison’s Diner is like stepping back in time.
Nostalgia lines the walls with memorabilia from the 1940s when it began as Hart’s Sandwich Shop through the 1990s when posters, paintings and photographs of Seymour favorite son John Mellencamp added to the atmosphere.
The downtown Seymour restaurant has been operated since 1974 by two generations of Larrisons, starting with Ed and his wife, Jan, who ran it through their 1996 retirement. That’s when their children, Liz and Kevin, stepped in.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryContinuity and consistency — evident in the American breakfast and lunch offerings and top-notch service — keep customers like Gregg Ashcraft coming in.
“Larrison’s is like family,” said Ashcraft, 67, of Seymour. He has been eating at the corner of Chestnut and Tipton streets along Seymour’s main drag since he was about 10 years old.
Although the St. Ambrose Catholic School student typically brought a sack lunch to school in the early 1960s, his mother occasionally would ask if he’d like a warm hamburger instead. She would then hand him two quarters to cover the cost of a restaurant lunch. It was enough for a burger, half order of french fries and a Coke with 10 cents back in change that was typically spent on peanut butter cups.
Not much changed when the Larrisons bought Hart’s Sandwich Shop a decade later, which Ashcraft finds comforting. He will stop in as often as five times a week, ordering French toast, pancakes or an omelet for breakfast or a double cheeseburger for lunch.
“They’re really hustling in there,” Ashcraft said. “They do a great job.”
His wife, Nancy, and son, Clint, have their own menu favorites. Clint likes the breaded tenderloins, which measure 9 inches long and 5 inches wide, served on a sandwich bun. On Thursdays, he orders the daily lunch special, country fried chicken with mashed potatoes, white gravy and green beans. Nancy likes the 5-ounce Big E hamburger, cooked medium, especially for her.
Both she and Gregg order their burgers without grilled onions, which are standard unless you request sandwiches to be plain. But plenty of other customers clamor for the grilled onions, which have an aroma that pours out of the kitchen vents facing Tipton Street.
It has caused more than one traveler waiting at the stoplight to turn onto Chestnut Street instead of continuing east toward Interstate 65, just to satisfy their curiosity and taste what they were smelling.
The restaurant gained fame through its connection with rocker Mellencamp, the Seymour native who frequented Larrison’s in his younger days. A six-page chapter of a 1993 book “Highway 50: Ain’t That America,” a title borrowed from lyrics in Mellencamp’s song “Pink Houses,” is devoted to Larrison’s Diner.
Author Jim Lilliefors recounts his travels along U.S. 50 from Maryland to California, including a 1989 stop in Seymour, with several visits to the restaurant.
When Mellencamp was at the height of his career, fans would flock to Seymour from as far away as Australia during his birthday month of October hoping to run into him. One fan got lucky, discovering the singer dining in a Larrison’s booth near the entrance.
After finishing his cheeseburger, Mellencamp consented to a photo request, heading outside with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and his arm draped across the fan’s shoulder, Kevin Larrison recalls.
While Mellencamp’s dad and sisters frequently stop in to eat at Larrison’s, visits from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who owns a home on Lake Monroe in Bloomington, are few and far between these days.
Nevertheless, you can find Mellencamp memorabilia on the restaurant’s walls, including a signed poster from his 1992 acting and directorial film debut, “Falling from Grace,” which included a scene filmed inside the restaurant.
Ed Larrison’s introduction to the restaurant business came at age 14 when the Columbus High School student was hired as a soda jerk at Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor in Columbus.
In the early 1970s after selling insurance in Louisville, Kentucky, Larrison returned to the hospitality business and his hometown as manager of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Columbus and Seymour, striking up a friendship with Col. Harland Sanders, the KFC founder.
After Larrison left the chain to start his own restaurant, Sanders would occasionally stop in to see his friend and order a hand-dipped milkshake, son Kevin remembered.
During high school, Liz, sole owner since 2015, was a waitress and Kevin worked in the back, peeling potatoes or taking out the trash. When the siblings assumed ownership, they modified the name from Larrison’s Restaurant to Larrison’s Diner, which better described their fare, daytime hours and atmosphere.
They introduced a logo featuring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman style images from the 1942 movie “Casablanca,” enclosed inside a heart shape, a nod to the Hart family.
The nostalgia evident throughout the restaurant spans much of the 20th century. A basketball jersey used in the 1986 movie “Hoosiers,” loosely based on Milan High School’s 1954 state championship run, is displayed on a dining room wall.
Near the 1950s-style lighted “Diner” sign mounted toward the back is a large model airplane, on loan from the former Spencer’s Hobby Shop, suspended from the ceiling. Nostalgia from subsequent eras, such as a 1970s “Keep on Truckin’” poster, also began to appear.
“You see a little bit of every era here,” Kevin said.
Travel website Tripadvisor rates Larrison’s the No. 1 restaurant among 48 in Seymour, based on reviews posted by 101 customers who considered food, service, value and atmosphere in their ratings.
Other than homemade soups, salads and wraps, just about everything else comes off the grill or out of a deep fryer. “It ain’t food if it ain’t fried” proclaims a metal sign mounted above the 36-inch grill.
Customers tend to be from Seymour or smaller towns in Jackson County, but Larrison’s also draws from nearby metro areas, such as Columbus, Indianapolis and Louisville.
During exceptionally busy times, “we’ll bring my (86-year-old) mom in to bus tables” for customers, Liz said. “They love her.”
After 46 years of service by the Larrisons, that should be a surprise to no one.
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Larrison’s Diner
Location: 200 S. Chestnut St., along U.S. 50 (Tipton Street) in Seymour.
Hours: 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Breakfast served from 7 to 11 a.m., but lunch items are available all day.
Cuisine: American
Phone: 812-522-5523
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