On Sept. 10, Carmel gets Indiana’s first Matt the Miller’s Tavern (11 City Center Dr.), an Ohio-based chain whose tagline, “Life is short. Enjoy family, friends, and good times,” pretty much sums up its cargo-shorts business model. The 5,300-square-foot restaurant will seat about 170 inside and as many as 100 on the patio. Its menu is a mix of burgers, sandwiches, and big-plate entrees such as roasted salmon and flat-iron steak. Bar snacks (including deep-fried pretzel bites and $5 appetizers during happy hour) complement the 26 draft beers on tap, extensive wine list, and pretty-pretty martini list. And a roster of flatbreads ranges from chicken-avocado to wild mushroom. “The crux of what we do is the flatbreads,” says the chain’s Columbus, Ohio-based president, Craig L. Barnum, who runs two Matt the Miller’s Taverns in Ohio as well as a more upscale restaurant, Tucci’s California Bistro, in Dublin, Ohio. “We have a few items on the menu that you don’t see in every casual restaurant, like ahi tuna wontons, shrimp and grits, edamame,” Barnum says. “We are not ultra-casual, but we are not fine dining either. We are somewhere in the middle. This is a very approachable concept.”
