Who is Arlene?

Smiling elderly woman with glasses and white hair, wearing a floral patterned blouse, standing outdoors with blurred background. This is Arlene.

Arlene's is a meat-and-three restaurant in Indianapolis, named for Arlene Brooks — chef Jonathan Brooks's mother — and built around a single idea she lived by: feed anyone who walks through your door.

The restaurant occupies the Fletcher Place space on Virginia Avenue that, for over a decade, was Milktooth — Jonathan's beloved brunch destination and a two-time James Beard semifinalist. In late 2025, Jonathan announced that Milktooth would close and the space would reopen as something simpler, more personal, and rooted in his family's traditions. The Southern half of those traditions came from his father's family in Nashville. The kitchen-as-gathering-place half came from his mother.

A meat-and-three is the working-class Southern lunch institution: pick one meat, pick three sides, and you have lunch. The menu changes with what's good and what's in season. Pickles are house. Cornbread is buttermilk. The mac and cheese has four kinds.

The whole Milktooth team came with us. The room is mostly the same. The hospitality is unchanged. The menu is new.

We've been waiting on you.

— Jonathan

About Chef Brooks

Jonathan Brooks grew up in Indianapolis, started washing dishes at a local jazz club at fourteen, and graduated from Broad Ripple High School before heading to Montana, where he learned to butcher fish and developed a taste for game cooking. He worked his way back east through Chicago and home to Indianapolis, opening Milktooth in 2014 in a converted Fletcher Place auto-parts shop on Virginia Avenue.

Milktooth's inventive brunch — wasabi-pea Dutch babies, grilled cheese with black-truffle honey — drew immediate national attention. Brooks was named a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2015 the same year Bon Appétit ranked Milktooth one of the country's ten best new restaurants. Condé Nast Traveler later included it on a list of the world's best. He earned James Beard semifinalist nods for Best Chef in 2016, 2017, and 2025.

In 2018 he opened Beholder with partner Josh Mazanowski, a tasting-menu restaurant that earned a 2020 James Beard nod for its wine program.

Arlene's is his third restaurant, named for his mother.

Tattooed man with a beard in a gray t-shirt and apron holding a meat cleaver. This is Jon Brooks.

Photo Credit: Indianapolis Monthly

The Town Gossip

Food & Wine — Milktooth, One of America’s Most Influential Brunch Restaurants, Is Closing
Published April 14, 2026.

Edible Indy — Milktooth No More: Indianapolis’ Jonathan Brooks On His Next Innings As The Chef and Co-Owner of Arlene’s
Published January 15, 2026.

Indianapolis Business Journal — Chef Jonathan Brooks celebrates matriarchs as Milktooth shifts to Arlene’s
Published February 27, 2026.

Islands — Indiana’s Acclaimed Brunch Restaurant In Indianapolis Will Feature The Southern “Meat-And-Three” Style
Published March 9, 2026.

Indianapolis Monthly — The Feed: A Major Milktooth Update And More Indy Love From Jeremy Jacobowitz
Published December 26, 2025.

Indianapolis Monthly — The Feed: Goodbye To Max & Tilly’s And Old Pro’s Table
Published March 13, 2026.

FOX59 / CBS4 Indy — Milktooth to transition into meat-and-three restaurant called Arlene’s

IndyStar — Milktooth no more: Popular brunch spot to open as new concept in spring