Grippo's, Ski and Don Mattingly: 10 things to know to sound like an Evansville native

EVANSVILLE – If you’re new to our city, welcome to Evansville. We’re so glad to have you in the third-largest city in Indiana.

115,749 people called Evansville home in 2022, and whether you’re coming for college – as hundreds of USI and UE students have done this month – or moving long-term, you’ll find Hoosier hospitality. Still, our city has some quirks you may not find where you’re from.

Here’s a few things locals know about Evansville.

'It’s Bay-key, not Boh-key'

Evansville’s rich German heritage is still relevant in the city. We have an annual German food festival, Germania Maennerchor Volksfest, and multiple restaurants.

But it’s most obvious through the names on our street signs, which aren’t always the easiest to pronounce. From Schutte to Heidelbach, here’s how to say some of the hardest local street names.

Weinbach Avenue: “Wine-bahck” Ave

Boeke Road: “Bay-key” Rd

Tekoppel Avenue: “Tea-cup-el” Ave

Heidelbach Avenue: “Hi-dell-bahck” Ave

Schutte Road: “Shoot-ie” Rd

West Side, best side

What’s now the west side of Evansville was originally its own town with a deep, industrial history.

Known as Lamasco, the city started at St. Joseph Avenue and stretched west from there. It was partially incorporated into Evansville in 1857 and renamed itself to Independence before it was fully annexed by Evansville in 1870.

West-siders still form a tight community today — you may hear someone say “West side, best side” — and moving from one side of “St. Joe” to the other is a bigger deal than you might think.

'Where did you go to school?'

There’s no use ignoring it: Evansville has a lot of high schools. There are seven high schools in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. alone, and that's not counting two Diocese of Evansville high schools and the public charter Signature School. And if you delve into the surrounding area, that number goes even higher.

They all have a long history in the area — Central High School was established in 1854 — and so, when 71% of young adults from the area never move away, the question isn’t where you went to college, but where you went to high school.

No, your clock’s not behind

If you’re coming from somewhere else in Indiana, you may have already noticed the time on your clock looking a little different than it used to.

Evansville is one of only two areas in Indiana that runs on Central rather than Eastern time. The state’s gone back and forth between Central, Eastern and daylight-saving time since time zones were put into place, and in 2005 the Indiana Legislature mandated daylight-saving time for the whole state, meaning Evansville is perpetually an hour behind.

Spend your fall at the festival

Would you have guessed that Evansville hosts one of the largest street festivals in the United States? The week-long West Side Nut Club Fall Festival has been estimated to bring in 30,000 people on its most heavily attended days. Every October, more than 100 food booths line Franklin Street.

The Fall Festival has everything you’d expect, with rides, games and traditional fair food, but it’s best known for the menu options which veer a little more eclectic, such as brain sandwiches, scorpion lollipops and anything fried.

Deep-dish, New York or Una-style?

If you’re looking for a slice in town, sooner or later, you’ll run into Evansville’s brand of pizza, called “Una-style pizza” after an old local chain, Una Pizza.

With a thin, crunchy, cracker-like crust, this Midwestern style of pizza goes heavy on the toppings and is generally cut into squares, not slices.

You can find Una-style pizza at places like Turoni’s Pizzery and Brewery, Spankey’s Una Pizza and Twisted Tomato. But if you’re headed to UE, check out By the Slice (often called just "The Slice") for New York-style goodness.

The taste of Evansville

There are a couple more foods to know as you settle in. Specifically a chip and a soda.

Grippo’s Bar-B-Q chips have become a marker of Evansville culture, even though they’re not manufactured here. Local restaurants have used the chips as a pizza topping, mac and cheese flavoring and to add a sweet and spicy crunch to sandwiches.

Ski soda is a citrus-flavored soda produced by the Double Cola company. It’s another case of an out-of-town product — Ski is originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee — becoming a local obsession, and it’s particularly popular on the West Side.

Just down Don Mattingly Way

Surprisingly or not, we’ve had a few famous faces come out of Evansville. Between sports and entertainment, we’re proud of:

• Don Mattingly: former baseball player for the New York Yankees (1982-1995), coach for the Yankees (2004-2007) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2008-2010), manager of the Dodgers (2011-2015) and Miami Marlins (2016-2022). Current coach for the MLB’s Toronto Blue Jays.

• Bob Griese: former quarterback for the Miami Dolphins (1967-1980)

• Ron Glass: actor who appeared in TV shows “Barney Miller” (1975–1982) and “Firefly” (2002)

• Matt Williams: Creator of "Roseanne" and a co-creator of "Home Improvement"

• Lilly King: Olympic gold-medalist

• Dylan Minette: actor and musician who appeared in TV show “13 Reasons Why” and whose band Wallows has received critical acclaim

And we've held onto a couple of our famous names. You can drive down "Don Mattingly Way" on your way to Bosse Field, and Evansville's African American Museum is supported in part by Vanderburgh Community Foundation's Ron Glass Endowment.

Plenty to cheer for

Evansville also has two professional minor league sports teams?The Evansville Otters have played baseball at historic Bosse Field (the third oldest ballpark still in use in the country) since the team started in 1995. Part of the Frontier League, they were league champs in 2006 and 2016.

We also have a hockey team, our Evansville Thunderbolts, who replaced the former Evansville IceMen at the Ford Center in 2016. The Thunderbolts play in the Southern Professional Hockey League.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: 10 things to know that'll help you sound like an Evansville native