Fried chicken is where plate planning starts falling apart.
At this Indianapolis classic, lunch is where the repeat rounds happen. The buffet runs four days a week and keeps the focus on familiar comfort food, with fried chicken leading the charge.
Dinner changes the setup. Instead of heading back to the buffet, you choose an entrée and let the family-style sides come to the table.
The restaurant has been part of Indiana since 1928, and that old-school rhythm is still very much alive.
Lunch or dinner, the question is basically the same: how much room did you save for the chicken?
Lunch Brings Out The All-You-Can-Eat Fried Chicken Buffet
Wednesday through Saturday, lunch has a simple centerpiece: an all-you-can-eat buffet served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fried chicken leads the lineup, joined by corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, salad, and homemade brownies.
That setup makes the first plate easy to build. Start with chicken and potatoes if you want the heartiest route, then add green beans or corn before deciding how much room to leave for a biscuit. The salad gives you a lighter beginning if you would rather ease into the hot dishes.
Because the buffet is the lunch format, you can return for another helping instead of trying to predict the right portion on the first pass.
One plate can lean heavily toward chicken, while the next can give more space to vegetables, gravy, or another biscuit.
Brownies make dessert part of the same lunch spread rather than a separate menu decision.
You have a three-hour lunch window on four consecutive days, which makes this an option for a relaxed midday meal as well as a straightforward lunch stop.
Monday, Tuesday, and Sunday are not part of the current buffet schedule, so the day of the week matters as much as the appetite.
The Fried Chicken Dinner Lets You Choose White, Dark Or Mixed Pieces
Outside the buffet, the Indiana Fried Chicken Dinner gives you more control over which pieces land on the plate.
The mixed dinner includes one breast, one thigh, and one leg. An all-white option comes with three breasts, while the all-dark version includes two thighs and one leg.
Go mixed when you want variety, choose white meat when breast pieces are the priority, or take the dark-meat route when thighs and a leg sound better. Additional chicken pieces can also be added to an entrée for an extra charge.
Hollyhock Hill prepares the chicken with a light dusting of organic flour followed by a quick pan fry to golden brown. The method sets this chicken apart from a heavily breaded style and keeps the preparation focused on a thin flour coating.
The fried chicken dinner is served within the restaurant’s family-style format, so the main decision is the chicken itself rather than a long chain of side substitutions.
That can make ordering easier for a table where people agree on the centerpiece but have different preferences for white and dark meat.
Save the buffet for a lunch built around repeat helpings. Choose dinner when the exact chicken pieces matter more.
Family-Style Sides Turn Dinner Into A Pass-Around Meal
Dinner begins with warm biscuits and signature apple butter, while pickled beets and a fresh salad are available upon request. The entrée then comes with mashed potatoes and gravy, savory green beans, and sweet corn, followed by vanilla ice cream for dessert.
That sequence gives the table a clear rhythm. Biscuits arrive first, and the apple butter adds a sweet counterpoint before the chicken and vegetables.
Once the main course appears, the potatoes, gravy, green beans, and corn are served family-style, so the meal becomes less about separate side orders and more about passing bowls around.
The side selection keeps the fried chicken dinner grounded in familiar pairings. Mashed potatoes and gravy provide the richest combination, while the green beans and corn give you two vegetable choices. Pickled beets can add a sharper note when requested.
Dessert stays simple. Vanilla ice cream follows the meal, with chocolate or caramel among the syrup choices. Chocolate layer cake and seasonal homemade pie are also listed separately.
One easy route is to keep the starter portion modest, take the chicken and potatoes first, then circle back to corn, green beans, or another biscuit. Family-style service lets you adjust the balance as the meal moves along.
Apple Butter And Biscuits Open The Meal Before The Entrée
Warm biscuits with signature apple butter are part of the opening course for regular entrées, giving the meal a sweet-and-savory start before fried chicken or another main dish arrives.
You can take a biscuit while the table settles in, then decide how much room to leave for the heavier food that follows. The apple butter brings sweetness without pushing dessert to the front of the meal, and a biscuit can also pair with gravy later if you save one.
For diners who want the side experience without a standard entrée, the Hollyhock Hill Sides Dinner gathers house salad, warm biscuits with apple butter, pickled beets, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sweet corn, and vanilla ice cream into one family-style selection.
The broader side menu includes mac and cheese, French fries, coleslaw, and cottage cheese for an additional charge.
Those items are separate from the standard entrée accompaniments, so they are additions you choose rather than automatic parts of every fried chicken dinner.
This is one section of the meal where restraint can help. A biscuit and apple butter make a natural beginning, but the potatoes, vegetables, chicken, and dessert are still ahead.
The Restaurant Has Served Family-Style Meals Since 1928
Hollyhock Hill traces its beginning to 1928, when V.D. Vincent and his wife began serving special dinners from their country cottage in northern Marion County.
Hollyhocks growing on the grounds supplied the restaurant’s name, and the original dining space held about 30 guests.
The business changed hands over the decades and expanded beyond that first small dining room, but family-style service remained part of its identity.
The current operation still uses that format for its regular entrées, linking the modern dinner to the restaurant’s long-running approach to group dining.
The continuity is easy to spot at the table. Biscuits and apple butter begin the meal, the main entrée arrives with pass-around sides, and dessert follows afterward. Fried chicken remains central to the current menu rather than surviving only as a historical reference.
The restaurant stands at 8110 N College Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46240. It sits near the intersection of 81st Street and North College Avenue, where Hollyhock Hill has served family-style dinners since 1928.
Pick the service format first- buffet at lunch or family-style dinner- and the long history becomes part of the setting rather than something you have to study before ordering.
Dinner Offers More Than Fried Chicken
Fried chicken may be the obvious first choice, but the regular dinner menu has several other entrées.
Gulf shrimp come lightly breaded and fried, while sockeye salmon is served on a cedar plank with smoked sea salt and a maple glaze.
A locally sourced bone-in pork chop provides another option, and chicken tenderloins can be ordered fried or grilled.
There is also a fried chicken sandwich built with horseradish coleslaw and sweet pickles on a potato bun.
Unlike the family-style entrées, the sandwich is served with French fries only, so it should not be treated as another route to the full table of mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and dessert.
Choose an entrée dinner when you want the family-style sequence of biscuits, sides, and vanilla ice cream. Choose the sandwich when a more compact meal sounds better.
The chicken tenderloins give you another middle ground, especially if you want chicken without ordering the traditional mixed, white, or dark pieces.
Additional sides can expand the meal selectively. Mac and cheese adds a cheese-based side, coleslaw brings a cooler contrast, and cottage cheese keeps things simple.
French fries are another add-on when crisp potatoes sound better than another helping of mashed potatoes.
The question becomes which service style and entrée match the meal you have in mind.
Current Hours Make Lunch And Dinner Two Separate Plans
The lunch buffet runs Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Regular dinner hours begin later on those same days, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday service runs from noon to 7 p.m., while Monday and Tuesday are closed.
That schedule creates two different ways to visit on buffet days. Around noon, the all-you-can-eat line is the main event. By evening, the restaurant shifts to its regular menu and family-style entrée service.
Planning around that difference keeps lunch and dinner expectations clear.
Sunday works differently because the buffet is not part of the Sunday schedule. That makes it a day for the regular dining format rather than the Wednesday-through-Saturday lunch routine.
A larger appetite at midday may point straight toward the buffet, especially when fried chicken, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, biscuits, and brownies all sound useful on the same lunch.
Dinner suits a more deliberate choice between mixed, white, or dark chicken, shrimp, salmon, pork chop, tenderloins, or a sandwich.
Let the clock make the first decision. Go before 2 p.m. on a buffet day for repeat helpings, or choose the later service when a specific entrée and family-style sides suit the meal better. Fried chicken remains one of the clearest paths through either format.