Broad Ripple bar and music venue shuts down after 40 years
INDIANAPOLIS — The Broad Ripple neighborhood is known for nightlife, but it is now without one of its longest-tenured bars. The Casba, which was known for its live DJs and reggae nights, has poured its final drink.
The bar was a Broad Ripple attraction since 1984, but it announced its sudden closure on social media during the weekend. The Casba’s statement did not elaborate why the bar closed, but said the bar “fought off closing for as long as it could.”
Although The Casba is gone, there are still reminders of the club’s cultural impact on display.
Tributes to DJ Indiana Jones, who owned The Casba before his death in 2020, and late photographer Mpozi Tolbert, who also DJ’d at the club, were installed on the building this month.
The Broad Ripple Village Association told WRTV it received no advance warning of The Casba’s closure.
The bar’s statement called the closure the “end of an era” and said “the culture that sustained Broad Ripple’s basement will never be replaced or duplicated.”
