Abbi Merriss

[1] Her mother moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky, Daytona Beach, Florida, and Quincy, Illinois before resettling in Evansville when Merriss was in third grade.

[1] As a preteen Merriss made a video titled "Cooking with Abbi" in which she demonstrated how to make a cake from a boxed mix.

[1] In 2001, at 18, she graduated from high school and moved with a boyfriend to Portsmouth, Virginia where she got a job as counter help at the Top Ten Cafe in the Ghent historic neighborhood of nearby Norfolk, where in addition to taking orders she did food prep and eventually started creating dishes and managing the restaurant.

[1] Her experience there included having a pickle thrown at her by the owner, who regularly became so angry she jumped up and down, causing Merriss to conclude that "Having tantrums is not a way to fix a problem.

[1] She did internships in New York City, and when she returned to Indianapolis worked for Regina Mehallick at R Bistro, as Hardesty had closed Elements.

[1] Merriss opened Bluebeard, a gastropub serving New American cuisine, in 2012 with then-husband John Adams and partners Tom and Edward Battista.

[3][4][5] The restaurant is located in the Holy Rosary[6] section of the Fletcher Place historic district in a renovated warehouse built in 1924.

[15][16][17] Merriss and the Battistas in 2019 planned a second restaurant, Kan-Kan Cinema and Brasserie, in Indianapolis's Windsor Park neighborhood, eventually announcing a 23 March 2020 opening date.