YESTERYEAR: Pop-O’s Riverboat Restaurant

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YESTERYEAR BY PAT SIDES

Evansville’s proximity to the Ohio River was recalled in this restaurant’s design, which resembled one of the many steamboats that once plied the river early in the city’s history.

Originally opening as King Fish Seafood in 1977, the upscale restaurant was renamed Pop-O’s two years later, expanding its menu to include burgers and steaks.

Pop-O’s became Amanda Fenwick’s Riverboat Restaurant and Lounge in 1982; when it closed in the late 1980s, the structure briefly housed a catering business, then a bar.

Located at Main Street and Riverside Drive, the once-popular building occupied most of a block that had been emptied by urban renewal demolitions in the 1950s and 1960s. It is now the site of Old National Bank.