ACME by Full Circle

If you want to know whether ACME by Full Circle is worth the drive to the East State neighborhood, here is the short version: this is where Full Circle BBQ, a pit operation that used to cook out of the kitchen at 2Toms Brewing Company, finally got its own dining room. The barbecue is the reason to come. The address is the reason it feels like it has been here forever.

The Room Has a Longer Story Than the Menu

The building at 1105 E State Blvd has been a neighborhood bar and restaurant since 1941, when it opened as ACME Bar & Grill. For decades it was the kind of place a neighborhood keeps as its own, a spot where the regulars did not need a reason to show up. When the original ACME closed, the owners of Full Circle BBQ took over the space in 2022 and relaunched it, keeping the ACME name on the door.

That decision tells you what to expect when you walk in. This is not a from-scratch concept dropped into a strip mall. It is a barbecue kitchen moving into a room that already had eighty-plus years of neighborhood-bar habit baked into it. The name carried over on purpose.

Order the Barbecue First

Pit Master Tim Longardner runs the smoke program, and the smoked barbecue is what ACME by Full Circle is built around. The core of it is ribs, brisket, and wings. If you are here for the first time and trying to figure out what the kitchen does best, that trio is the answer to order from.

Fort Wayne has a real barbecue bench, and it is worth knowing where a new pit fits on it. If you are the kind of eater who works through a city's smokehouses one by one, ACME earns a spot on the same list as Dunbar's BBQ and Lucille's BBQ. What sets ACME apart is not a longer menu; it is a pit crew that spent its early years cooking inside a brewery and then moved into a bar with its own history.

The Legacy Menu Is Still on the Board

The kitchen did not wipe the slate clean when it took over. Alongside the smoked barbecue, ACME by Full Circle keeps legacy Acme items on the menu: a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, burgers, and pizza. In Indiana, a breaded pork tenderloin is not a novelty item, it is a regional standard, and keeping it on the board is a nod to the crowd that came here long before the smokers arrived.

Practically, that mix makes ACME an easy table for a group that does not agree on dinner. One person can go all in on brisket and ribs while someone else orders a tenderloin, a burger, or a pizza and nobody has to compromise. That is a useful thing to know when you are the one picking where a mixed group eats.

Who It's For

Come to ACME by Full Circle if you want serious smoked barbecue served in a neighborhood bar rather than a barbecue-themed dining room. The through-line from its brewery-kitchen years shows in the crossover between the pit and the beer-friendly side of the menu, and if that overlap is your thing, the wider Fort Wayne brewery scene is worth exploring too. It suits a casual weeknight table, a group that wants ribs and burgers on the same check, and anyone curious what happens when a well-traveled pit crew inherits one of the East State neighborhood's longest-running rooms.

For more on where to eat around Fort Wayne, the full eatfortwayne.com directory sorts the city's restaurants by cuisine and area.