From left: Natalie Anderson, 24, Nick Koenig, 28, Erin Sussman, 27, and Megan Luedeman, 28. (Neal Taflinger / for INtake)

Chatham Tap, 719 Massachusetts Ave. (Neal Taflinger / for INtake)

Off duty: Julia Cooke, 24, has worked as a server. (Neal Taflinger / for INtake)

Patrons gather to chat, imbibe and stay in touch by phone at the bar at Chatham Tap, which opened without fanfare in September. (Neal Taflinger / for INtake)

Where: 719 Massachusetts Ave., (317) 917-8425.

Details: Full menu, outdoor seating, smoking and nonsmoking available, television, MC/V/D/AX.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

9 p.m.

Mass Ave. doesn't do quiet. Loud boutiques, provocative theater troupes and lively taverns line the strip where residents describe themselves as "45 degrees from ordinary." But Chatham Tap opened this month with nary a peep.

Similar to MacNiven's but subtler, the Tap is a take on the English pub experience. Football club scarves hang over the bar and a tasteful selection of decorations reflects British culture and its interest in the game we call soccer. General manager Daniel Jones opened the bar Sept. 6 with the goal of being "that in-between place" for the Chatham Arch, Lockerbie, and Cottage Home neighborhoods -- not fine dining, but more upscale than pub grub.

9:14 p.m.

Natalie Anderson, 24, Nick Koenig, 28, Erin Sussman, 24, and Megan Luedeman, 28, occupy a table on the narrow deck behind the bar. Koenig is a childhood friend of Jones and has been frequenting the bar since opening night. While enjoying cheese fries and buckets of beer, the group gives the bar a positive, if somewhat biased, review. I ask them to tell me Chatham Tap's single standout element, and the consensus response is the restrooms.

I offer to take the men's room for a test run to prove the group's claim. "You'll feel right at home," Koenig says.

9:49 p.m.

The restroom is fantastic. Tile covers the floor and walls, and the mirror, light fixture and faucet (which is shaped like a well pump) have a faux-aged Restoration Hardware feel to them.

9:53 p.m.

I start talking with a cluster of people at the bar, but everyone scatters as soon as I get names and ages on paper. Julia Cooke, 24, is the only one left but she's not sore about it -- one of her recently departed companions had lived in Indianapolis all her life, but had never heard of Indy's two largest free weekly publications. "What an idiot," Cooke says.

Cooke applied that same charm at her last job and was let go. She's confident that the busy season will bring another serving gig quickly, and she rattles off the list of Downtown bars and restaurants where she has put in time. I ask her if she is a service-industry lifer. She says no. I ask her if she has aspirations to do anything else. "I did at one point, yes," she says with a wry smile.

I ask Cooke, a resident of the nearby Cottage Home neighborhood, how she found out about the bar. She rides her bike down Mass Ave. daily, but "didn't see the construction," Cooke says. Like everyone else, it seems, she found out by word of mouth. "I was in the Lockerbie and someone mentioned it," she said.

The bar defied the Avenue's conventions by arriving with little fanfare or flair, but the Chatham Tap's soft opening will be hard to keep quiet much longer.