Royale with Cheese - Michigan City, IN

Whenever I feel trapped in the Chicagoland suburbs I take my car across state lines just for fun. Just to prove I can. I didn't even tell my mom and I'm in another state whoah boy she's a wild one. 🎵🎶

It was 95 degrees outside my fishbowl of a car that still doesn't have AC and decided that day was the best one to go drive around the border of Lake Michigan for a while. 

I got as far as Michigan City, IN 

It's a funny place, because it's not actually in Michigan. But it's on Lake Michigan. And it gets confusing to talk about if you're not paying attention. It's a funny thing I've noticed with names along every state border so far. So I stop and see what it's about. 

The exit off the highway is pure Americana Highway. If I hadn't been driving I'd have pictures. There's an entire tree barren desert of corporate big boxes dominating your attention for what you desire on a road trip diversion. 

We push our way through repeating patterns of gas stations and franchise chains. Delirious from the heat and ready to snap we finally stumble into a main street downtown. 

One side of the block is run down housing and abandoned strop malls and the other is tourist friendly boutiques and coffee shops. I find a place in the shade to leave my car while we explore this strange place to find some lunch. I note the irony of trying to park Helios as far removed from the sun as possible.

It’s too late in the day to choose food based on what’s busy (or rather, choosing to avoid the places lacking patrons at standard meal times) so we need to stay alert to all the details of our options. First up, that touristy coffee shop called ‘FLUID’ - I appreciate the straight forward nature of their advertising. And they were delicious. I bought a keychain with their logo on it to remember them.

Perked up by the caffeine and air conditioning, we give searching for food a second chance. It’s with a clear head that we are able to find what we had been craving: a good, simple burger.

It’s easy to overlook. Their sign is vinyl on the window. The only indication of their wares is a simple neon pictogram on an interior wall that happens to be seen through the window from the sidewalk. The door is reset in shadow, dark wood and window lighting that makes you wonder just how open they really are if you don’t already know for sure.


We’re greeted by millennial design - parodied popular fiction muraled on the walls with an overhead projector running the favorite cartoon of the day on a blank wall. The menu is straightforward with a few special items imagined up by the chef in charge. I take note of the little free library. I wish I had a book to trade, but I just moved the emotional support library out of the backseat of my car.
We order a burger with cheese and fries. It’s reasonably priced. They have cool pins so we threw one of those on the tab as well. We become the only patrons as we wait, but that is in no way a reflection on their quality.


The presentation only made me pause for a moment - and I was sold from the first bite. The meat to bun proportions were weird but the ratio was overall correct and the patty was well seasoned. In my heat hunger craze I was down to the last bite before it occurred to me that this place was so worth doing a review on.

We linger as long as we comfortably could before resigning ourselves back to the frying pan adventure we placed ourselves in that day. As I take one last look back at what will become a staple pit stop on 94 I see something I have never seen before - A Jones Soda Dispenser. like the coke or pepsi ones that every chain has, but only filled with Jones flavors.



I don’t even drink soda but I’ll be ordering one next time I’m here to see how it tastes out of that machine. 

And with that it's agreed that there will be a next time. Whenever I get a craving to run away across state lines I'll be heading straight for Royale with Cheese. 

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Royale with Cheese
827 Franklin St, Michigan City, IN 46360

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Originally published to Patreon July 31, 2023