Indy Cafe

Truly a hidden gem in NWI. Felt like a owe them a proper review. Five stars rarely come out but this is close. Came in about a week ago. I’ll start with the negatives, which I feel is far outweighed by the positives. Service can be a little slow. There aren’t many people working and the wait times can put some people off. Might be considered expensive but you get what you pay for in life and Indy Café is no exception. If you can get past that, and I hope you can, you will be pleasantly surprised by this place. Ordered the El Cubano sandwich and the poutine fries. Poutine fries are phenomenal. Fresh cut fries, some kind of sausage gravy, mozzarella? cheese and parsley or something. I ate the whole thing, might be better to split it with someone. Order them and thank me later @edublovesbeer. Now on to the sandwich. It is mind-​blowing my delicious. It’s just perfection. Smoky ham and pulled pork, balanced with an almost-​spicy mustard and sweet pickles on like a ciabatta bun. Just hits all of the right notes. I can almost still taste it. I have also had the burgers before and they are excellent. If you’re a Region Rat and consider yourself any kind of foodie, please give this place a try and tell me I’m wrong. Cheers mate.

Awesome place, great food. The food there is always on point. Closest restaurant you’ll get in Indiana without driving all the way to the city for a great Cubano sandwich.

My husband and I have been wanting to try this place out for a while. We walked in and it seemed to be unorganized, grungy, and was dimly lit. This isn’t an issue as it may appeal to a hipster crowd. They have two menus, M-​F and Sunday Brunch, we got to choose from the brunch menu. My husband ordered the Bourbon Caramel Latte, Milanesa, and mango iced tea. I ordered the Torta Ahogada and Parm Fries. The food looked and smelled great, but fell a little short of our expectations. After our conversation and recommendations from Victor, we’ve decided to try this place again in the near future. I’ll update this review after our second visit.

Came in with the girlfriend today for lunch. My sandwich was ok, along with the poutine fries. However, my girlfriend’s Tinga sandwich was not good at all. The meat wasn’t very cold and it didn’t taste very good. She had one bite of the sandwich and when we told the waitress that she didn’t like it and she wanted something else, we were told that we would still have to pay for the bad sandwich. She was just the messenger, she was told this by the owner. After one bite? That isn’t a good business practice.
My food was ok. One star for that and one for the great waitress. Needless to say, we won’t be back.

Favorite place. It’s a hole on the wall. And everything is home made and fresh.10/10 would bang.

We really appreciated the staff’s accommodation. You see, we needed wifi to be on a work conference call: the wifi here was strong, and we got no hassle for having our computers on the tables while we ate and listened in. The food itself was pretty good. I had the roasted vegetable side, which comes in a strong mustard sauce, and the tomato soup, which was delicious. My husband had their fries and one of the sandwiches. Convenient stop off the highway between Chicago and Ohio.

What a gem of a restaurant! I ordered the pastrami hash with fried egg and it was very hearty and delicious! Also ordered the latte of the day which was the gingerbread mocha and it was great. Victor was my server and he was very friendly and attentive. Highly recommend this place if you’re ever in the area.

After seeing the reviews I was excited to go to the café for lunch. Woah was I mistaken. Terrible service, was not very clean, over priced and the food was average at best. The menu is trying too hard. Located in the heart of an industrial center, this place is out of place not in a good way. Dumb the menu down, hire more help, and lower your prices if your really want to improve.

We had an incredibly pleasant visit today. From the minute we walked in, the staff was enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Our waiter was happy to see us and explained the menu quite well.
Once we ordered, everything came out just perfect. All the food was fresh and home made. The Guajillo sauce was incredible, the roasted veggies tasty and tender, and the pulled pork was great. The bread on both sandwiches was nice, too.
I may seem a bit over-​positive here, but allow some background: it’s hard to find this combination of good service and good food. I give out so many 1 or 2 star reviews because there are a lot of crummy places out there. Any restaurant with less than four stars should shut their doors for a week and bus tables at Indy Café to learn how things really work.

The coffees and sandwiches are absolutely amazing! So happy to find a gem like this in the East Chicago area. I am still craving their bourbon coffee. The only reason I didn’t give this place 5 stars is because of the high prices for the small portions. It seemed a little high for the area and the effort put forth for the ambiance and the décor of this place. Food, however, does not disappoint!

Fried pickles were awesome! I *really* wanted to like this place – the menu is phenomenal. It wasn’t bad. But also it wasn’t great. Burgers were overcooked (order down if you get a burger). Buns & sandwich bread were burned. Very friendly people through it all.

Who’d a thunk it considering its location what a delicious restaurant this is. Great advantage they have being next to the train station. A little above my lunch budget but still worth the splurge.

Nice décor. Staff are pleasant if somewhat humourless. Located directly across from the rail station, with limited parking around the side and in front. Music is typical indie rock café faire.
There’s plenty of seating. When I visited, the place was surprisingly dead, with only one other customer. This on a Friday evening around six. The barista didn’t appear thrilled by this sudden doubling of his business. I tried to crack a joke to liven things up, but he was expressionless. He even brought it to me in a go cup, when I was sitting at a table. As if to say, get out you scum.
That said, the interior is very nicely decorated. The atmosphere would be perfect for the post-​college professional set.
The cappuccino I ordered did have a slightly burnt flavour to it, although it was full bodied and generally tasty.
If the staff happen to read this, I’d like to suggest smiling at the people who spend money on your otherwise empty establishment. I know, I know, the last thing a hipster wants to do is smile at a customer. It probably sounds so fake to you, right? Maybe, but when your face doesn’t move at all like that, it makes me wonder if you snort lines of Botox in the back between customers. Admittedly, you do have an awful lot of time between customers to spend whatever it is you do in the back.

We came here for lunch this past valentines day, and I can’t say enough good things about the place. The food was delicious (I had the el Cubano with parm fries) and the service was delivered with a smile. We got a Nutella latte to go, and it was definitely on point. I’d recommend this place to anyone in the northwest Indiana region.

Really nice place fresh food. I had the Cuban it was awesome. really had fresh taste. Kids had toasted cheese and soup huge sandwich and fresh soup.

Indy Café attracts a good mixed crowd of regulars, it seems, and customers are welcome to use their free wifi. Anything goes here; it is part-​coffee shop, part-​restaurant (American, brunch, Mexican-​influenced, and serving fresh homemade breads & cookies…); the food is high quality.
Second time eating at Indy Café; and today was for a great brunch. Our coffee orders were taken immediately, and service remained swift and couteous. Good cappuccino. We ate green pozole (homily corn & chicken soup topped with fresh arugula and sliced radish), the breakfast sandwich on homemade croissant, and shared a side of bacon… delicious, sticky, smoky thick-​cut bacon. All delicious, really.
Seating choices are tables, table/​booths, and up at the bar. Indy Café is located just across the street from the East Chicago South Shore Line Station. Clean restrooms to boot. May become a regular here myself!

Organic food, local farmers and cooking with love!
Best little secret!
Delicious!!!

Stopped in for some food before a concert at the Horseshoe casino. I will say that this place seems like it might be a gem in the area. I have never been in the area before, but what I could gather from a Unilocal search and from driving around was that there might not be a lot of good choices around when it comes to food.
The food we had here was really good. I had the green pozole soup and really liked it. Everything about it tasted really fresh and the flavor was good but not heavy. My wife had the Torta Ahogado and it was really good. It comes served as a sandwich cut in half sitting in dish full of red chili sauce. It tastes like a really good pulled pork sandwich with better sauce than American bbq. We also shared the poutine which is fries with gravy and cheese over top. It was good and pretty basic gravy cheese fries. I do wish that it had been served with cheese curds instead what tasted like a kind of swiss cheese instead. If based on food alone I would probably give them four stars.
We both wanted to drink a beer and it seemed like the type of place that would have craft beer. When we asked our server about it she told us they didn’t have any alcohol at the moment. She said they were redesigning their wine and beer menu and that while they are doing that they decided not to serve any at all. This story sounds very suspicious to me and I suspect that maybe they temporarily lost their license to serve due to some violation. Either way, this is why I dropped the rating down to three stars.
Overall, I like the place and would definitely eat here again if I am ever in the area. Along with the great food (and hopefully beer/​wine in the future) they also have a good looking coffee selection with all the offerings that you would expect in a nice café.

Three of us were on our way through town driving on the 90 and pulled off to stop for brunch. Although it was a bit off the highway, it was totally worth it
We had the chicken and biscuits, torta and chorizo stew. Everything was top notch, including my Nutella late. All the dishes were executed perfectly and it’s obvious a lot of love goes into what they do here. If we were locals, we would be regulars. Highly recommend it.

A strange restaurant given it’s location. It has a bit of a hipster vibe going on. I had the pastreuben which was damn good with a side of poutine fries. The fries were good but the gravy is a sausage gravy and not a traditional salty poutine gravy. If I went back I would get the bacon cheese fries or fried pickles.
Also the place gets a slight knock for being a bit dirty. If graded just on my sandwich I would have gone five stars.