White House Restaurant, South Bend

1444 Mishawaka Ave
South Bend, IN 46615

This is one of the most organic breakfast/lunch restaurants I’ve visited—organic in the sense that the establishment itself seems to have sprouted over time, settled, and been staked up plumb again, all with very little concern for what customers may think. The food? Not organic in the least, thank God, that would be out of place.

From the outside it’s hard to tell you’re at White House Restaurant unless you know what you’re looking for. It’s catty-corner from Adams High School, that grand brick and stone edifice with clean lines and proud flags. White House’s sign reads nothing more than “24 HRS COFFEE SHOP 24 HRS”, cut out of plywood and laced with a core of neon light. (It’s actually open only from 6 am to 2 pm.) It’s a hodgepodge of materials media: The front has brick, limestone, wood paneling, and vinyl siding. Half of the restaurant is the dirty-looking kitchen, part behind-the scenes, part within clear view of the long bar which makes up the client area. Again, function, not form. If people got sick, why is the unlined parking lot full of the haphazardly parked cars of regulars? Inside, they discuss lawyers playing dirty, how many kids they have by their 1st wife as compared to their 2nd, and new construction projects (not ones they’re working on, the ones they pass when they go to cash the social security check on their way to White House).

I came under orders to try the biscuits and gravy, instructions I’m glad I carried out—the biscuits were the buttermilky kind, and the gravy had enough pepper to make it spicy. A half order of that plus 2 eggs, 3 strips of bacon, and toast (just Blue Bunny with butter) was $5.83.

I don’t know if the two women running the show had been there since the beginning, but whoever else helped make the place what it is today gave no mind to dining aesthetics. Maybe the proprietors don’t notice the unappetizing sign tacked on to the telephone pole outside, “Affordable Roto-rooter, 254-POOP”. Inside, the plastic panel walls bear messages, many directly applied with Sharpie marker: “Smoking establishment, must be 18 to enter”, “Please pay when served NOW, Thank You”, Coffee ½ price with breakfast”. The same marker has updated the 25 cent rises in prices. As the sign says, you pay first—it gives pause when the server rings you up on the grime-caked keypad then breaks open your eggs. It would take a lot of investment and careful foresight to get the place looking good. Luckily, that’s never going to happen.