A Highland-based vending machine company is taking part in an industry-wide push to increase healthier options in vending machines to 33% of the items offered.
Chicago-based NAMA, which represents the $25 billion convenience services sector, the Partnership for a Healthier America and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation are pledging to boost "better for you" offerings by about 40% so that at least one of every three vending machine items will meet a minimum of two public health standards.
“There are nearly four million vending machines serving snacks and beverages every day, 24/7, across this country,” NAMA CEO Carla Balakgie said. “Vending is everywhere consumers work, play and live and NAMA regards this initiative as a bold, ambitious and meaningful step to meet the growing consumer demand for healthier choices.”
Highland-based Diamond Vending is a "foundational participating operator company" in the recently announced public health commitment. The company serves Northwest Indiana, Chicago and Missouri.
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“In the months and years ahead, we will continue to work with our members — including leaders like Diamond Vending — to measure the results of this commitment to deliver a meaningful increase in the number of 'better for you' options in the marketplace," NAMA Chair Greg Sidwell said. "We'll also continue to work collaboratively with public health partners, and to engage with food manufacturers to encourage them to support this important initiative through new products that meet the commitment."
The vending machine industry has been working with national public health organizations since 2005 when it launched FitPick, a "better for you" labeling program. It's touting its new commitment as its most comprehensive public health initiative to date.
“The Alliance for a Healthier Generation commends NAMA and its members for their commitment to providing more 'better for you' products to their customers,” said Kathy Higgins, CEO of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. “We believe that many actions like this taken across sectors will create the systemic changes needed to ensure that all children and families have the opportunity to lead healthy lives. We are excited to join NAMA at this critical step in this journey, leveraging our strengths in stakeholder engagement and community activation to maximize the impact of voluntary industry action.”
15 delicious dishes that say Region
Teibel's Lake Perch
A lot of dishes can make a viable claim to being a signature food in the melting pot of Northwest Indiana: pierogi, gyros, Italian beef, cevapi, latkes, basically any sausage of European provenance, and so on.
A strong case could be made for lake perch, which is ubiquitous during Lenten fish fries and a staple on many bar and restaurant menus.
Phil Schmidt's has been gone for years, and few would contest the reigning perch palace is Teibel's Family Restaurant at the intersection of Indianapolis Boulevard and U.S. 30 in Schererville. The time capsule-like supper club has been a region tradition since 1929, and is especially popular for banquets and at Christmastime, when it's resplendently lit up and decorated.
The proudly old-school restaurant piles on sides like tomato juice, soup, salad, rolls, and a relish plate with coleslaw, cottage cheese and pickled beets, and caps the meal with a dish of peppermint ice cream. The family owned eatery is well-known for its Austrian recipe for fried chicken, but many people go just for the lake perch, a throwback comfort food that's been enjoyed for generations in the Calumet Region.
Teibel's Canadian Yellow Lake Perch is fried to a glistening golden perfection and drenched in butter. Spritz lemon juice on it or slather it with tartar sauce, and it's about as decadent as freshwater fish can get, and that helps explain Teibel's fiercely loyal following.
Round the Clock's Lemon Rice Soup
To use a legendary rock band's intro: "You want the best, you got the best."
Round the Clock's lemon rice soup is nothing short of pure delectable wonderment. This Region staple can be a light and tasty meal eaten by itself or a hearty meal served with fresh baked warm rolls that melt in your mouth. It's your choice.
If soup is a comfort food, then Round the Clock's specialty is the icon of warmth and ease. Whether it be a one of NWI's frigid breathless evenings or a blistering summer day, lemon rice soup is a can't miss.
Servers tell story after story of how their customers of all ages come in and enjoy a cup or bowl of soup. Some prefer coffee and others prefer a refreshing beverage with their divine favorite taste.
Schoop's 'The Mickey'
There's a name for those little burnt pieces of meat that stick to a hot frying pan: flavor. Actually, those crispy pan remnants are called "fond," and they're becoming increasingly important in dishes ranging from stews to roasts.
That's probably not a surprise to patrons of Schoop's, which has created a hamburger that seems to incorporate the flavor and texture of fond in the meaty surfaces of its burgers.
The signature sandwich of the 1950s-themed soda shops is The Mickey, a bun-busting beef patty topped by two slices of American cheese and then your condiments of choice, usually ketchup, mustard, pickles and a generous helping of pickle relish, which balances the creamy cheese with piquant tartness.
But it's that first bite, the one that you have to take before getting to any adornments, or even the bun, that reveals why so many people have become so fond of this burger.
There are 14 Schoop's restaurants in Indiana and four in Illinois, according to its website.
Zel's Roast Beef Sandwich
Zel's Roast Beef doesn't just serve sandwiches — it offers big heaps of beef that founders Stanley and Fay Routman made sure were hefty enough to feed steelworkers and oilmen when they opened the first location in the Indiana Harbor neighborhood of East Chicago in 1965.
Just don't call it Italian Beef. It's not.
Zel's signature roast beef sandwiches feature USDA-Choice beef that's marinated and slow-cooked for three to four days and then stuffed in a Vienna bun. The meat ends up so juicy and tender that it comes apart at the prodding of a plastic fork.
Anyone who's not faint of stomach can polish off a Zel's roast beef sandwich at the locations in Schererville, Crown Point and East Chicago.
Sport peppers and pickles can garnish the huge sandwiches, but they are so meaty and flavorful they don't need much else.
For information, call (219) 397-6167.
Cavalier Inn's Polish Platter
Want to try some Polish cuisine but not sure what to get?
If you're at the Cavalier Inn in Hammond, a vintage neighborhood restaurant at 735 Gostlin St. in North Hammond, try the famed Polish platter. You get everything, and then some.
Seriously, you might think that two huge potato latkes and three large pierogi — your choice of potato, cheese or kraut — might be enough starch for one meal. But you also get a choice of mashed potatoes, a baked potato or fries.
Two types of Polish sausage sit in a bed of sauerkraut, and the golabki, or stuffed cabbage roll, swims in a sea of tomato sauce. There's a heap of green beans, applesauce and sour cream to go with the latkes, which are fried to perfection.
Since the Cavalier Inn is an old-school region joint that dates back to 1957, the overflowing cornucopia of Polish food also is preceded by bread and butter, and a relish tray with coleslaw, cottage cheese and beans with dill.
Like at your babcia's house, you won’t leave hungry.
Munster Gyros
Northwest Indiana knows its gyros.
Region cuisine includes a lot of ethnic staples, but gyros has been one of the most ubiquitous. Gyros joints across the Northwest Indiana typically offer a wide array of other choices like Chicago dogs, Polish sausage and Italian beef sandwiches, but the main attraction is always spit-roasted and freshly shaved gyros meat piled into pita bread.
Munster Gyros is one of the best in the region, according to Times readers. Although there are plenty of other tasty alternative around the Region.
The longtime eatery at 8307 Calumet Ave. in Munster makes fresh creamy tzatziki sauce daily with rich yogurt and large cucumbers. It doesn't stint on the generous portions of gyros meat, a mix of beef and lamb that's shaved off a spit. The pita bread is very fresh, as are the tomatoes and the well-seasoned onions.
Industrial Revolution's Double Shift Pot Roast Mac & Cheese
Someone in the kitchen at Industrial Revolution must have been craving comfort food the day he or she combined pot roast with macaroni and cheese to create a dish called Mom's Famous Double Shift Pot Roast Mac & Cheese.
It brings warmth to the restaurant, 1084 Linwood Ave., Valparaiso, which is themed in bricks and beams as a nod to its namesake.
The decor offers a dose of American inspiration and education, with a weekly salute to great Americans in history. Your server will brief you on the person's bio.
The dish goes for $11.95 and is described as bow tie pasta with Mom's Famous Double Shift Pot Roast, blue cheese, caramelized onions, cheddar cheese. The order comes with a slice of garlic toast, for added zip.
As if covering a pile of meat and noodles with a pickup truck full of cheese isn't American enough, they plunge a pinky finger-sized American flag in the entree.
Industrial Revolution: (219) 465-1801
Third Coast Spice Cafe's Build Your Own Omelet
There's often nothing better than a cheesy, flavorful omelet as a breakfast menu option.
At Third Coast Spice Cafe in Chesterton, open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, omelets are a popular choice for breakfast, lunch or just a mid-day snack.
If you choose the Build Your Own Omelet option, you won't leave hungry. Diners have a choice of a mega list of ingredients to fill the egg dish: roasted balsamic tomatoes, caramelized onions, artichoke hearts, caramelized leeks, spinach, ham and Swiss and cream cheese.
Other options include Poblano Pepper Sauce, Kalamata Olive Relish, broccoli, avocado, capers, peppered bacon, salmon lox, Asiago cheese, soy mozzarella and sharp cheddar.
FYI: Third Coast Spice Cafe, 761 Indian Boundary Road. Call 219-926-5858.
Miner-Dunn's Cheese Supreme
A traumatic experience for Region residents involves going off to college, where one learns they don't make burgers correctly outside of Northwest Indiana.
Miner-Dunn on Indianapolis Boulevard in Highland makes burgers the right way, the region way — by grilling brawny beef patties wide enough to jut out from the bun so the edges are crisp but the middle stays juicy. The old-fashioned diner dates back to 1932 in Hammond and looks like the 1950s frozen in amber, but still packs them in by making real hamburgers the way they are supposed to be made.
The piquancy of the two slices of Old English Cheese in the grilled cheese-like Cheese Supreme is what takes the diner's signature hamburger over the top. The lean hamburger patty can be adorned with ketchup, mustard, relish and chopped onion as well as a variety of other toppings of one's choosing in between buttered white, wheat, sourdough or rye bread.
The burger comes with Miner-Dunn's addictive hand-cut fries and the paper cup of orange sherbert that makes it a staple of many region childhoods.
Lincoln's Carry Outs' 'Steelworker'
Anyone with a taste for a hefty sandwich with myriad fillings won't go wrong visiting Lincoln's Carry Outs in Crown Point.
One of the specialty sandwiches is The Steelworker, a flavorful creation packed with grilled roast beef on rye with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and topped with American cheese. On the day we ordered The Steelworker, it was oozing with melted cheese and proved extremely satisfying.
As one might expect with a name like The Steelworker, no other sides were necessary when consuming this sandwich.
Lincoln's is at 1203 N. Main St., Crown Point. Call (219) 226-9972 or visit lincolncarryoutscp.com.
Schererville Lounge's Frog Legs
Frog legs long have been a Region staple, usually when accompanied by fried lake perch.
Times change and so do tastes, and once-universal menu items become the province of a few old school establishments like the Schererville Lounge, 48 E. Joliet St. Stop by the dimly lit family-style neighborhood joint to find out why frog legs are considered a delicacy in countries like Indonesia, Portugal and France.
Frog legs taste a lot like chicken wings, though the meat itself is lighter and fishier tasting. The Schererville Lounge, the type of place where you can still buy Old Style for $1.50 Sunday through Tuesday, accentuates the seafood flavor with wedges of lemon for spritzing and a ramekin of savory butter sauce for dipping.
For information, call (219) 322-5660.
Three Floyds Brewery's Scotch Egg
Three Floyds Brewery has developed a reputation for creating some of the finest beers in the world.
Much less well-known is that the brewery, tucked away in an industrial park at 9750 Indiana Parkway in Munster, doubles as a gastropub, serving an eclectic menu filled with gourmet variations on bar food favorites. Perhaps the most popular is the house chef's version of a Scotch Egg, the Russian nesting doll of pub snacks.
At its core, this menu staple features a perfectly soft-boiled egg, which is then enveloped in a concentric mass of well-seasoned duck sausage, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. The Scotch Egg is placed in a bowl on a bed of fresh arugula and pickled shallots before being glazed with a mustard vinaigrette dressing. A couple of generous ladles of duck jus sauce help keep the crispy snack moist and flavorful.
A knife and fork approach assures that every bite will treat the palate with a sampling of each of the dish's warm, comforting layers.
For more information, call the pub at (219) 922-4425
Jack Binion's Steakhouse's Filet Mignon
There's steak, then there's the kind of steak that's like a religious experience.
The USDA Certified Angus Beef at Jack Binion's Steakhouse at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond is phenomenal, otherworldly. Jack Binion's offers the sort of upscale cuts of beef one would tear into to mark a special occasion, maybe a graduation or anniversary.
The luxuriously appointed steakhouse, 777 Casino Center Drive, seems like it should be in the Loop, but has a panoramic view of Lake Michigan, including one of the Region's most spectacular views of the Chicago skyline.
The hand-cut meat is tender and expertly cooked: crisp on the outside, soft on the inside and seasoned to perfection. Every bite is an event, a juicy burst of pure meaty deliciousness.
You could add horseradish cream, blue cheese, or French sauces, but the steak really stands of its own and needs no distractions.
For information, call (219) 473-6028.
Wagner's Baby Back Ribs
Few restaurants in the Region are more synonymous with one dish than Wagner's is with ribs.
And with good reason. The restaurant dishes out 300 to 400 orders of its famed barbecued baby back pork ribs in a night, more than 150,000 pounds in a year.
The modest-looking bar and restaurant that opened Aug. 8, 1988, at 361 Wagner Road in Porter has expanded its dining area and menu for its 21-and-over clientele. Steaks, sandwiches and burgers are tempting, along with an extensive beer list.
But you can't go wrong when you order a rack of Wagner's fall-off-the-bone tender ribs with a sauce that perfectly balances sweet and tangy. A gentle pull of a rib bone, and the smoked meat is there for the taking.
Call (219) 926-7614 or contact wagnersribs.com, for information.
Romano's Ham Hoagie
Romano's in Griffith boldly claims on its menus to have invented the hot ham and cheese hoagie.
Such an assertion would be hard to verify, but the deliciousness of the sandwich is impossible to deny.
Romano's brags that it’s the "home of the hoagie," and it does it well. The restaurant at 1927 W Glen Park Ave. starts with Polish ham and wraps it with a secret blend of cheeses it uses on its pizzas. The meat and cheese meld perfectly, and the effect on the taste buds is electric.
A layer of tomatoes and shredded lettuce adds a crisp, clean crunch. A generous slathering of mayo makes it richer.
Romano's ham hoagie is essentially just a few basic ingredients tucked into a toasted Vienna bun, but they come together perfectly to achieve a transcendent taste. It's Romano's top-seller, and one online reviewer said it has so much cheese it would be a No. 1 seller in Wisconsin, too.
Call (219) 838-1731 for information.
Joseph S. Pete
Business Reporter
Region native Joseph S. Pete is a Lisagor Award-winning business reporter who covers steel, industry, unions, the ports, retail, banking and more. The Indiana University grad has been with The Times of Northwest Indiana since 2013.
