178 US-2I’ve been coming up to Mackinaw City for work every so often for several years now. In all that time, I’ve never really stopped in St. Ignace. I drove around St. Ignace a couple of times but I’ve never stopped at any place other than a gas station or even went to check out what the downtown had to offer.
I got off work pretty early on Day 4 of our trip to Mackinac Island. We caught the first ferry over to the Island at 7:30 then caught the 10:30 back. I still had some work to finish up but I did so in my hotel room. I clocked out for the day at about 2:00 giving me the rest of the afternoon to explore and nap.
It was a rainy crappy day so I didn’t get to do any of the things I actually wanted to do. I was determined to cross the Mackinac Bridge for lunch though and at least drive around St. Ignace to see what I’m missing out on.
I chose Clyde’s Drive-In for lunch. It’s not in downtown St. Ignace but it looked interesting.
Clyde’s Drive in is on US-2 just west of the I-75 interchange just west of the city limits. The drive-in is pretty standard drive in from a bygone era. There is a large canopy in front of a small building. Almost all of the stalls were full when I pulled in right around 2:30 on a Thursday afternoon.
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There is an inside order area but that has been closed for quite a while. You’re asked to call in an order if you can’t fit in a stall. I found an empty slot and pulled up a menu on my phone. There are menus hanging on the building and hanging from the canopy but I was parked in a spot where I could read any of them very well so finding one online worked much better.
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I sat there for just a couple of minutes until one of the carhops saw me. She came over and took my order then went back inside. I picked the “Big C” burger because that’s kind of their specialty. I also added on an order of fries.
It took less than ten minutes for the carhop to come back out with my bag food. Clyde’s Drive-In is cash only. I had a feeling it was going to be so I hit a drive thru ATM to get cash before I trekked across the bridge. My bill was a little over $12 but it was cold, crappy rainy day so I just told the carhop to keep the $20..
I started in on the fries while I was giving myself the tour of St. Ignace. The fries are what I expected. They’re simple fries out of a bag. Included with the fries were a couple packages of salt and some ketchup. The order was pretty large though but as I’d soon find out, I didn’t need that much food.
I knew “The Big C” was a pretty large burger and that’s kind of why I ordered. The sandwich is two burger patties making up 3/4 of a pound of beef. The carhop asked what I wanted on it and I said just cheese. I had a feeling I would be eating it in the car so I didn’t want anything to make a mess. The sandwich is a super simple diner burger but those can be the best burger sometime. This sandwich was delicious. The burgers were cooked all the way through but retained some of it’s juiciness and the edges had those little crispy bits only possible on a flat top.
Clyde’s Drive-In is classic drive in. They’ve probably been doing the same thing for several decades but when you do it well, there’s no reason to change.