Coney Express

Coney Express comes with a healthy side of South Bend nostalgia. A lot of us remember it from Scottsdale Mall, back when going to the mall meant more than wandering through the remains of civilization looking for a cellphone case. The family eventually sold the business, then later bought it back, which tells you there was more attached to this place than hot dogs and soup. Today, Coney Express is tucked into a little shopping plaza at 3602 Grape Road in Mishawaka. It isn’t some giant building screaming for attention, so keep your eyes open or you might roll right past it. Pllenty of people do know exactly where it is, though. Coney Express collected 470 votes and 76% of the poll to win our November Soup Mob. So Saturday morning, the GastroMob showed up to find out why. I counted about 22 GastroMob members, 23 if you count me, plus another four or five groups who had absolutely nothing to do with us and had simply arrived because they wanted good food. The layout isn't unusual. You order at the counter, there are tables on the main level, bar style seating, then a couple of steps lead to more seating. It worked. We found enough room, filled up the booths and started doing what we do...eating, talking, reconnecting with familiar faces and meeting some new ones. Jen and I started with a flight of five soups. vegetable, beef noodle, chili, cream of mushroom and cheesy broccoli. Each one was better than the next. They were hearty, loaded with ingredients and had the right ratio of broth to stuff. Nobody wants to order beef noodle soup and conduct a dig looking for the beef. That wasn’t a problem here. The cheesy broccoli was the standout. Thick, cheesy and packed with giant chunks of cruciferous vegetable. That makes it healthy, right? I’m pretty sure once you can visibly identify broccoli, the cheese no longer counts against you. Then came the dogs. I got the Seattle Dog with cream cheese, bacon and crispy onions. It was good. Rich, crunchy, salty and completely uninterested in being sensible. I ordered the Holiday Dog mostly for the story. It comes covered with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Sounds like somebody dropped Thanksgiving dinner onto a hot dog just to see what happens. What happened was…it worked. With all those soft, savory starches piled together, the tart cranberry sauce hit exactly where it needed to. I’m not going to lie, I expected a novelty. Instead, I got a pretty good hot dog combination. Filling as heck, but good. Of course I had to get a Coney Island dog with chili, onions, cheese and mustard because..well....the place is called Coney Express. It tasted like the kind of dog you’d get from one of those old joints in Detroit. Familiar, messy and exactly what it was supposed to be. Jen got crispy and hot tater tots, and I tried the Greek fries, covered in feta and tzatziki sauce. Those fries were out of sight. Oh my goodness, they were good. I had already eaten five soups and was working my way through several hot dogs and I still kept reaching for those fries. By the time we were finished, we had covered a respectable portion of the menu and left thoroughly fed. The prices were right, the portions were solid and the staff kept everything moving while a whole lot of people descended on the place at once. Most importantly, everybody showed up, ordered what they wanted, paid their own bill, tipped the staff and gave a longtime local family business some love. No secret handshake. No special treatment. Just old members, new members, good conversation and an unreasonable amount of soup. That’s GastroMob. *Remember, GastroMob lasts all week. If you couldn’t make the kickoff, Coney Express is still there. Go find that little plaza, try a couple of soups, order something ridiculous on a bun and leave them a review.