Roxy Cafe, Jackson, Michigan: 1936-Present

For years, the Roxy has been Jackson’s favorite place to plop down for breakfast.

The familiar “Roxy Cafe” sign greets all who drive up or down West Avenue, on the corner of W. Ganson Street. This classic old building, which holds the Roxy, is the Osborn Building, built in 1932. At the time, the building was intended to incorporate a few different shops to accommodate the residential neighborhood that was made up mostly of employees of the nearby factories, like Kelsey-Hayes.

Along with one of the first, Osborn’s Pharmacy, the building included a bakery, barber shop, grocer, saloon... and the Checker Sandwich Shop, which opened in 1936. In 1941, new owners took over and changed the name of the ‘Checker” to the ‘Roxy’.

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Ownership has changed many times since.

Currently, the Roxy sits 50 customers and cranks out almost 300 meals each day over the weekend. Breakfasts are oversized – omelets and hotcakes as big as the plates keep bringing people back for their first meal of the day.

In 1999, a developer wanted to tear the place down to open a Rite Aid pharmacy. That did not sit well with the locals or the Jackson Historic District Commission, who fought to have the whole building marked as a Historical site.

Mouth-watering food, awesome servings, and a sense of humor throughout the cafe make the Roxy an ongoing favorite for the discriminating Jacksonian (a/k/a, those who know good food when they taste it).

And for almost 90 years, it’s been proven over and over again.