Former MSU Hangout, the Varsity Inn, East Lansing: From the 40s thru the 70s

Here’s another favorite campus hangout that disappeared decades ago.

Who is old enough to remember hanging out at the Varsity Inn, once located at 1227 E. Grand River Avenue in East Lansing?

Students from MSU began hanging out there in the 1940s until the 1970s.

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Opening in November 1948 by owner E. G. Basel, the Varsity advertised itself as having free parking (didn’t every place back then?), 45-cent footlong hotdogs, chicken & shrimp for $1.25, fish & chips for 63-cents, thick milk shakes, and by 1955 served T-bone steaks for one dollar (“especially picked from choice, corn-fed cattle”).

Remodeld since the 1970s, the last incarnation of this building was a Los Tres Amigos location.

In 2025 it was empty and listed for sale.