Dagger Mountain Roastery - Burns Harbor, IN

This January I took a statewide roadtrip throughout the state of Indiana. I made it a point to take a small break and discover another hidden gem: Dagger Mountain Roastery in Burns Harbor, IN. This cute little garage was nestled on the end of an industrial street in a neighborhood just south of Lake Michigan.

Upon entering it became clear that this was an in-house cafe at a facility that sells its coffee blends throughout the region. Nevertheless, I had some emails to catch up on, so I took the opportunity to poke around. I particularly enjoyed the amount of flora that they had to make the space feel more airy. Not pictured was a large bookshelf full of fun reads to take in while devouring your pastry.

The latte looked as good as the apple cinnamon scone tasted

After leaving Dagger Mountain I found some fresh snow in a wide open parking lot. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the differential locks on my rental Jeep. This car was more fun than I realized!

While some would consider this beautiful area “far from Chicago,” I found that it was only about an hour drive. The scenery and topography were wildly different than what can be found just West of the lake, so this is a great area for a quick escape from the concrete jungle.