Fleig's Cafe — Restaurant in Ferdinand

A Hidden Gem in Ferdinand, Indiana

I found Fieg’s completely by accident—and I’m so glad I did.

After a late dinner fell through in nearby Santa Claus, I looked online for any place still open and came across Fieg’s. I called to make sure I wouldn’t be coming in too close to closing, and Ben—the owner—answered the phone himself. Not only did he welcome me warmly, he told me I could come by if I promised to have a beer with them. That kind of hospitality is rare these days.

When I arrived, Ben was outside wrapping up the evening, but he instantly recognized my voice and made me feel like an old friend. Before I even walked through the doors, we were talking about travel, theme parks, and small-town life. He told me he had only owned the place for six weeks and had already brought back a beloved tradition: barbecue chicken nights, which the community had missed for years.

The food? Incredible. Some of the best barbecue chicken I’ve had in ages, and the sides were perfect too. The drink I had was strong, delicious, and a fraction of what I’d pay in Orlando. But honestly, the real magic wasn’t the food—it was the people.

Inside, I talked to locals who shared stories about Santa Claus Land back in the day, flying small planes with their dads, and raising families in a town that values community over convenience. I came in expecting to grab food to go. Instead, I stayed well past closing, soaking in stories and kindness that you just don’t find everywhere.

If you’re anywhere near Ferdinand, go to Fieg’s. It’s more than a restaurant—it’s a reminder that community still exists, and sometimes the best meals are the ones you didn’t plan for.

Thank you, Ben and team. You’ve got something really...

I’m from a very small town (less than 450 people). So, everyone there knew each other by first name and we got some strange looks when we walked in, no big deal. We are out of place tourists. I get it. Everybody there was drinking and one guy had a cigar in his mouth. Again, I’m from a small town just like this. Didn’t bother me at all. Just want to paint a real picture of the place for those traveling reading this. Service wasn’t bad. It wasn’t over the top, but wasn’t bad by no means. But, the food, the food was awful! I mean awful. We drove to this place because we were tired of eating holiday world theme park food and I wish we would have stayed and ate at the theme park because surprisingly the theme park food tastes gourmet next to this place. I think our big mistake was although it’s advertised as a cafe, this is a bar. But, even with that I’ve had good food at a bar before. My burger tasted just like one of those microwave $1 box burgers. The breaded tenderloin was clearly from a frozen freezer package and it was served without a bun on plain white bread. $7.50 for that alone! The French fries & cheese curds were edible b/c they went through an air fryer. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast so we struggled through everything, but this place sits at the top of the list of worst tasting cafes in North America. I love supporting local and always try to eat at one of these places when traveling but I really regret stopping here. I can’t believe I’m admitting this but we hit the McDonald’s drive through on the way back to Santa Claus just to get the taste out...

Went here on a Saturday morning. We were wanting breakfast at someplace other than the arches. The place is a combo bar on one side attached to a family dining area. The man tending bar brought use menus and took our beverage orders, and gave us the menus, which had breakfast on one side and lunch/ dinner on the other. We ordered the breakfast platter. Scrambled/bacon/ potato triangles and Scrambled/sausage/ potato triangle. Plus toast with both. One toast had butter and grape jelly on it. The other nothing. He stopped by and we asked for topping for her toast. She asked for strawberry jelly but they only had. Grape. He never brought her any butter so just shared mine and let it go as he was busy with the other people there who were a large party. The potato triangles were over- cooked but not too bad. The eggs were ok. The sausage I got was flat and about 4.5 " in diameter. They gave a fork and butter knife which I attempted to use to cut the sausage. No go. This was the second toughest food item I ever tried to cut up. The first was alligator meat in FLA. Many years ago. I was able to tear off a few bites then gave up. Was not real tasty anyway. My girl gave me some of her bacon, which was not too bad. All in all, we wished we had gone to McD. This was not worth the $10 a plate. Food was served...