CJ's Pub: downtown's burger tavern since 1984

Labor Day 1984 — still pouring

The founding: CJ's Pub stands at 236 South Michigan Street, at the corner of Michigan and Wayne in the heart of downtown. Its own account, carried on its site and menu, runs: RJ — an entertainer and people person his whole life — opened CJ's on Labor Day 1984 and made it the institution it is, on the then-novel concept of the best and biggest burger around, the "Super Pub Burger." The Round the Bend local-history podcast's 2025 episode, recorded with co-owner Judy Gish, counts the run the same way: opened near downtown in 1984, "and 41 years later, they are still serving." One 2017 bar guide gives the address as 280 South Michigan; the pub's own site, its signage and every current directory give 236 South Michigan, and the conflict is printed rather than silently settled.

Fire and rebuilding: The room's one documented interruption was fire: a 2014 Notre Dame guide records that CJ's "had a fire a few years back and had to rebuild," the new room bigger, with a dance floor added on Saturday nights. The pub's trade across its four decades is the downtown tavern's whole arc — the burger that food magazines noticed (Food & Wine among them, per the guides), the student favorite of the 1980s become the multi-generation institution of the 2020s — and it stands in November 2026 as downtown's longest-running bar of its era, its hours and kitchen listed current in the directories.

Sources:

1. CJ's Pub, house site and menu (cjs-pub.com) — RJ's Labor Day 1984 opening, the Super Pub Burger, 236 South Michigan Street; Round the Bend Now and Then podcast, "CJ's Pub" (2025) — the 1984 opening, co-owner Judy Gish, "41 years later." The Hudsucker, "Bar Guide: South Bend, Indiana" (2017) — "a South Bend favorite since 1984," at the 280 South Michigan address printed above as a conflict.
2. Her Loyal Sons, "Top 10 Things To Do Blue-Gold Weekend," 10 April 2014 — the fire and rebuilding "a few years back," the enlarged room and dance floor; current directories (November 2026) — CJ's operating at 236 South Michigan Street.