Longtime area restaurateur and food truck owner “Moe” Mroueh will open reservations-only C.12 in downtown Michigan City May 28.

A new reservations-only, tasting-menu restaurant with one seating a night is opening at the end of the month in Michigan City. 

C.12, a Lebanese restaurant, is the latest venture for restaurateur Mohamed “Moe” Mroueh, who has owned and operated several restaurants and a food truck in Michigan City over several decades. 

C.12 is housed in a long-vacant former Masonic Temple at Sixth Street and Pine; it was purchased last year by NWI Development Group for redevelopment. 

Starting May 28, C.12 will be open Thursdays through Saturdays for one seating for 12 diners at 6:30 pm. Reservations are open now. The tasting menu is $65.

Patrons, who will enter through the building’s side door and descend a flight of stairs to the restaurant, will be offered a multi-course tasting menu featuring dishes such as stuffed grape leaves, hummus, fresh pita, lentil soup, tabouleh, warak enab (rice with herbs made with meat or vegetarian), rekakat (cheese rolls made of phyllo), spinach fatayer (a baked pastry), falafel, fried eggplant, baked kibbeh (meat pie) and fish cooked Lebanese style.

Moe, who was raised in Lebanon, came to Michigan City in 1992. His first restaurant job was as a dishwasher at Sizzler, a chain steakhouse restaurant in Highland. He went on to be a waiter and then a manager. 

He then founded several restaurants in Michigan City including Eat at Moe’s, a Mediterranean restaurant; Sahara, a Lebanese restaurant; and The Pickle and Turnip. Lots of the recipes were from Moe’s mother, who traveled back and forth from Lebanon to Michigan City to help out in the restaurant. His mom passed away a few years ago, about five years after starting Pickle & Turnip, and Moe says he “kinda lost interest (in the restaurant business) a little bit.”  

He operated the beach concession in Michigan City before Covid struck, and moved to North Carolina for love. 

He returned to Michigan City last year, after that relationship ended, and he came up the idea for C.12 while operating his Mediterranean food truck, Moe’s. 

“I knew I didn’t want a big restaurant,” Moe says. “I always like to talk to my customers, to walk around a dining room. So the opportunity came for an open-concept kitchen in the old Masonic Temple building.”

The building’s owners were envisioning a ghost kitchen, “but I saw more,” he says. He designed a horseshoe-shaped bar to seat 12 patrons. He brought on chef Maha Hakim, who is from Beirut. “I wanted to honor my mother (whose photo is on display at the restaurant and is shown here),” he says, so the menus will incorporate many of her recipes. 

C.12 will be open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays for now; Moe says he’ll soon add more nights and a second seating. I attended a preview dinner a few months ago and the soft opening May 15; Mr. Diva and I enjoyed every bite. I’m no restaurant critic, but fresh herbs and lemon came through in many of the dishes, which were bright and full of of flavor.

NWI Development Group, which developed The Banc in Hammond and a cool midcentury office building in Beverly Shores, among other projects, has hopes for the Masonic Temple that include a boutique hotel; for now it remains empty save for C.12.  

C.12, 132 E. 6th St., Michigan City