Tavern 32
8896 N. 32nd StreetEvery so often I get asked if I can work a shift outside of my normal shift. I like to say yes to these requests in hopes that the people asking things of me are willing to work with me when I need a shift adjustment.
This past Thursday, I was asked to work an overnight shift. I don’t mind working these shifts because it gets me off work early in the afternoon and I can help J with all the shuttling of kids we need to do in the evenings.
I got off work in Grand Rapids around 12:30 and headed home. I was actually going to grab lunch in Grand Rapids but decided against it because I didn’t know how the roads were. I had to get back to Kalamazoo by 2:30 to pick L up from school and get her to Wings Event Center for her evening practice.
I made it with plenty of time to spare. I got her to the arena then had to go back across town and pick B up at his school at 4:00. Once I got him, we headed back to Wings Event Center as he would have practice later that evening. I wanted to watch L for a while. I haven’t really seen much of her new programs for the upcoming season because she’s usually done skating by the time I get off work.
L has been taking strength classes through Athletic Mentors for a few years now. They were always at Wings West and it was super convenient. She’d typically grab a snack from Burdick’s after she got done skating then go to her classes.
That’s obviously not a thing anymore with the closure of West but she is still doing the Athletic Mentors classes….but they’re in Richland now.
It’s a little bit of dance to work out schedules and get everyone where they need to be on the nights she has classes but J has made it work.
I’m not usually off work in time to get her there so I offered to take her to Richland after she was done skating on this night. J does it three times a week so I could jump in and take care of it while I had the chance.
I dropped her off at 6:30 and told her I was going to grab dinner while she was doing her thing. I did this last time I took her and ate at The Richland Pub. I could have done that again but you all know I’m a little extra. There are some other options in Richland and I want to check those out too.
My stop for dinner was at Tavern 32 on 32nd Street/M-89 south of C Avenue just north of the village limits for the Village of Richland in Richland Township. The shop is a stand alone building inside small shopping plaza. In a previous life, this space was Mission POinte The restaurant is a little over a year old and it’s a spiritual successor to North Eleven in Comstock Township. When that business closed in April of 2024, a message was put on the website to visit this “new location with a new and exciting experience.” The owner also owns Green Top Tavern in downtown Kalamazoo.
Read more…Peace, Love and Little Donuts (Portage)
6043 S. Westnedge AvenueI hate it when TV, Radio and the newspapers make a huge deal about some new fast food chain moving in. Buckle up, y’all, there’s a Chick-Fil-A and a Raising Cane’s opening up next month so the ridiculousness will be off the charts.
The reason I hate it so much is because those places don’t need the advertising. Local media always ignores when local restaurants open up but then they pounce when a place closes. You’ll see headlines like “Beloved Kalamazoo community staple closes doors.” If that restaurant was so beloved and such a community staple, why did you wait until they closed to do a story?
Now I’m guilty of the same thing. I have driven past a shop in Portage for years and kept saying, “I’ll get to it eventually.”
Well, I did get to it eventually….their last week in business.
Peace, Love and Little Donuts is on South Westnedge just south of Milham Avenue. The shop looks kind of out of place among the big brick buildings along the busy South Westnedge commercial corridor. It almost looks more like a house than a donut shop. The chain donut shop with over twenty locations in 12 states opened this Portage franchise in the summer of 2017.
Read more…A Burger N Wings (Portage)
273 W. Centre AvenueBoy, has it been a while since I’ve had a local blog post. I honestly haven’t been eating out much and there hasn’t been a lot of new places open recently. There have been a few and I still have a list of places I need to get to. Winter always slows me down a bit. I don’t venture out much unless I have to. I spend a lot of mine time at work outdoors so I don’t do a lot of extra trips.
I was at the K-Wings game this past Saturday at Wings Event Center. I didn’t really eat anything at the game so when I got in the car to head home, I made plans to stop somewhere along the way. I really like the 4:30 PM start times on Saturday’s because I can still find restaurants open that aren’t the Wendy’s down the street.
One of the restaurants that has been on my list for a few weeks now is a new wing place in Portage. It was a little out of the way but it was still early enough in the evening, I decided to put in an order while I was waiting to get out of WEC.
A Burger N Wings is on Centre Avenue at Shaver Road. The restaurant is in the Portage Centre Plaza shopping center on that corner. It’s in the building furthest to the south of Centre Road next to Ziki Japanese Restaurant. There is another restaurant with the same unique spelling of this name in Lansing. I assume they’re related but there’s not much info about either out there on the interwebs.
Read more…Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers (Enterprise Center)
1401 Clark StreetSaturday night at the US Figure Skating Championships was a lot like Friday night.
We went to the Group 1 session again because B had actually made friends with one of the guys making his Senior Championships debut. He just missed the cut to make it to the evening session . Going to those early sessions also give us a chance to see some skaters we should be seeing rising to the top over the next several years.
Like Friday night, we decided not to leave the arena after the first session. There’s just not a lot of restaurants around the Enterprise Center to walk to so we decided to just pay the extra and eat inside the arena.
The concourse got pretty busy really quickly. I suggested going to the upper level concourse because most of the tickets on that level were sold by the session instead of in the All Access and Weekend packages. Those single session tickets were supposed to leave the arena after the session so I figured it would be much less busy.
I also did this because the restaurant I wanted to grab dinner from was on that level.
I was looking for Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers.
The popular fast casual burger chain opened up a concession stand on the mezzanine level of the Enterprise Center near Portal 58 in 2024. There are several Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburger locations in Metro St. Louis including one inside nearby Busch Stadium. Like other concession stands in the Enterprise Center, this one is built in the wall and looks like a typical arena concession stand but with the Freddy’s branding and food.
Read more…Fitz’s (Delmar)
6605 Delmar BoulevardI’ve written several times over the years about how my dad, brother, and a friend from elementary school all get together once a year for a baseball game at US Cellular Field/Guaranteed Rate Field/Rate Field or, this year at least, Soldier Field.
I think I’ve mentioned it before but that friend has lived in Southern Illinois for the last twenty years. He grew up a few blocks from me and my brother and was kind of like a third child for my parents. He was always around and we were always playing some kind of sport in one of our backyards.
We were texting about something a few weeks ago and I jokingly asked if he wanted to meet at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis to tailgate before the US Figure Skating Championships.
He had no interest in figure skating but he did recommend a restaurant that his family loves. I had nothing else planned so we got up Saturday morning and headed in to St. Louis for lunch before heading to the arena.
Fitz’s is regional craft soda brand specializing in root beer. The brand has been around since the 1940’s, originally as a drive in restaurant in nearby Richmond Heights. That location shut down in the mid-1970’s and the beverage production closed as well. The brand was brought back to life in the mid 1990’s with the purchase of a building on Delmar Boulevard and Leland Avenue in the cultural district known as Delmar Loop in St. Louis. The building was originally built in the late 1920’s as a bank. It was bank for many years before becoming a Chinese restaurant in the 1980’s. This is one of two locations. The South County location one opened in 2019 on Lindbergh Street. At the Delmar location, there are a couple of public parking lots off Leland Avenue. The entrance to the restaurant is closest to the Leland Avenue intersection on Delmar Boulevard.
Shake Shack (Enterprise Center)
1401 Clark AvenueThe kids’ big Christmas present this year was tickets to the US Figure Skating Championships at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
My kids aren’t in to traditional sports. They really don’t like football or hockey but they will watch figure skating for hours. I kept telling people that going to US Championships for my kids is like going to the Super Bowl.
I didn’t want to miss too much work or school because we will miss enough once their skating season starts in March. I got the weekend pass tickets which gave us access to all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
We started Friday with breakfast at Waffle House in Collinsville, IL then drove in to St. Louis for the day. The day is divided up in to two sessions with two separate tickets. The first session is shorter and only includes the teams/skaters that were in the bottom third of the standings after the short programs.
That session took about an hour and a half. I assumed we were going to get kicked out of the arena after that session was over then have to come back in for the evening session but that wasn’t the case. They pretty much just made an announcement that if you had tickets for the evening session to go check out the vendors on the concourse. No one ever scanned my evening tickets so I guess it was kind of the honor system.
We had talked about leaving and going to find dinner but by the time we did that, I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the building and it was getting pretty late anyway. We only would have had an hour or so to get dinner before the doors opened for the next session.
We decided to just eat inside the arena.
We all wanted different things and we all ended up eating at different times. I got everybody back to our seats then headed back towards the Clark Street entrance to grab something for myself.
There are quite a few options for actual name brand restaurants inside the Enterprise Center. The one I chose on Friday is on of my favorites.
The Shake Shack in the Enterprise Center is near the Clark Street entrance near Portal 4 of the arena. There are three full Shake Shacks in St. Louis plus this one at the Enterprise Center. The last time I was in St. Louis, I ate a the Central West End location. This Shake Shack looks like a concession stand because that’s essentially what it is. A concession stand with the Shake Shack branding and food.
Waffle House (Collinsville)
505 N. Bluff RoadThere’s one thing I really love about traveling south of Michigan. Waffle House.
I’ve written several blogs over the years about my stops at Waffle House on my travels for work. Somewhere along the line, I’ve gotten my family hooked as well.
Our first family experience with Waffle House was six years ago when we took a trip to Cincinnati to go to the zoo. There was a Waffle House near our hotel in Mason, OH. J liked it but the kids were still pretty young and didn’t appreciate it yet.
A couple of years ago, J and L went to Tampa for a figure skating competition. I told them there was a Waffle House not too far from their hotel. I knew that because I had stayed in the same hotel they were staying in just a few years prior to that on a work trip and ate at the Waffle House in Wesley Chapel they went to. I think that’s where L realized how great Waffle House is
Their Waffle House love was solidified last year when J and the kids went to Nashville for a figure skating competition without me. There was a Waffle House in the parking lot of their hotel and it was one of the highlights of the trip.
When we started making plans for a trip to St. Louis, I knew we’d eat at a Waffle House at least once. I knew they were in the area because I ate at the one in Maryland Heights last spring when I was in town for a work trip.
We booked a hotel in Fairview Heights, IL. I, for whatever reason, thought we had booked a hotel in Collinsville and was super excited because there was a Waffle House just down the street from the hotel I thought we booked. Fortunately, the hotel we did book was only a ten minute drive from the Waffle House I thought we were going to be next to so we went there for breakfast anyway.
The Waffle House in Collinsville, IL is right off I-55 on Bluff Road. The iconic Waffle House building is in a shopping plaza with several other businesses and restaurants but it stands alone on the northeast side of the development. We pulled in to the parking lot around 11:30 to grab some breakfast/lunch before heading in to St. Louis for the US Figure Skating Championships at the Enterprise Center.
Read more…Drake’s (O’Fallon, IL)
1160 Central Park DriveThe only thing the kids wanted for Christmas was tickets to the US Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. As soon as the event was announced, they started their campaign. “It can be our only present!”
Ticket packages went on sale way back in July of last year. We made the purchase then had to keep it a secret from them until Christmas morning. I still can’t believe neither of us let it slip although my mom came very close to tipping off B about a week before Christmas. For once, it was a good thing he had his nose buried in his phone and didn’t hear what she said.
We bought the weekend package which included tickets for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday was pairs and women’s free skates. Saturday was free dance and men’s free skate. Sunday was “Making the Team” where they announced the selections for this year’s Olympic team.
The kids would have preferred we went for the whole week but we couldn’t miss that much school and work. The plan was to leave Thursday afternoon so L could at least go to her morning classes and J could get in to the office for a few hours before we left.
When we bought the tickets, we booked a cheap hotel in Fairview Heights about twenty minutes from the Enterprise Center where the championships were being held. We got to town around 4:30, just as the Rhythm Dances were starting at the arena.
We sat in our hotel room and watched some of the competition on our phones since we didn’t have access to Peacock on the hotel TV. After about a half hour, I asked J if we were going to get dinner. I had been looking at nearby places on Google and found one I thought we’d all like.
We headed over to Drake’s on Central Park Drive west of Green Mountain Road in O’Fallon, IL. The restaurant has a pretty chain sports bar look and feel to it starting as soon as you pull in the parking lot. The restaurant is in a very commercialized area right off I-64 in between a couple of hotels.
Wendy’s (Sprinkle Road)
3805 S. Sprinkle RoadLast week was a conserve money week. We had big plans for the weekend. The kids’ Christmas gift this year was tickets to the US Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. As much as we wanted to be there the whole week, we only did the weekend pass so we wouldn’t miss too much school or work.
I took Thursday off and the plan was to make L go to school for her morning classes then pull her out right before lunch and start the drive. There was no point sending B to school for two hours and I just took the whole day off because my job doesn’t really work well with taking just the afternoon off.
As much as the kid’s wanted to leave Wednesday night or early Thursday so we could get to St. Louis in time for Rhythm Dances, it just wasn’t going to work out.
Wednesday night was a normal night for us at the rink. Both kids skated then L had some stretching classes over at The Space Dance Company not too far from Wings Event Center. L was going to get done before B was done at Wings and there was a high school game at Wings. I don’t really like showing up right before a high school game starts and trying to explain that I’m just there to pick my kid up….not watch the hockey game so please don’t charge me. I volunteered to just go get L.
I got out to the area pretty early and I was hungry. I hadn’t had time for lunch. Again, this was a conserve money week so my best options were the fast food options along Sprinkle Road.
I picked the Wendy’s on the corner of Sprinkle Road and Covington Road in Kalmazoo’s Milwood Neighborhood. The building is still in the older style of Wendy’s. The design after the sunrooms went away but before the more modern, sleeker design. It’s the same design as the now closed store on 9th Street and Texas Township.
Casey’s (Division Ave)
5437 Division Avenue SouthI volunteered to work a Friday night. Not something I do often outside of the overtime shifts I work in the fall but the boss asked for a volunteer to work Friday night the day after New Year’s. I had nothing else going on so I took the shift.
Truth be told, there was something in it for me too. L had spent the week in Florida with one of her friends and we had to pick her up at Detroit Metro Airport Friday morning. The family she went to hang out with was driving back to Michigan but they didn’t have room for her in the car and we didn’t want to make them put up with L on an 18 hour road trip.
We booked L on a 6:30 AM flight out of Orlando International Airport. She was scheduled to land in Detroit at about 8:30. J could have handled it herself if I had worked my usual day shift but it’s easier to do these things together. I dropped J off at the terminal so she could get in line to get a pass from Delta to pick L up while B and I parked the car.
Detroit has this cool thing where you can get a “Destination Pass.” You don’t need a boarding pass to get through TSA. You can get a Destination Pass from the kiosk in the terminal and get through security. B and I did that so we could join J at the gate L was coming in to.
I should have gotten a breakfast cheeseburger from Wahlburgers while we were in the terminal but I wasn’t hungry at the time. I regretted that decision as soon as we got on the road. I was hungry and now craving Wahlburgers.
We got back to Kalamazoo just before noon. I had some things to do around the house (mainly snow blowing the driveway) before I had to leave a little after 1:00 to head to Grand Rapids.
I left a early because I had to stop by my office in Kalamazoo to grab some things before heading to the Grand Rapids office. I also needed gas and food.
I got gas in Kalamazoo before leaving but food was going to wait until I got to Kent County. Friday night is pizza night. Right?
I stopped at the Casey’s on the corner of Division and 54th Street in Wyoming. This is one of the old Kum & Go stations that was bought out by Maverick and then Casey’s. The building is fairly new having been built just three years ago. It has a Division Avenue address but you can’t get in to it from Division Avenue unless you go down to the driveway for the Goodwill Store south of the intersection. Most people will come in to the business from the 54th Street side.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 