McDonald’s (Sprinkle Road)
3900 S. Sprinkle RoadMy daughter is driving. How did this happen?
Well, she’s got her permit anyway. She still has over a year until she gets her actual license so we get to spend the next 14 months teaching her how to drive.
Obviously, she wants to drive everywhere right now. There are still something that make J a little nervous with her so I’m getting drafted to take her places.
She wanted to drive to Wings Event Center on Sunday. It would be the farthest she has driven on the highway since her highway drive with the driving instructor. I had to go to WEC on Sunday anyway for something so I volunteered to just take her.
The drive went fine and we got there about twenty minutes before she started skating. My plan was just to hang out in The Overlook but there was a card show using that space so I couldn’t sit up there and watch. I didn’t really want to drive all the way back home so I figured I’d just go get something to eat.
I didn’t feel like going very far so fast food won out. I hadn’t been to a McDonald’s in a pretty long time so I figured, why not?
I decided to just go to the McDonald’s on Sprinkle Road north of Covington Road in Kalamazoo’s Milwood Neighborhood. The restaurant has been in this spot for decades but about ten years ago, it went through the remodel to give it the boxy, boring, grey color scheme that most of the McDonalds now have. I did not realize it at the time but I actually blogged about this McDonald’s before the remodel back in 2010. The restaurant sits in a very commercial area with Wendy’s to one side, a hotel to the other and the Zeigler Motorsports complex with Trak Houz right across the street.
Read more…Jimmy John’s (South Westnedge)
3116 S. Westnedge AvenueWe have become such a Jimmy John’s family. It’s the one place everyone in our family likes and it’s also a pretty solid meal.
I pick up Jimmy John’s a lot for the kids either before or after skating at Wings Event Center from the Sprinkle Road shop. I rack up a lot of points doing that and will often use them to get free sandwiches from the downtown location while I’m at work.
I was out of the office late last week for a job assignment and I realized I was really hungry. I didn’t have a lot of time and I didn’t really want to think too much about what I was doing.
I was kind of near Western Michigan University and I could have just hit up either the Jimmy John’s across from Waldo or came back downtown. But what’s the fun in that. Let’s find a new one.
I picked the Jimmy John’s on the corner of South Westnedge Avenue and Whites Road in the South Westnedge Neighborhood. The restaurant is a stand alone building in the front of the large shopping center on the corner. This is a rather large building for a Jimmy John’s but as far as I can remember, this building was built specifically for this business.
Read more…Que Deli
333 W. Fort Street #1I had a couple of long days in Detroit last week.
It all started Tuesday night when a co-worker and I left Kalamazoo around 1:00. We worked early in to the next morning then headed to our hotel at the Fort Ponchatrain downtown. We got a little sleep, got back up and went at it again until we left Detroit a little after noon.
I was really stressed out on Tuesday night and stress makes me not hungry. The rest of our crew went to Mootz Pizzeria for dinner but I was still working out some issues at the venue we were working at and wasn’t hungry at the time. I think the only thing I ended up eating on Tuesday was some snacks at the venue we were working at.
I didn’t get a lot of sleep before getting up Wednesday morning. We had a job to do then a few hours of rest time. I headed back to my room and thought about walking somewhere for breakfast. I’m pretty sure the rest of my colleagues just ate at the hotel but in the end, I didn’t even feel like doing that. I just wanted to lay down for a few more hours.
My search for breakfast did lead me to a good looking deli nearby though and instead of breakfast, I decided to hit it up on the way out of town for lunch.
Que Deli is on Fort Street near Cass Street in the Fort Washington Plaza. The deli near the Federal Building in downtown Detroit is named after it’s owner, Kujtim (Que) Kolami. The business is on the street level part of 16 story Fort Washington Plaza building built in the late 1960’s. The building is slated for demolition sometime in the near future to make way for a hotel project connecting to the nearby by Huntington Place. The entrance is on the Fort Street side of the building and while there are some garages in the area for parking, there are spaces along the street as well. There were a few open ones that were easy to get in to so I was able to park right in front of the building.
Read more…Yalla Habibi
3645 W. Michigan AvenueIs it just me or have all of my blog posts lately revolved around working?
Fall is just a busy time of year for me. I get to catch up on some of the bills we accrued all summer traveling for figure skating competitions.
Last Saturday night, I was working my second job. Not my freelance job. A different one that is part time and semi-regular during the winter months on weekends.
I got done with the job just before 10:00 and started towards home. I was hungry and thought about just hitting up a McDonalds or something quick.
However, there is a food truck that stays open late not too far from the college kids and WMU so I decided that might be the better option.
Yalla Habibi is a food truck but it’s parked somewhat permanently at the Marathon gas station on West Michigan Avenue near Jack Pine Way. I remember seeing some planning commission documents with the City of Kalamazoo a while ago for some hookups so even though it’s a food truck, they plan on staying in this spot. The truck is open late Friday and Saturday nights even though the gas station itself closes a little earlier. It’s also right next to The Library Kitchen & Taphouse and it was funny to see a bunch of the college kids in their Halloween costumes come out of The Library, order food at Yalla Habibi then go back in to The Library once they were done.
Read more…Little Caesars (South Westnedge)
6929 S. Westnedge AvenueNot every night can be a fancy dinner.
My overtime shift kept me pretty close to home last Friday night. I just had to go to Portage for a couple of hours. Not a bad deal except I don’t get to explore when it comes to dinner.
I wanted to keep things a little bit cheaper and I wanted something quick. I was really really close to just going to McDonalds but at the last minute I thought of something else. It wasn’t much better but at least I could get two meals out of it.
The Little Ceasears on South Westnedge in Portage opened up earlier this year as a replacement for the one further north on Westnedge that was torn down to make way for the Raising Cane’s. This new location is just south of a McDonalds and just north of the intersection with Romence Road. This whole building was an O’Reilly Auto Parts at one time. It was later converted in to multiple store fronts. One end is a RnR Tire Express. The other half, which used to be a Medical Express, is cut up again and Little Ceasars takes part of that building right next to the tire shop.
Read more…3 Sisters Sandwich Company
425 Capital Avenue NEIt’s not often I get sent out on my own during the day anymore at work.
I used to really take advantage of that and take my time doing tasks and search for someplace to eat in whatever area of Michigan I was sent to.
My colleague took a PTO day a couple of days ago and that meant I got sent out to do a task on my own. A Grand Rapids colleague was driving down to meet me later in the day but not before I had time to get lunch.
I was in the Battle Creek area after I finished my task and as I was waiting for the other colleague to make her way down from up north. It was lunch time and there was a sandwich shop that I had been hearing about for a while. It was time to check it out.
3 Sisters Sandwich Company is on Capital Avenue and McKinley Avenue on the northeast side of Battle Creek. The restaurant shares a building with Froggy’s Depot. This spot on the Eastern part of the building hasn’t really been anything for a while. It was previously used as part of Froggy’s Depot when that business was more than a vape shop. Before that, it sat empty and boarded up for several years. This deli is a definite glow up and makes use of a highly visible building on a very busy road
Read more…Pizza Sam Restaurant
104 E. Superior StreetOne more week with a Saturday trip to Mt. Pleasant.
I’ve mentioned over the last couple of months that I’ve been doing some side work on Saturday’s. That work has seen me spend the better part of my Saturday in either Ypsilanti or Mt. Pleasant.
I had to go to Mt. Pleasant three of the last four weeks. They were super early mornings. I had to be on the road by a little after 4:30 AM after not getting home from my regular job until closer to 11 PM.
This past Saturday, my job was done around 5:30 PM and I headed home. I’ve been grabbing something to eat along the way because I don’t get to that part of Mid-Michigan very often.
I had been taking M-46 then cutting up to Mt. Pleasant on a country road but last week, the GPS took me home US-127 so I stayed on the highway the whole time.
I realize going this way didn’t add much, if any, time to the drive and there were a few more options for stops along the way.
I decided I was going to go home this way last weekend and once I made that decision, I started looking in Alma for a place to eat. I figured being a college town, I should be able to find something amazing.
My first instinct was to look for pizza….and I’m so glad I did.
My pick for dinner this week was Pizza Same Restaurant in downtown Alma. The restaurant has been a mainstay of the small college town since the early 1960’s. It sits on Superior Street just to the east of State Street. The original restaurant actually started a few blocks away in 1960 but moved to this location in 1962 and quickly expanded in to neighboring buildings due to it’s popularity. The restaurant has been owned by the family of a Sicilian immigrant from the beginning and they continue to use the same recipes that have made this place popular enough to win Mlive’s Michigan’s Best Pizza when they went around the state in 2013.
Read more…Los Amigos Mexican Restaurant (Gull Road)
5480 Gull RoadMy eating out is gotten pretty limited to weekends. No real reason. I just know I’m going to have an opportunity on Friday nights due to my overtime shift and I’ve been traveling for a second job on weekends so I’m getting to explore some new places.
This past Friday, my overtime shift kept me pretty close to Kalamazoo. I started the evening in Parchment. I wasn’t in a super big hurry to get there and had some time after my regular daytime shift.
There are a couple of really good places to eat in Parchment. Geno’s Pizza and Buen Provecho are always good stops but you should know me by now. I’m always looking for different places.
I decided to head out towards Gull Road to pick something to eat up there. My first thought was, of course, pizza. I knew I was going to be stopping on my way home from Mt. Pleasant the following night for pizza so I did something else instead. I picked tacos.
I stopped at Los Amigos Mexican Restaurant on the corner of Gull Road and Sprinkle Road in Comstock Township. This is was the third Los Amigos to open in the Kalamazoo area in 2015 following the original shop on Westnedge in Portage and the second location in the old Buffalo Wild Wings on Stadium Drive in Kalamazoo. There was also a fourth location that moved in to a building in front of the Lowes on Westnedge a little bit later. This particular building is an old Big Boy that closed in the early 2010s. A lot of former Big Boy’s still look like former Big Boy’s but the solarium, which is the main identifying architectural feature, was closed in so it’s not as obvious.
Read more…Samuel Mancino’s (Mt. Pleasant)
4153 E. Blue Grass RoadYup. Back in Mt. Pleasant.
I’ve spent several Saturday’s in Mt. Pleasant this fall and I’m not complaining about it. The work I do on these Saturday’s pays really well. I have one more weekend after this. I’m looking forward to having my Saturday’s back but I really can’t complain too much…especially when that check hits the bank account.
I wrapped up fairly early this past Saturday. It was just before 6:00 PM before I hopped in my car and started to make the drive back to Kalamazoo. I was hungry though and I still have a few ideas for quick places to grab food before I leave town.
I put in an order to one of my old standby’s. Samuel Mancino’s. I’ve blogged about Mancino’s several times over the years and explained how this was one of my favorite restaurants growing up near Kankakee, IL. I didn’t realize at the time they were somewhat of a chain but when I moved to Michigan, I was excited to see them again.
The Mt Pleasant, Mancino’s is part of the Samuel Mancino’s chain. Most of the Michigan locations are in Southwest Michigan except for this one and one in Carson City. This one is on Blue Grass Road to the east of BL-127 in the Indian Hills Plaza. It’s also just down the street from Kelly/Shorts Stadium and the rest of the Central Michigan University Campus. The small restaurant sits in the south end of the shopping center between TJ Maxx and Sally Beauty.
Read more…O’Neals Smokehouse
525 S. Broadway StreetFriday night and I’m getting out of Kalamazoo for a little overtime shift.
I actually headed pretty far south. My final destination was Edwardsburg which is in Cass County near the Michigan/Indiana state line.
I’ve gotten sent down that way before. It’s a pretty long trip that is two lane and country roads most of the way down there. I had the advantage that I had some time. I didn’t work my normal 9-5 shift. I worked a very early morning shift that saw me off the clock by about 11:00. I went home, took a nap, picked the kids up from school, dropped them off at Wings Event Center, then started making my way towards Edwardsburg a little before 5:00
I’ve done the pizza a few times when I’ve gone to Edwardsburg. One time I stopped at Papa’s Pizzeria. Another time I went in to Indiana and got dinner at Jimmy’s Pizza & Ribs in Granger.
I started looking for food options along my route as I always do and I found something that sounded better than pizza along the way.
O’Neals Smokehouse is on the corner of Broadway Street and Reed Street just across the road from Stone Lake in Cassopolis. The small building has been a restaurant for many years but just became a BBQ joint a coupe of years ago. For a long time, it was a pizza joint called Marcello’s Pizzeria. I actually made a trip down there one night (on my way home from Edwardsburg) because it was kind of a Chicago style pizza joint with a delicious thin crust Italian beef pizza. After that closed, it briefly became Ploughman’s Market before a BBQ company called The Hotbox Munchies bought it and the place became O’Neals Smokehouse
Read more…
