The Rink
75 Houston Street- Battle Creek, MI 49017
- (269) 963-7465
- Website
If you haven’t heard, there’s a pretty bad ice shortage in Kalamazoo that is only going to get worse.
Wings West closed last summer and was sold to a private equity firm that is planning on getting rid of all the local user groups and running it’s own programming in house.
Wings Event Center is our only source of ice right now but those three rinks are scheduled to close in 2027 after the K-Wings move to the new arena being built downtown. When that happens, the current user groups (KOHA, GSKA, WMU Stallions, SCHSHL as well as all the adult leagues) may be without any ice.
Wings Event Center is pretty much full every day of the week but they still have other programming outside of ice events. This past weekend was the MHSAA team wrestling finals and the MyWay Wrestling state tournament. All of the available ice surfaces were out of commission.
A lot of our figure skaters have a competition coming up this weekend in East Lansing. It’s the first competition of the year so taking a whole weekend off wasn’t really something the club wanted to do. There’s no other available options in Kalamazoo so we asked Battle Creek.
The Rink in Battle Creek is a one ice sheet facility on Houston Street near McCamly Street just off of downtown Battle Creek. The arena is a little hard to find at first. It’s behind the post office and next to the Battle Creek Transit Station. You get to the rink by turning off Hamblin Avenue to Carlyle Street. There are large parking lots on either side of the big metal and brick building. The facility was owned by the City of Battle Creek from it’s opening until 2009. The current owners bought the building in 2016 and apparently just rebuffed an offer from Black Bear. Opting instead to keep The Rink locally owned.
Read more…Taqueria Don Fer Family Restaurant
9678 East D AvenueThe Richland culinary tour continues.
I’m continuing to make my way through the restaurants in Richland one Thursday night at a time.
I got off work early enough to pick L up from Wings Event Center and take her to Richland for her class at Athletic Mentors. We got there at about 6:25 for her 6:30. Once she went inside, I headed towards the east side of town to grab something for dinner.
I headed towards Taqueria Don Fer Family Restaurant on East D Avenue across the street from Gull Lake Middle school. The restaurant actually sits on a piece of land between D Avenue and M-89. This restaurant has been here for quite a while. For a long time it was Kare’s Village Diner. It briefly became Scotts Cafe in 2023 after Scotts Corner Cafe in Scotts closed and moved to this spot. That lasted about a year then Taqueria Don Fer opened a few months later.
Read more…Fazoli’s (Battle Creek)
5445 Beckley RoadI haven’t thought about Fazoli’s in years. I feel like I’ve explained in past blog posts (Lansing and Kalamazoo), that Fazoli’s was a staple part of my diet when I was in college in Joliet, IL in the late ’90’s early ’00’s.
After I moved away from Joliet, I’m not sure I had been to a Fazoli’s until we moved to Lansing and there was one near our apartment.
After that one trip in 2008, it would be almost 16 years before my next visit when I stopped in to the Kalamazoo location in 2024. That location is now closed and apparently becoming a Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers.
In fact, a lot of Fazoli’s stores are closing. The ones in Walker and Muskegon just closed as part of a nationwide reduction. That leaves only the one in Battle Creek in West Michigan.
My co-worker and I were in Battle Creek last Tuesday and ended up with a lot of time to kill. We were just sitting in the parking lot at the mall waiting for a phone call. Eventually, he said he was hungry and was craving Fazoli’s breadsticks. We knew there was one just down the street and we knew that it was one of the last one still open in the state. He said he wanted to get those breadsticks before this one closed to.
I drove over there but I wasn’t super hungry so I didn’t go in. It took him quite a while to get his food and the longer I sat there, I thought to myself, I should grab something to eat to. Just as I was about to shut the car off and go in, he came out so I didn’t do it.
I was heading through Battle Creek the following day on my way to meet a colleague in Lansing. I didn’t really have any place in Lansing I wanted to grab lunch from so I figured I might as well pull off the highway and get Fazoli’s before it disappears forever.
The Battle Creek Fazoli’s location is on Beckley Road near Riverside Drive on the southside of the city just off I-94.The restaurant is it’s own standalone building but shares a parking lot with a larger shopping center next door to the east. This area is highly commercialized with dozens of restaurants and stores extending in to Emmett Township. The Fazoli’s is just to the west of Lakeview Square Mall. The restaurant has been in Battle Creek for well over a decade and the only real changes have been the changes to the design of the restaurant as it has updated over the years.
Read more…Raising Cane’s (Portage)
6005 S. Westnedge AvenueYou can’t say I didn’t warn you. I told you last time I stopped at a Raising Cane’s that it wouldn’t be my last blog post.
Honestly, I’m surprised the Portage location opened before I got a chance to stop at the Grand Rapids location.
We have all been driving past the what looked like completed store for months waiting for it to open. Finally, earlier this month, they cut the ribbon and let the chaos ensue.
Except, there wasn’t really chaos. The City of Portage did set up a traffic plan and they did use it. It worked pretty well too. The first day or two there were lines out on to the road but it wasn’t the massive headache everyone assumed it was going to be.
The first weekend after it opened, I was leaving a K-Wings game at Wings Event Center around 7:30. I decided to see what the line was like. If it wasn’t bad, i was going to stop in and bring home chicken. I wasn’t going to wait in a huge line that stretched out on to Westnedge.
To my surprise, the line was only one car out on to the road….so I decide to stop.
The Portage Raising Cane’s location is on the corner of Westnedge Avenue and Milham Avenue just south of the I-94 interchange. This location used to be a building that housed multiple restaurants. The Little Caesars had been there for a quite a while. The other part of the building was a Schlotzky’s when I got here, then it went through a myriad of restaurants starting with Wing Heaven followed by Skinny Kenny’s, and finally Rollup Ice Cream. And now, after tearing the building down, it’s the area’s first Raising Cane’s.
Read more…McDonald’s (Richland)
8200 N. 32nd StreetThe culinary tour of Richland continues.
J had a meeting Thursday night so I was responsible for picking L up from her strength and conditioning class at Athletic Mentors. She got a ride there from Wings Event Center after skating but I would need to get her home.
I didn’t have to sit out there the whole hour like I have had to do lately so I took my time getting there. I thought about stopping somewhere along Gull Road for dinner but it likely would have been fast food either way. I figured I’d just keep making my way through Richland restaurants.
The McDonald’s in Richland is on 32nd Street/M-89 north of the downtown area of Richland and the intersection with D Avenue. You would never know from the road that this is a McDonald’s without the sign near the road. It doesn’t look like any other McDonald’s and blends in more with the surroundings. Outside of the one yellow “M” on the side of the building, the siding is all grey on . I’m sure there’s a zoning code or something which forces the design away from the traditional red and yellow building.
Dairy Queen Grill & Chill (Clifton)
1035 E 2900 North RoadRemember a few weeks ago when I went looking for a Dairy Queen because I wanted to try the Flamethrower Chicken Strips? And what I found was a DQ that didn’t have the Dairy Queen food menu?
Yeah, that was a bummer.
This past weekend, B and I took a trip back to Illinois to surprise my mom for her birthday. My nieces had a high school basketball game at my old high school so we went and watched them then ended up at my brother’s house for dinner and cake with my parents.
My sister-in-law was making Italian beef for dinner and I knew B wasn’t going to eat that. They also had mac ‘n cheese from Costco but again, B is weird and doesn’t like mac ‘n cheese.
I wasn’t going to ask her to make something else so I told B when we were about ready to eat dinner, I’d go get him a cheeseburger.
We were in the small town of Clifton in Iroquois County. There aren’t many restaurant options. The only fast food option in town is a Dairy Queen right on the south edge of town inside the Circle K gas station on 2900 North Road near the I-57 interchange. This building was built when I was in high school in the late 1990’s. It moved the old Phillips 66 gas station in the middle of the village to this much, much larger building with more pumps and a much bigger convenience store space. When the building opened, the restaurant space was actually a Taco Johns. The Dairy Queen was five miles south outside the Village of Ashkum. After a few years, the Taco Johns closed and the Dairy Queen relocated to this smaller, newer building.
Read more…Sbarro (South Holland)
700 East Tri-State Toll RoadI know I’ve said it before. I don’t get back home much.
I moved away from my hometown right after high school. I went to college in the Chicago suburbs (about an hour and a half away) then moved to Peoria for my first job (about two hours away). I met J in Peoria then we moved to Lansing (about four hours away) then sixteen years ago, we settled in Kalamazoo (about three hours away).
Before kids, we would get back to Illinois quite often. J’s parents still lived in the Chicago suburbs so we would go back for a weekend and see both sets of parents.
Then we had kids, schedules got in the way, J’s parents moved to Michigan and as much as I want to make time, it’s hard.
My parents come up here every couple of months but my mom works weekends a lot of times so it’s hard for them to find the time too.
J and L went to Dallas this weekend for a figure skating camp like they have the last three years. B was going to go but we decided he’s just not quite ready for this camp yet. Maybe next year.
My mom’s birthday happened to fall on the Saturday they were gone. My brother and I had talked about meeting somewhere for dinner but it was also Valentine’s Day so we figured it would be hard to find a restaurant for 10 people on a Saturday night. He suggested we just hang at his house. His girls had a high school basketball game in the afternoon then we could all do dinner at his place. Oh, and we weren’t telling my mom I was coming home.
B actually stayed at J’s parents Friday night because J and L had to catch a flight and I didn’t know when I would get off work. I got up Saturday morning then headed south to St. Joseph County to pick him up then start the trek to Iroquois County, Illinois.
We were running quite a bit early for the 2:00 PM basketball game at my old high school. I figured I should probably feed B before we got to the game. He doesn’t really like sports anyway (other than figure skating) so I knew he wasn’t going to be totally in to watching a game and it’d be worse for everyone if he was hungry.
We took the Indiana Toll Road across to get to I-294. There are plenty of options along the toll road including some rest stops along the route. I kind of had another idea in mind and waited until we got back to Illinois before stopping to eat.
I pulled off the highway at the Chicago Southland Lincoln Oasis Travel Plaza in South Holland, IL. The only way to get to this travel plaza is from I-80. It actually sits across the highway. There are parking lots on either side of the road and you get off like you would any other off ramp. The Illinois Tollway Oasis used to be the highlight of traveling on I-294 for my family. We stopped at this one when heading to Michigan City to shop and we stopped at the Hinsdale or O’Hare (both demolished now due to road widening on that part of I-294) when we went to Wisconsin or Rosemont. There used to be seven of these Oasis travel plazas in the tollway system but there are now just four. Three of the others have been converted to separate travel plazas on each side of the highway instead of the building spanning the highway.
Read more…Geno’s Pizza
109 N. Riverview DriveLast Friday was one of those rare Friday night’s I was home alone.
J and L were in Dallas for a figure skating camp. I asked J’s parents if they would take B for the night because I didn’t know when I would get off work. Whenever we plan for me to get off a little early or on time, I end up getting stuck at work for several hours of overtime. They didn’t mind coming to get him and I didn’t want to take the chance.
Usually when I’m alone, I hit up a bar I haven’t been to yet but I was a little worried about stretching money this week. I had to make a trip back to Illinois on Saturday so I knew we’d be eating out a little and with J and L in Dallas, they were going to have to eat out several meals.
I decided on pizza thinking I could stretch it for two meals. The question was, which pizza place.
There are a few places I realized I haven’t been to in years and haven’t blogged about in even more years. It just became a matter of which place I was going to pick.
My choice ended up being Geno’s Pizza in Parchment. The restaurant almost closed last year when the original owners retired but a new owner stepped in to continue the legacy of this small town pizza joint.
Geno’s Pizza is on North Riverview Drive just north of Parchmount Avenue in what can be considered downtown Parchment. The building is big enough for two business and before the restaurant switched hands, Geno’s actually took up both spaces with the southern part of the building being used as a large dining room and bar area. The current Geno’s still has the whole building but they’re only using the northern part of the building right now as the liquor license didn’t transfer over. Parking for the restaurant is on the street and there’s usually plenty of space to park right in front of the building to pick up pizzas.
Read more…U.P. North Sandwich and Pasty Co.
8140 N. 32nd StreetI’ve blogged the last couple of weeks about restaurants in Richland because I’ve been taking my daughter to a strength and conditioning class there.
I wasn’t planning on taking her this past Thursday night but J texted me at work and asked if I’d be off in time to take her. I finished up what I was doing and realized I could get to Wings Event Center to pick her up and get her to Richland in time.
As I was dropping her off, L asked which pub I was going to get dinner from this week. I think I’ve been to all the pub’s in Richland but there’s another spot that was still open and I haven’t been to in years.
U.P. North Sandwich and Pasty Co. is on North 32nd Street north of East D Avenue. The building doesn’t really look like a restaurant. It’s part of a bigger building that looks more like a house than a shopping center. The parking is along the side of the building and in back. This was actually the second location for U.P. North when it opened in 2012. The original spot was in Allegan but it closed a few years after opening. This one in Richland has been able to survive now for over a decade.
Read more…NYC Chicken and Burgers
806 Riverview Drive, Suite BSome days I find new restaurants by Facebook posts. Some days I find new restaurants by driving by and going, “wait, what was that?”
I had one of the latter days last week when I was heading out towards Beacon Hospital. I saw new signage at familiar place. I didn’t have time to stop that day but I made a note of it headed back the first chance I got.
NYC Chicken and Burgers is on Riverview Drive at the intersection with Bridge Street. It’s in that same shopping plaza as the 13 1/2 liquor store. The space has been so many things over the last seven years. First it was TNT – Lil’ Bros BBQ, then it was Burger Bros. After that, it became Burger Boss. When Burger Boss closed, it became Greg’s Gourmet. That lasted until the end of last year when Greg announced he was moving to the mall in Portage. Just over a month ago, the next restaurant moved in. NYC Chicken and Burgers.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 