Savvy Sliders (Kalamazoo)
3205 S. Westnedge AvenueLast week was our last figure skating competition of the year. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go anywhere.
The National Solo Dance Finals were held right here in Kalamazoo at Wings Event Center. After six months of intense training and traveling all over the country for qualifying competitions, both of my kids qualified for the national final.
That meant my week at work was going to be a little wonky. They both competed first thing in the morning on their respective days so I only had to take half days off work. I could go to the competition in the morning and go in to work in the afternoon.
I knew it was going to be a weird week and likely, an expensive one. The rest of my family was still treating the week like we were on the road so there was still a lot of eating out and a lot of time spent at the rink hanging out with and watching friends compete.
I was sitting at the office Monday night before any of this started and trying so hard to not give in to the temptation to go out to eat. I knew I wasn’t going to eat out as much during the week but I knew Starbucks or 7 Brew runs would happen every day the rest of the week plus countless trips to fast food or the concession stand at WEC.
I gave in though. I was hungry.
I didn’t feel like putting much effort in to finding dinner though and there has been a place that’s been on my list since I bought pizza from the same location.
Savvy Sliders is part of the Happy’s Pizza franchise on South Westnedge and Cork Street in Kalamazoo’s South Westnedge Neighborhood. The slider shop is part of the same franchise and in the same building as the new Happy’s Pizza location that opened up. The building sits on that weird part of Cork Street before it fully merges with Whites Road at the top of the hill. As I explained in my blog post on Happy’s, this building was a Big Apple Bagel when I moved here then it became J. Gumbo’s before sitting empty for several years. Savvy Sliders began as a co-branded franchise with Happy’s Pizza in Commerce Township back in 2018. Since then, they’ve expanded to about 60 stores. Most in Michigan are still co-branded but there are some standalones outside of the state.
Read more…Jean’s Pizza Cafe
129 Edgerton StreetIt wasn’t supposed to be a two pizza weekend but that’s what ended up happening.
I was in Mt Pleasant for work on Saturday and ended up at the Central Michigan football game at Kelly/Shorts Stadium. It was an afternoon game so I was on my way home a little before 5:00.
I had actually planned to stop at The Depot in Edmore to grab a sandwich but when I got there, I found their deli counter closed for the day.
I was a little bummed because I didn’t want to have to make another stop. I grabbed a couple of Pepsi’s and headed back to the car. Fortunately, I had a back up plan.
My back up plan was Jean’s Pizza Cafe in Howard City. The restaurant sits on Edgerton Street near White Road in the downtown area. The restaurant is one street level space in a large block long two story brick building. There is parking right in front but there was some kind of line dancing event happening as part of the Howard Cit Harvest Festival in the street so it was blocked off. I had to drive through a couple of alley’s to find a parking lot across the street and walk back to the shop.
Read more…Kelly/Shorts Stadium
2400 East Campus Drive- Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858
- (989) 774-2842
- Website
I didn’t grow up in Kalamazoo. I didn’t even go to school in Michigan so I really don’t have loyalties to schools.
Sure, I cheer for Western Michigan because it’s fun to root for the home team but I’m not going to get caught up in the whole Western/Central Michigan rivalry.
Fall is a good time for me because I pick up a ton of extra work. There’s a pretty regular overtime shift on Friday night’s and some Saturday’s with my full time job but there’s also a side hustle type job that I pick up work.
I was up in Mt Pleasant for that side hustle job this past Saturday and eventually, I ended up at at Central Michigan football stadium.
The on campus football stadium at CMU is Kelly/Shorts Stadium. It’s a rather large 35,000 seat stadium built on the south side of campus and the south side of Mt. Pleasant in 1972. The stadium was initially named Perry Shorts Stadium named after a graduate on “generous donor” to the university. The Kelly part of the name was added in 1983 to honor longtime football coach Bill Kelly. The stadium is first noticed from outside campus on BL-131 by the large logo on the back of the video board that towers over the nearby parking lots.
Read more…Jaspare’s Pizza (Lawton)
156 N. Main StreetIt’s Friday night, it’s pizza night again, and I’m working overtime. It must be fall.
My overtime shift took me down to Lawton this week. I had a pretty decent gap between my regular shift and the overtime shift so I had time to grab something to eat beforehand.
I’ve been to Lawton a few times over the years on this overtime work but I don’t usually have the time to eat. I had to look up restaurants to see if there was anything that would be quick and almost immediately, I found a familiar pizza place.
Jaspare’s Pizza in Lawton is on North Main Street at the intersection with East 2nd Street. The building is a large two story brick building that’s over a hundred years old. The pizzeria takes up the street level retail space of the building. This is one of four Jaspare’s location in Southwest Michigan. The others are in Portage, Vicksburg, and Mendon. There’s also one on Gull Road but they have their own website and online ordering system so not sure if they’re still related or if that one’s a spin-off.
Read more…Wingstop (Battle Creek)
5475 Beckley Road, Suite 130I spent my Friday night in Battle Creek. It was another overtime shift but this time, I didn’t really have much time to eat in between my shifts.
I spent most of the evening in Emmett Township. When I got done around 9:30 PM, I started looking for some place to eat. It was still early enough that I had some options but I remembered I had been wanting to stop for wings in this area for a while so wings won out.
Wingstop opened in Battle Creek in the Minges Shoppes back in March of last year. The small chain wing shop is on Beckley Road near Riverside Drive in a building that used to be a Comerica Bank. It sits between a nail shop and a mattress shop in the shopping plaza next to the now shuttered Fazoli’s on the southeast side of Battle Creek.
Read more…Pizza Hut (Portage)
2042 W. Centre AvenueAnother great week of overtime!
I had two overtime shifts last week. Again, Thursday night and Friday night.
My Thursday night shift was in Portage. I didn’t have a lot of time between my regular shift and my overtime shift so I decided to keep it simple and just order a pizza.
I was heading down towards Westnedge and Centre Street and I was trying to think of a pizza place I hadn’t been to yet. I knew there were no local ones so I widened my search to chains.
I eventually came to the Pizza Hut on Centre Avenue and Oakland Drive. This is the Pizza Hut that was rebuilt after the tornados ripped the building apart in May of 2024. The entire plaza had to be rebuilt so this store was clsoed for almost two years. They reopened earlier this year not too long before the two year anniversary of the tornado. The store moved from the east end of the building to the west end so it is more visible at the Oakland and Centre intersection.
Read more…King’s Wings & Deli
6420 W. St Joe HighwayThe overtime was good to me last week. I’m really looking forward to next week’s check.
On top of the overtime shifts I picked up Thursday and Friday nights, I had an all day thing on Saturday. I had to drive to Lansing but that just added a couple of hours to what was already going to be a lucrative week.
I worked most of the afternoon in downtown Lansing getting done around 6 PM. I still had some things to do but I figured it would be easier to do computer work sitting at my kitchen table back in Kalamazoo than try to do it in my car parked alongside the road in Lansing.
I hadn’t really eaten much all day so I was pretty hungry by the time I was wrapping up. I had done a little pre-planning to try to find something outside of downtown but also not too far out of my way along my route back to I-69.
I was kind of in the mood for wings so I searched that first. Lucky me. I found a place.
King’s Wings & Deli is on the corner of St. Joe Highway and Creyts Road in the unincorporated community of Waverly in Delta Charter Township just to the west of Lansing. The small, multi-tenant building next to a Quality Dairy is just to the west of the intersection. It sits right between a Sir Pizza and a Subway. The space was a carry-out Chinese restaurant for a long time before this wing joint moved in. There are still some Chinese options on the menu, namely fried rice, so not sure if this is an extension of the old restaurant or just a coincidence.
Read more…DiPisa’s Pizza
5858 Cleveland AvenueTwo overtime nights in one week? I can’t wait for this check.
Friday night I had a bit of a drive to my overtime shift. I got sent down to the Stevensville/St. Joseph area for a few hours of work.
I got finished with my tasks for my regular shift pretty early so I told my co-worker I was going to take off so I could grab dinner before the overtime shift started.
My plan worked out pretty well. I got to the area about an hour before the shift started so I’d be able to take a full hour for lunch…..something that is almost unheard of in my line of work.
It was Friday night so of course, my brain instantly goes to pizza. Before I left Kalamazoo, I opened up Google maps to see if there were any pizza places anywhere close.
I found a lot of chains but there was one local place that came up. Even though they didn’t have online I ordering, I decided to suck it up and make a phone call.
DiPisa’s Pizza is on Cleveland Avenue south of John Beers Road right across the street from Lakeshore High School in Stevensville. The restaurant has been family owned and a staple of the area since the late 1980’s. The restaurant is kind of unassuming and actually has a really 80’s feel to it. It’s kind of closed off with small windows and there is a row of hedges in front of the building. It’s kind of a stark contrast from more modern restaurants that have floor to ceiling windows and let in a lot of natural light.
Read more…Greg’s Gourmet
6650 S. Westnedge Avenue, Suite 129It’s my favorite time of the year again. The time of the year I’m guaranteed some overtime every week.
It’s a thing that happens every fall. I spend all summer really needing the overtime due to our figure skating travels but there just isn’t much overtime available.
Fall is different though. As the world returns to somewhat normal and the kids are back in school, I start to get more overtime opportunity.
It started last week on Thursday night. I did my normal shift then had a shift that started in Portage in the evening.
I always try to get something to eat between my regular shift and my normal shift. I had time to do so and since I was heading to Portage, I was able to cross another restaurant off my list.
I put in an order at Greg’s Gourmet inside the Crossroads Mall on South Westnedge Avenue and JL Hudson Drive. The restaurant is not part of the food court but rather right inside the main entrance between JC Penny and Macy’s. You can park right in front of the entrance like you’re going to shop and you’ll run right in this new spot for Greg’s Gourmet.
Read more…Uncle Ernie’s Pancake House
4005 Portage StreetHow the hell is my kid in high school?
I was just thinking the other day how long I’ve been writing this blog. It started when J and I had really just started dated and we moved to Lansing. She got a job there and I hated my job so I moved with her. The first restaurant we went to in Mid-Michigan was The Nuthouse and it’s still one of my favorite Lansing restaurants.
I’ve mentioned so, so many times that I treat this blog like a journal. Our entire history of life in Michigan is on the thousands of pages on this blog. There’s our engagement, our wedding, our move to Kalamazoo, and of course, the birth of our children.
It’s wild to me that our oldest is starting high school.
This past Monday was high school orientation day at Loy Norrix. I dropped her off at 9 AM and had some time to kill before registration began at 11 AM (that’s a whole other story). I figured I might as well go get breakfast.
I started to head towards Portage. There’s a couple of places there that I haven’t been to yet but it just seemed so far away. I turned back around and headed towards a place I haven’t eaten at in close to fifteen years.
Uncle Ernie’s Pancake House is on Portage Street in Kalamazoo in a small shopping plaza between Paddington Street and Banbury Road. The restaurant has been a staple of the Kalamazoo breakfast scene and the Milwood Neighborhood is the late 1950’s. It sits in the middle of the shopping plaza with a large red sign that’s hard to miss as you’re driving buy on the busy Portage Street.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 