Bud & Stanley’s Pub & Grub
1701 4 Mile Road NortheastI hate downtown Grand Rapids on Sundays. I love it the rest of the week. Beautiful downtown…but on Sunday’s it sucks.
My dad bought J and I tickets to the Brad Paisley concert at Van Andel Arena on Saturday night for Christmas. Just a few hours after he told me he bought them, I got offered a job in Big Rapids. It’s really hard for me to turn down work, so I told my dad I would buy the tickets off him and sell them on Stubhub. Whatever I didn’t make back, I would eat. He said he would just keep the tickets, dive the three and a half hours, and he and my mom would go to the concert. They got a room at the Courtyard By Marriott and just made a weekend of it.
Since J and I were coming back through Grand Rapids on Sunday morning, we decided to meet up for lunch before they went home. I tried three different places downtown for lunch. All closed…just like everything downtown on Sunday. The only option was TGIFriday’s which I would have been fine with, but my parents ate dinner there the night before. Now, I had no idea where to go. I picked out a couple places that had pretty good on-line reviews, but my dad was hoping to stay close to the hotel so they could get on the road fairly quickly. I tried my best, but it just wasn’t going to happen. I could have wasted another 15 minutes driving around looking for something open or I could put an address in the GPS and just drive away from the downtown area.
We ended up on the northeast side of town at Bud & Stanley’s Pub & Grub on 4 Mile Road near Plainfield Avenue. J confided in me later she was a little nervous because she recognized a few places we passed from the news….not good news either, but when we pulled into the parking lot, her fears were eased a little bit.
Bud & Stanley’s is a real nice looking building that has kind of a lodge feel to it. The parking lot is sort of up a hill and around back. There are a few spots in front of the building and some parallel spots along the side, but the bulk of the parking is behind the building.
I can’t tell you how relieved I was to see cars in the lot when we pulled up. Not only did it signify it was open, but cars at a bar on a Sunday afternoon when there’s no football is a good sign.
The inside of the place is a pretty typical bar layout. There is a mixture of booths, tables, and pub tables that make up the space. The pub tables are closest to the bar followed by the regular tables. The booths line two walls. There was a “seat yourself” sign, and my mom told J to lead. She went all the way to the back…for a reason.
The absolute first thing that smacked us in the face when we walked in was the smoke. My parents are from Illinois where there is a smoking ban, so walking into a Michigan restaurant where there is no ban yet really makes them appreciate Illinois lawmakers who took care of this problem a few years ago. It was bad enough that J and I even noticed it, so J went all the way to the back where there were no people in hopes to get away from most of it.
A waitress came over with menus. She only brought two regular menus and four of their lunch special menus. They had some good looking food on the lunch special, but we were both hesitant because we weren’t sure about portion size. My parents weren’t as hesitant.
My dad ordered the two sliders which came with fries. He got exactly what you’d expect. Two little burgers. They didn’t skimp on the fries either. He got a full plate of sides to compliment those fries, so he really didn’t think they skimped on the food.
My mom ordered the BLT with fries. Again, this was a full size BLT and a full plate of fries. The two of them really made the right choice in ordering off the lunch menu. They got a full meal for a pretty good price. I think it was $5.
J and I ordered off the regular menu. I went with the BBQ Cheese Burger. It was a delicious burger on what could have been a brioche bun. The fries were really the star of the meal. All four of us really liked them. They had a slight batter on them and they were nice and crispy. I could have went the same route as my dad and left stuffed. The food on my plate was more than enough and I struggled to finish.
J ordered the Southwestern Chicken Wrap. Pretty typical wrap with chicken, lettuce, and cheese. She didn’t say much about the wrap other than she really liked it, but again, she loved the fries. She left some of the wrap on her plate just so she could eat as many fries as she could.
Our bill was just a little over $30. That was helped by my parents ordering off the lunch special menu, but the sandwiches J and I ordered weren’t that much more.
Bud & Stanley’s was worth the trip out of the downtown area. At first, my dad was a little skeptical about going as far as we did, but I think even he enjoyed lunch. I wouldn’t know for sure because he’s so hard to read, but I know we all left full and happy.
Bacon Cheeseburger w/Fries
Southwestern Chicken Wrap w/Fries
SW Michigan Dining 