Mountain Town Station
506 W. Broadway StreetWhen it came time for dinner, we decided to venture out in Mount Pleasant. We could have eaten at the casino, but the sit-down restaurants were a little pricey and neither one of us are big fans of buffet’s. Plus, there are still a number of restaurants I’ve wanted to try in Mount Pleasant and who knows how many opportunities I will have in the future.
We chose Mountain Town Station which sits on Broadway just west of the downtown area. The building is the old Mount Pleasant Railroad Depot and sits next to a set a tracks which the business uses to run special dinner trains. There is quite a lot of the building that is original even though it’s been covered. From the outside, it doesn’t really look like the historic building it is, but the inside still has the charm only an old train station could.
Mountain Town Station is not only a restaurant but there is a brewing operation that runs in full site of the lounge dining area and the bar. When you walk in, there’s even a little gift shop with an array of wines available for purchase.
The entire joint is smoke free (a moot point in a couple of weeks) but we chose to sit in the lounge which is really just a fancy name for the bar. We were seated at a pub table next to the bar. There are also a few booths in this area and a smaller dining area still in the lounge had some regular sized four tops.
The decor is not as cliché as I figured it would be. They did keep what appears to be the original wood plank floor and that theme is continued with distressed beams and dark-colored wood throughout. The floor has a feeling that would be impossible to replicate. It’s hardwood, but it’s soft and you can feel every step that anyone around you takes. It took a few minutes to get used to the fact that every time anyone walked by our table, our chairs were going to bounce a little. It’s not as big of an annoyance as it sounds. It’s just one of the quirks of the place.
The menu boasts award-winning ribs, but you know right where I went. After getting a couple Cokes instead of trying a beer, I flipped over the menu to find the burger section. The pub has a number of dinner entrees ranging from steaks, to shrimp to Osso Bucco, but I do love me some burgers. I chose the Black & Bleu Burger. The patty is a 1/2lb of Angus beef that is topped with Cajun seasoning, sautéed onions, and bleu cheese served on a grilled focaccia bun. I opted to leave the onions off and was still very surprised by what I got. The bun was orange with cheese baked in to it. Upon first glance, I thought the bun was bigger than the meat, but once I started eating, I didn’t even notice. There was a huge pile of tangy bleu cheese that complimented a perfectly pink and juicy burger. The sandwich was served with Brew City Fries which are seasoned potato wedges. They were good, but I’m not a huge fan of wedges. It’s hard to get the “potato” taste completely out of it and when it comes to fries, I’m a fan of the stuff that makes your heart stop.
J opted for the Mountain Town Salad. It consisted of mixed greens, julienne granny smith apples, dried cherries, chopped walnuts and a maple vinaigrette. She loved the apples. She loved that the apples were julienned which made them easy to eat. When most people put apples in salad, they cut them in to wedges which makes it hard to eat them as part of the salad with the fork. She was really impressed with how the apples fit into this salad. The dressing was also really good, but got to be too much after a while. It was very sweet and there was a lot of it. She was laughing at judge on Chopped the other night because they said there was too much dressing on a salad. She replied that just can’t happen, but when she got this sweet vinaigrette, she changed her mind. She enjoyed it, but it got to be a little too much.
We passed on dessert and just went for the check. It was a little over $25 for a burger and a salad, but both were above average and unique enough to justify the price. The service was much quicker than we anticipated it would be after seeing a full parking lot. I don’t think our meal took longer than 45 minutes and our waiter was always on top of things. He never missed a beat refilling drinks and turned his table pretty quickly without being pushy….he just had a couple quick eaters 😉
Mountain Town Station is exactly our kind of restaurant. It’s got an interesting, old atmosphere and food that someone takes pride in. It’s everything we look for in a brew pub.
Black & Bleu Burger w/Brew City Fries
Mountain Town Salad
SW Michigan Dining 