Three Oaks Sub Shop
5 W. Ash Street #7Well, here’s another town to cross off the list. I’ve been in Michigan almost ten years now and I’m still finding places in Southwest Michigan that I haven’t been to.
My latest travels took me Three Oaks. I had to put the city center in to a map because I didn’t even know how to get there. It’s not even a town I can say I’ve driven through.
Co-Worker and I only had to spend about an hour in town. We had a quick assignment then headed back to Kalamazoo to finish our day. While we were only in town about an hour, we had a little down time and I noticed a sandwich place as I was getting gas at the Speedway.
Three Oaks Sub Shop sits on the busy corner in town. The address is Ash Street, but the road also goes by Pulaski Highway and US-12. The small restaurant shares a parking lot with several other businesses at the corner of Ash and Elm Streets.
We dropped in to the store at about 1:00 on a Friday afternoon. There were a few other people in the sparsely furnished dining area and one other couple in line in front of us.
The restaurant has a weird feel…almost claustrophobic. The only seating available are some stools pulled up to a counter attached to the window looking out on to US-12. When the weather is nice, there are a couple picnic tables outside which are accessible via a wood chip path from the parking lot, but there’s not much seating actually inside the building.
The dining space is separated from the kitchen area with a floor to almost to the ceiling wall that has an opening in the middle for the cash register. I always picture sub shops as open where you can see your food being made, but in this case, everything is done out of sight. The large wall is really jarring when you walk in as it quickly closes in the open space.
The menu is divided up on two dry erase boards hung on either side of the cash register. The selections at Three Oaks Sub Shop are limited to subs, panini’s, wraps, and flatbreads. They have a cooler with Pepsi products and bottled water. I didn’t see any kind of fountain machine.
I let C.W. go first. He did a 6″ sub on wheat. I don’t remember what he ordered, but he did say that it was quite tasty and better than he expected from the place when we walked in.
I ordered a 12″ Italian Sub which comes with three Italian meats plus a whole slew of veggies. I left most of the veggies off opting for just lettuce and banana peppers along with provolone cheese and the Italian dressing. My sandwich was cut in to two 6″ pieces and both were loaded with meat and veggies. It was a case of not expecting a lot and actually getting blown away by something so simple. The sandwich was fresh and the portion was well balanced.
I paid for both sandwiches and a drink which set me back a little under $15. We didn’t have a lot of time in Three Oaks to explore nor did we have time to really sit and eat lunch, so it was a nice surprise to find this sub shop right along our route that got us a quick, delicious, and cheap lunch that would hold us over until we got back to home base.
SW Michigan Dining 