Lindbergh’s Landing
5222 Portage RoadIt seems like once a year one of my buddies from my time in Peoria gets a job in Kalamazoo. He works for ESPN and usually gets at least one of the “MACtion” football games at Western Michigan. He was in town this week for the game and got in on Wednesday night. He asked if I wanted to meet for dinner after work.
I got off work a little before 6:00. I picked him up at the Hampton Inn near the airport where he was staying. I didn’t want to go too far for dinner because I still needed to get home and help with bedtime so I wanted us to have as much time as possible since it has been a while since we’ve actually seen each other.
I picked Lindbergh’s Landing for dinner since it’s right across the street on Portage Road. The large restaurant is on the corner of Portage and Fairfield on the Portage side of the Portage/Kalamazoo border. The restaurant used to be Fat Tony’s Grill and Sports Bar and has sat empty for several years after that place closed.
We only went to Fat Tony’s once so I only have a vague recollection of what the space looked like then but Lindbergh’s feels very familiar to me. There’s a large bar right as you walk in and a gaming area with dart boards past that.
There a couple of dining room options but the floor plan is very open. We took a pub table away from the bar in an area that wasn’t being used by anyone else.
The decor is pretty simple with blue and green tones throughout. The floor is carpeted and the bar is lit pretty well. It’s definitely not one of those dark sports bar type places. There is a lot of light everywhere from the high ceilings. The theme is pretty predictable by the name. It’s an airport bar and there are model airplanes hanging from the ceilings and memorabilia and pictures on the walls.
I could see they had a few craft beers on tap but there was no list anywhere. One of the taps I could make out from where I was sitting was Bell’s Two Hearted Ale. I got a tall one of those to start since I knew we’d be sitting there for a while after dinner.
The menu at Lindbergh’s Landing is pretty typical sports bar. Pizza, sandwiches, burgers, and a few entrees that include pasta, seafood, and BBQ. The special burger options didn’t really have anything that sounded good so I stuck with the generic option known as the All American Burger. It’s half pound fresh ground beef patty served with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and choice of cheese. I picked cheddar and also asked to add on some bacon. The burger was served on a toasted bun and came out with a slightly pink and juicy center. There’s not a lot of information about Lindbergh’s Landing online so I had no idea what to expect from this place. This burger exceeds those not knowing what to expect expectations. It was clearly a fresh burger patty and while the bacon was a little under cooked, everything else was spot on. The sandwich also came with delicious fresh cut fries. They had a pretty heavy salt and pepper seasoning on them (heavier on the pepper) which made the slightly greasy, slightly crunchy fries even more tasty.
My buddy chose to go the pizza route. He ordered a green pepper pizza. That’s it. Just green peppers. The waitress and I both questioned him if that was it….but, yup, that was it. The kitchen didn’t think that was right either and saw the ticket as green peppers and pepperoni. The waitress came back to see if that was ok and said they’d take the pizza off the bill if he took it. He said yes, he doesn’t mind pepperoni…he just likes green peppers enough to get them on a pizza by themselves.
The pizza looked really good when it came out. It’s a twelve inch thin crust loaded with t the toppings. I could have gone a little bit longer in the oven to brown the cheese some more but my buddy was pretty happy with it and made short work of it.
Our bill for the evening was just over $20 but that was almost all me. The waitress really did take the pizza off the bill after we told her she didn’t have to do that.
Lindbergh’s Landing was kind of a surprise. The place was really starting to get packed as we were leaving and the food was all scratch made and delicious. I saw the signs go up several months ago but have not heard anything about the place since I noticed it open. There’s very little on the web other than a couple of Yelp reviews so my expectations walking in were pretty much that we were going to a sports bar to eat frozen burgers but that was not the case.
SW Michigan Dining 