Goodfellow’s Wings and Things
1359 Hoban StreetJ and I have lived in Michigan for a little over ten years now. We’ve been to Mackinac Island for pleasure once. I’ve been there several times over those ten years for work. This past weekend, I took another work trip to the Island and this time, I actually got to stay on the Island.
We go to the Island around noon and Friday and worked until almost 9:00. My colleague headed back to the hotel about a half hour before I did. He said he was going to head to the bar in the hotel and if I wanted to go to dinner, to meet him there and we’d figure it out.
I joined him at Goodfellow’s Wings and Things..which is one of three dining options at the Lake View Hotel on Main Street. The sports bar is around the corner on Hoban Street but you can access it from the hotel lobby by going through Goodfellow’s Italian Chop House.
The restaurant is pretty small. There is a large bar in the middle where most people were sitting. There was a very large bachelor party on one side while my co-worker was sitting on the other. The bar has a few craft beers on tap and a fully stocked liquor selection that the bachelor party was really going through. This part of Goodfellow’s is considered a sports bar so there were TV’s on the walls tuned to some late night college football games.
If you’re not a sit at the bar person, there are a few pub tables along the wall and heading down the hallway towards the door to the Chop House. We had considered moving to one of those but just decided to stay at the bar since it we had already ordered drinks and the bartender knew we wanted food.
Of course we started with a couple beers. I could see a Two Hearted tap so I asked for one of those. I’m not usually a person that finds beer refreshing but after along day of work, that beer was really refreshing. I quickly ordered a second.
The menu is pretty sports pub-y. We both wanted wings but didn’t really want wings as our meal. Neither of us had eaten since breakfast so we just wanted something more hearty..but we still wanted wings.
We got a plate of 20 Goodfellow’s Chicken Wings. We did the bone-in option and got half were garlic Parmesan and half were Asian Ginger. The Garlic Parm were for me and it didn’t take me long to finish off my ten. The wings were super crispy on the outside and soft and warm on the inside. The Garlic Parmesan was a thin, butter like sauce and not the mayo based dressing some places use. I didn’t try the Asian Ginger since they were my colleagues and by the time he offered me one, I was stuffed. When a place puts “wings” in the name of their restaurant, they better deliver. Goodfellow’s delivers.
My actual meal was The Breakfast Burger. The sandwich comes with a fried egg and bacon but cheese is an add-on. I picked Cheddar from their list of fine cheeses. The burger came out stacked pretty high. I didn’t notice the egg at first but they put it under the cheese to keep it in there. The sandwich was delicious. The meat was juicy. The egg was slightly runny. The bacon was nice a crispy. It was a pretty solid burger. The burger came with chips but I upgraded to fries for $3 and the fries were insanely disappointing. If I’m going to pay $3 to upgrade for fries, I would hope they aren’t frozen GFS fries…and not even good ones. They were the really skinny ones. My colleague actually asked for some mustard because they were so bland and disappointing.
My bill for two beers and my burger (colleague put the wings on his tab) was right around $30. I know I’m going to pay a little more for everything on Mackinac Island but I really don’t have many complaints about the price. The fries were a ripoff but the burger was pretty great as were the wings.
Goodfellow’s Wings and Things is a place I have passed on several trips from the Shepler’s Ferry Docks on my way to the Grand Hotel and I always wondered if it was any good. Turns out, it is and it’s a nice little sports bar tucked away in a great hotel on Mackinac Island’s Main Street.
SW Michigan Dining 