Trak Houz Bar & Grill
5003 Park Circle DriveChange is good sometimes, right?
I’ve worked in a satellite office for almost three years now. It’s just me and one other person. I don’t miss the drive to Grand Rapids every day at all but I do miss the interaction with some of my co-workers.
Staffing around the holiday’s can get pretty thin in the office but all the shifts still need to be filled. There was an opportunity for me to take a couple of shifts in Grand Rapids….but they were what are essentially third shift times.
It worked out pretty well because J had to drive to Saginaw Tuesday night for a Wednesday morning meeting. She needed to leave before I would normally get home so we were trying to figure out what to do about picking the kids up from daycare. Working these shifts allowed me to get off by 12:30 so I could pick them up.
Monday night we split pickup duties. I got L who’s daycare is closer to our home and J got B who’s daycare is closer to her work. We didn’t have any plans for dinner so I texted J and asked if she’d want to me. There is a new place near B’s daycare we’ve been wanting to eat at so I picked up L and we headed to the east side of town.
Trak Houz Bar & Grill is a new restaurant in an old space. It’s part of the Zeigler Motorsports Complex on Sprinkle Road in Comstock Township. When the building was opened, Zeigler brought in Millennium Restaurant Group to open one of their Tap House concepts. Sprinkle Road Tap House was there for a couple of years but now, Zeigler has decided to bring everything in house.
There’s been very little change in the decor of the place. The restaurant is pretty small but there’s a pretty large bar area that opens up into the sales floor of the motorsports business. The place is a sports bar through and through. There is a bank of TV’s above the bar and pub tables that make it a gathering place before events at Wings Event Center or a place to hang out after work.
L and I got to the restaurant first. We waited near the front for a waitress to see us. She took us to the back where there’s padded bench that shared with three tables.
The rest of the dining room is set up in a similar way. There’s another area with this booth that’s shared plus there are a few four tops. The design of the place is very modern with a lot of grays and blacks. The chairs are a silver hollow metal and the floors are grey laminate. Everything is very sleek and very modern looking. The Christmas decorations currently hanging look a little out of place but they had a festivity to the modern pub motif.
Trak Houz kept a lot of the look from Sprinkle Road Tap House but they kind of started from scratch with their menu. It’s still pub food. There are still burgers, appetizers, and sandwiches.
We started with an appetizer. J had been here for a preview day a few weeks prior to our visit and really wanted me to try the Fender Flares. This is essentially a loaded fry appetizer but they use a pretty unique cut of fry they call “scoops.” The long, thin, curled potato slices are covered with a bleu cheese sauce, green onions, and bacon. The bleu cheese sauce could have been a little strong on the bleu cheese flavor but this is a solid appetizer regardless. The fries have a crispy outer rim and a soft middle. There was bleu cheese on almost every slice. The bacon was nice and crispy and added saltiness to creamy sauce.
I, of course, was in the mood for a burger. I kept it simple and order the Trak Houz Burger. This sandwich is a 1/2 lb burger with just lettuce, tomato, and onion on a brioche bun. For an upcharge, I added cheddar cheese and bacon. The burger was a solid juicy, slightly pink piece of meat on a delicious, toasted yet still soft brioche bun. The sandwich came with seasoned battered fries which weren’t my favorite but would be pretty good with a little mustard. I’m just not a huge fan of battered fries. Just a personal preference
J ordered the Four Cheese Sandwich. This grown up grilled cheese is sourdough bread with Cheddar, Swiss, Provolone, and Gouda. A simple but delicious combination.
We had already gotten fries with the Fender Flares so J asked if she could do a side salad instead. She wasn’t expecting what she got. It was a huge salad that was almost enough for a meal by itself. The mixed greens were topped with onions, tomatoes, and croutons. She got a balsamic vinaigrette to dress it.
We were seated without kid’s menus which would have been fine for L. She orginally just wanted a salad anyway. When I asked if they had one, the waitress brought back two so both kids would have something to color even if L didn’t order off it.
Turns out, L did order off it. She thought the Buttered Noodles sounded good so that’s what she picked. The small cup of noodles looked like Mac & Cheese but it was not. Same noodles but covered in butter instead. L complains a lot about her food when we eat out but there were no complaints here. She picked chips as her side. They were a Salt & Pepper kettle chip. She ate some but didn’t really have anything to say about them.
B wanted a little bit of everything. He tried to order chicken strips with a cheese quesadilla side but we told him that’s not how it works. He picked the chicken strips and got chips as his side. He ate two of the three strips, a few of the chips and all of the applesauce that came with it.
Our bill for dinner with no alcohol was just under $50.
Trak Houz Bar & Grill is just as good as it’s predecessor. There were quite a few people having dinner before a high school hockey game over at Wings and this is the perfect place for that. There aren’t many bars in the area and the ones that are there aren’t nearly as nice as this place. Zeigler they could make more money operating this space themselves and I don’t think they’ll have any problem doing just that.
SW Michigan Dining 