The Local
9805 E. M-89Pretty sure I tell you every year about how much I we love the Santa at Gull Meadow Farms. We’ve been going from the beginning when Santa used to be inside the market and we’d pick out a Christmas tree in the greenhouse afterwards.
Santa is now an experience at Gull Meadow. He’s moved to the greenhouse to accommodate the large lines and they’ve set up lights, photo stations, and so many other things to do.
We were concerned we wouldn’t get to see this Santa this year. We weren’t going to go wait in line with a large crowd.
I saw a Facebook post from Gull Meadow just before Thanksgiving advertising their “Dear Santa” event. It had timed entry and limited the number of people in the greenhouse at any time. This sounded good and we knew they’d have a good set-up for a socially distanced Santa…because everything they do, they do well.
We did our Santa thing. Got our pictures. Told Santa what we wanted. All while staying safe.
Our plan for the rest of the day included making a gingerbread house. You know those kits never have enough candy so I suggested going to the Hardings in Richland to pick up more candy. J told me to find a place to eat and we’d order before hitting the grocery store.
I’m pretty much picking places right now that have online ordering. I looked at a few places in Richland and the one that did was The Local….so we ordered from The Local.
The Local is just outside of the city limits of Richland in Richland Township. The restaurant is on M-89 in a small building that holds a couple of other things besides the restaurant on the east side. I should point out here that The Local in Richland should not be confused with The Local Beer Cellar & Pizza Oven in Centreville. The Richland Local was around first and the Centreville Local actually added on to their name to avoid confusion….which was happening.
(I made a mistake here. I confused The Local in Richland with a different bar I ate at several years ago. The Local in Richland opened in 2017. The Local in Centreville opened in 2014. I apologize to both businesses for my slopiness here)
We put in our order before leaving Gull Meadow Farms. With the stop at Hardings, we pulled in to the parking lot at about the time the Internets said our food would be ready.
Indoor dining is shut down right now (duh….just making note for the people that find this blog post after COVID). They did have some outdoor dining set up and there were some people taking advantage of it.
The restaurant is not huge but there’s a decent sized dining room. There are a number of booths along the wall and I’m sure there are tables between those booths and the bar during regular times. It’s unfortunate things are shut down right now as the sports bar feel of the plays is something that makes us feel right at home.
There’s a carry-out counter right inside the door. There was a woman in front of me paying while picking up her order. Another employee came around the corner and asked if I had the Internet order. I said yes, she went to grab it for me. When she came back, I handed her a $10 because the website wouldn’t let me tip for some reason.
We headed straight home after we picked up our food but it is a little bit of a drive which sucks. In most cases, we would have probably just eaten in the parking lot in the car but everyone was getting tired and cranky so we rushed home.
I ordered the BBQ Bacon Burger. The sandwich is bacon, Cheddar cheese, BBQ sauce, and a fried onion ring. I upgraded the bun to a pretzel bun…and that was a good choice. I didn’t have super high expectations for this burger. I wanted a burger and this sounded good. It was more than good. It was really quite delicious. The burger is on the smaller size but that actually made this better. The flavors were super concentrated and you got a little bit of everything in every bite. The pretzel bun really kept it firmness on the way home and held this thing together. I upgraded my side as well to the beer battered fries. They were pretty typical beer battered fries. Nothing to write home about but delicious none the less.
J ordered the chicken strips basket. Both of the kids were being difficult saying they didn’t want lunch so J got something she could share just in case. She wasn’t really in the mood for anything fancy. She just wanted comfort food.
The chicken strips were simple. The menu calls them “lightly breaded” but they didn’t look fresh made. They were simple, tasty chicken strips that came with the beer battered fries. She got BBQ sauce on the side for dipping. The kids never did ask for lunch when we got home so she had this basket all to herself.
The basket also came with choice of soup or salad. She chose salad. Like the chicken strips, the salad is pretty simple. Lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and croutons. She chose ranch as her dressing because she also uses some of it for the chicken strips.
Really the only reason I have ever even thought of The Local is because we knew of a dust up over the name between The Local in Richland and The Local in Centreville…which we visit often due to it being near J’s parents. This was a good stop for lunch. Pub food is our comfort food. Even though we had to do carry-out, we got a big heaping of comfort food with this meal. This place will be on our list of places we needed to return to once things are opened back up again.
SW Michigan Dining 