Root Cafe, Coffeehouse & Spirits
120 E. Main StreetA long weekend. I didn’t get one for the Memorial Day weekend but I did get one the following weekend.
J took a trip to New Mexico to see some friends she hasn’t seen in a few years and to do some hiking. My work schedule is really bad for child care when J’s out of town. Even if we had both kids in full time child care, I don’t get out of work until 6:30 or later well after most places close.
J’s parents offered to take the kids to their place near Centreville. It works pretty well for L right now with virtual school. She has what she has claimed as “her room” in their basement that she could set up.
We still had activities and B still had school on Wednesday. I went and got B Tuesday night then Nana and Grandpa picked him on from school and took L to soccer practice. There were more events Thursday and Friday and I didn’t want them running back and forth from Centreville every night so I took Thursday and Friday off to make things easier on everyone.
I wasn’t expected it but I actually eased in to my weekend with a pretty laid back day at work on Wednesday. I worked with a colleague I don’t work with often. We had three stops to make that day. One in Plainwell, one in Mattawan, then finally at the beach in South Haven.
We finished up in South Haven a little after 1:00. She was heading back to Grand Rapids and I was heading back to Kalamazoo to finish things up. I wanted to make a quick stop at Waypost Brewing to pick up some beer since I really wasn’t that far away.
I got my beer and realized I was hungry. I knew there was a cafe in nearby Fennville that I had passed up on previous trips and a sandwich sounded really good in the moment.
Root Cafe, Coffeehouse, and Spirits is on East Main Street in downtown Fennville between Salt of the Earth and Forever Curious Children’s Musuem. The building is also home to Fernwood 1891, an art gallery, that is accessible from the cafe.
The main selling point for me on Root was the online ordering. The sandwiches all sounded delicious but the ease of online ordering since I was somewhat in a hurry sealed the deal. I had to go a little out of my way to get back to Fennville so I put my order in while I was sitting in the parking lot at Waypost Brewing. I had a hard time deciding. There are so many sandwiches that sound tasty. I picked the Pastrami on Rye because I can almost never pass up a pastrami sandwich.
Root really has a art studio coffeehouse feel to it. The tables and seating areas blend in to the decor to the point I walked right by a couple tables and didn’t even realize they weren’t just decoration. The order counter is near the back. The woman saw me walk in and assumed the to-go order was mine so she had it sitting on the counter ready to go by the time I got back to her.
I grabbed the sandwich and headed back to the car. I opened up the box to see what I was dealing with. Pastrami can sometimes be too juicy to eat in the car and if that sandwich is loaded with mustard, there’s just no way. I was happy to find a very manageable Pastrami sandwich in the box because I was hungry and didn’t want to wait until I got back to Kalamazoo.
The sandwich starts with grilled caraway rye bread stuffed with Pastrami, Swiss cheese, brown mustard and dill pickles. This is not a New York deli style Pastrami but there’s still quite a bit of meat between the bread. Speaking of that bread, it was grilled nice and crispy on the outside but still soft in the middle. It soaked up all of the juice from the meat and held in the vinegar from the mustard. The sandwich was a perfect ratio of all the ingredients.
The sandwich set me back about $12. There was a container of slaw on the side but no chips or anything like that.
Root Cafe, Coffeehouse, and Spirits is a big city cafe in a small town. Damn near everything on the menu sounded delicoius and there are options. You’re not just limited to a few cold meat sandwiches to go with your coffee. Root also has options for flatbreads, soups, salads, breakfast, and quite a bit more. It’s a good place to stop on your way to the beach or just to relax with a cup of coffee to get some alone time.
SW Michigan Dining 