Josie’s Southern Comfort Foods
720 Shoppers LaneI’m so far behind getting to new restaurants in the Kalamazoo area. My list keeps growing and growing but this has been the summer of the food truck for me. I’m only eating out a couple days a week and I seem to keep finding food trucks on days I decide to grab lunch at work.
There have been a couple of southern comfort restaurants pop up over the last year and I’ve been itching to give them a try. They all seem to run in to the same problem for me though….lack of web presence. I really like to know what I’m getting in to before I walk in the door and would really like to see a menu.
One of those places did kick up their web presence recently after people have been asking for an online menu for months.
Josie’s Southern Comfort Foods took over the space on Shoppers Lane in Parchment that Scooter D’s used to occupy near the Save-A-Lot just off Riverview Drive. The business actually has two storefronts in the small stip mall. One is the diner while the other is used for a variety of other things. It’s been a pop-up boutique and now it appears it’s going to be one of those selfie places.
Josie’s is not a big place and they kept a lot of elements from the breakfast joint that preceeded them. There are no tables in the small space right now. It’s just a lunch counter set up. I stopped in around 1:00 on a Friday afternoon. When I walked through the door, the lone woman working the counter and the kitchen greeted me and said she’d be right over as I sat down at the counter.
The menu is hanging on the wall near the back of the space. The way Josie’s works is you pick a proteins and then pick two sides to go with it.
I picked Josie’s because I was in the mood for rib tips. Unfortunately, they were out of rib tips. The woman doing the cooking pointed me to a chalkboard near the door with what they had left.
I was leaning towards the chicken but…naw…I’ll have the pork chops instead. I picked fries and corn-on-the-cob as my sides. The cost was a little over $12 and Josie’s is cash only. Luckily I had cash on me…which is rare and had enough for a tip as well.
It took about ten minutes for my food to be boxed up. I could have eaten at the counter but I asked for it to go because I still had some work I needed to do back at the office while I was eating.
I actually had no idea how the pork chops were going to be served when I ordered them and I didn’t ask. Grilled? Fried? Smothered? Boneless? Bone-in? I had no clue. I just took the chance.
The pork chops were bone-in and fried. The meat was super tender. I didn’t grab a fork but this looked like a pork chop I could eat with my hands so I did. The breading was really salty and really good. The pork chops were just perfectly fried, juicy, and delicious.
The sides were both pretty basic. The fries were frozen out of the bag fries. There was quite a few of them which is always appreciated. Nothing special but a nice compliment to the chops.
The other side was a 1/4 piece of corn-on-the-cob. Again, pretty standard corn with a thick layer of butter. Nothing special but a tasty side.
Josie’s Southern Comfort Foods isn’t a fancy restaurant. They are a really delicious option in Parchment though for a style of down home cooking you don’t see a lot of in this area. That area lost both of it’s diner restaurants in the last couple years and they’ve been replaced with a delicious Mexican place and a tasty Soul Food joint.
SW Michigan Dining 
Deep fried crumbed pork chop? Well, i never….