Uncle Dog’s
643 Capital Avenue SWYeah. I’ve been working in Battle Creek a lot lately.
For the second time that week, I had an additional shift after my regular shift and it was in Battle Creek. I had a little bit of time between my last assignment of my regular work day and my first assignment of my overtime shift so, of course, I went looking for food.
I came in to Battle Creek and just kind of drove the long way from Helmer Road to downtown. I had a couple ideas so it was a last minute decision but I saw a parking space on the street in front of one of the places on my list and that’s how I ended up at Uncle Dog’s.
Uncle Dog’s is on Capital Avenue just south of Territorial Road. This is that odd part of Capital that looks like a neighborhood business center. There are a lot of businesses between Territorial Road and Columbia Avenue on Capital and some weird parking options.
Uncle Dog’s is in one of the old row of buildings on the east side of the street. There have been several restaurants in this location. Before Uncle Dog’s, it was Juicy Burger. Before that Shawarma’s Queen and Speed’s of Lakeview.
The restaurant is counter service with a pretty big dining area. The building is definitely old and doesn’t appear to have had much change to the layout over the years. It’s been about 6 years since I was last in this building when it was juicy burger. I remember there being a lunch counter with stools but that is now gone. It’s just a walk up order counter next to the open kitchen near the door.
I’ve said this more than once over the years…I really don’t like hot dogs. I’ll eat one but it’s not usually the first thing I go to on the menu….which is weird for a place with “dog’s” in the menu…but I knew ahead of time they also did wings and that’s why I stopped in.
I put in an order for 6 wings and fries. The price was a little over $13 and they do accept credit cards now (older pictures, including the menu I linked to says cash only…that’s not the case anymore.)
The food is made fresh so I took a seat in one of the dining rooms. There are a couple of spaces and my older blog post from the previous restaurant said they used to do table service in here. There’s one dining room area set up like a full service dining room. There’s another area, where I waited, that has some metal pub tables and some sports posters on the wall. The checkboard tile pattern on the floor and the design of the tables gives the space kind of a 50’s diner feel.
It took about ten minutes for my order to cook. I grabbed it and thanked the lady working behind the counter who was super pleasant then headed to my job seat to find a place to park and eat in the car….which is the norm for me.
I started first with the fries because that’s just the thing I do. They were simple frozen food service fries. There was a little bit of salt on them but not much. Nothing special but simple, tasty fries.
The wings were breaded which made them a little soggy. I ordered them with the garlic parm sauce which was delicious but the combination of the thick, buttery garlic parm sauce and the breading plus the steam made the wings a little hard to eat in the car. I’m not really a fan of breaded wings anyway…take out or dine it, I just feel like they don’t stay crispy when you put sauce on them. I like a breaded wing ding…but if I know ahead of time the wings are breaded, I like to take a cue from my mother-in-law and just order the sauce on the side to dip the wings in to.
The wings were probably not the best choice I could have made knowing I was going to be in the car. I rolled the dice and while they were tasty, the softness of the breading brought them down a little bit. In hindsight, I would have ordered something else that would hold up a little bit better. I was there on a Friday night and there were plenty of special options. Definitely not writing this place off yet. I’m a big fan of places like this and will have to give them another try.
SW Michigan Dining 