Circle K (Sprinkle Road)
4914 S. Sprinkle RoadLiving in Michigan for the past decade, it’s hard to fathom that I grew up in an area of Illinois without an ice rink. We used to play roller hockey in the street or at a nearby basketball court but I didn’t actually get a chance to ice skate on an actual rink until I was in college. A friend of mine tried to clear off the pond at her house but that never really worked.
My kids, however, have the opportunity to skate. We live pretty close to Wings West and we signed them up for Learn to Skate a few years ago to see if they liked it.
Spoiler alert….they loved it.
L joined the club last spring and B has been working his way through Learn to Skate in hopes of joining the club sooner rather than later.
While they love the individual performing aspect of figure skating, both kids wanted to give Synchronized Skating a try this year. Turns out, they love that too.
The first synchro competition of the year was a couple of weeks ago and it just happened to be the competition our club hosts at Wings Event Center. Both kids’ teams competed on Sunday morning but that doesn’t mean we didn’t spend a lot of time at the rink leading up to competition day.
J has gotten pretty active in volunteering for the club. She lent her time all weekend for several hours to help out with the event. The Kalamazoo Kick-Off Classic is the first big synchro event of the year and teams from all over the country come to Kalamazoo.
L was supposed to have practice for the upcoming Holiday Ice Revue on Friday night of the competition but the weather was really bad and her coach decided to cancel it. The Kick-Off Classic was still going though and J had volunteered for a couple of shifts that night. She really didn’t want to drive in the snowstorm to get there. I had taken the day off and was home so I offered to just take her over there and drop her off. L wanted to stay but B and I didn’t, so we went home.
We left Wings Event Center and headed to the Circle K. I told B we’d grab snacks and drinks then head home for a few hours until it was time to pick J and L up.
While we were at Circle K, I asked B if he wanted a pizza for a dinner.
The Circle K on the corner of Sprinkle Road and East N Avenue in Comstock Township is a much newer and nicer Circle K than the one it replaced a little further down the road on Sprinkle and Meredith. This new Circle K is more than a convenience store. They included a gas station and have a surprisingly good offering of hot food during the day.
B and I walked in just before 5:00 on a Friday. We headed to the drink cooler first to grab drinks then to the candy aisle to grab some snacks. There are other Circle K’s in town but this one really stands out being one of the newer designs. The building was built from scratch and a large empty plot of land so they had room to work with. There’s a lot of space inside compared to the older ones where everything is pretty cramped.
I stop at this gas station a lot (and a similar one in Battle Creek) because they usually do have a pretty good option for food. If you’re there during off peak hours, there might not be as much in the way of hot food but there are always a good selection of cold sandwiches and snacks.
I like stopping in for lunch because their burgers are actually pretty solid for microwaved gas station burgers. They usually have some other options like Bosco sticks and chicken tenders as well. On the night we stopped in, the only option was nachos but if you stop in during lunch time, there is usually quite a bit to choose from.
It was when we were walking up to pay that I noticed the pizza. They have slices available most of the time and we’ve done that before but I’ve never seen whole pizzas for sale. There is a tower warming box next to the self-checkout with ready to go pizzas. I asked B if he wanted a pepperoni pizza for dinner. He said yes. They were only $5 so I grabbed one.
There is a little space to eat next to the doors and there were actually a couple people doing just that when we were there but we both wanted to get home so we grabbed our snacks and our pizza and headed home.
When we got home, I grabbed a plate and handed B a slice. He went right to the basement to continue watching whatever it was he was watching on YouTube. The pizza didn’t look like much to me just looking at it but it was only $5 so my expectations weren’t very high anyway.
The pizza was….not great. I mean, it was fine. It’s a cheap, $5 pizza and it tasted like a cheap $5 pizza. I grabbed my bottle of Frank’s Red Hot out of the fridge and kind of went to town on it to give it a little flavor. The two of us only ate about half which is unusual. It felt like a little bit of a chore to keep going. I figured the girls might want some when they get home anyway so I left the box. I ended up finishing it for breakfast the next day.
You know the old adage. You get what you pay for. There is nothing wrong with the pizza from Circle K but there’s also nothing really great about it either. It’s pizza. It’s a cheap, filling dinner
SW Michigan Dining 