Dessert First
220 Eleanor StreetSome days are long and I don’t have time to even stop at a gas station for a cheap sandwich. Other days, I feel like I don’t do any work and have time to actually go somewhere to get something to eat.
Last Friday was the latter.
I had worked a couple of hours overtime on Thursday night and I think my bosses forgot about me for a while on Friday. I had a pretty relaxed morning to catch up on some things around the office.
I haven’t been eating out as much lately while I’m at work but there are some new places opening around me downtown. I figured I should clock out for my lunch and go for a walk.
Dessert First recently opened a brick and mortar shop on Eleanor Street just to the west of Rose Street in downtown Kalamazoo. The bake shop is on the first floor the building the Hilton Garden Inn occupies. The small shop is on the Eleanor Street side of the building closer to the entrance to the Home 2 Suites. This is the first business to go in on the ground floor of this new addition to the building in what used to be a parking lot.
Dessert First makes it sound like a bakery but they have some lunch and breakfast sandwich options. That’s why I picked it on this day. I’d grab a sandwich and something sweet as well.
The restaurant is counter service with a cash register situated in between two cases showing off the sweets. I couldn’t find a menu online so I had no idea what I was walking in to. They keep talking about sandwiches on their Facebook page but there is no indication of actually what kind of sandwiches they have.
There are two small chalkboards hanging behind the counter. One of them has the prices for the baked goods. The other has a list of sandwiches but no prices.
I put in an order for the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. I think this falls under “Grilled Cheese” but it wasn’t super clear when I ordered. I wasn’t worried too much about it. I figured I’d like anything that was “Buffalo Chicken.”
Once I figured out the sandwich I wanted, I walked over to the bakery cases. My eyes went right to the cupcakes. I asked for the Ferrero Roche cupcake. The cost came out to right around $12 for the sandwich and the cupcake.
I should have looked a little harder because there are a couple of really cool treats that I now need to go back to try.
One of them is a Cake Jar which is a layer of cake, a layer of frosting, a layer of cake and another layer of frosting. It’s like a “Walking Cake” and they all looked really delicious.
The other thing that jumped out to me where the mini cakes…which are exactly what the sound like. Small cakes in tiny foil pans with frosting on top. They’re not super fancy but they also looked super tasty.
It took about ten minutes to get my sandwich and my cupcake bagged up. There’s quite a bit of seating in the brightly painted shop. There is a dining room on side of the space and some pub style metal chairs and tables on the other side. There are also rails with seating looking out over the street which gives the shop a big city feel.
I got back to the office and opened up my sandwich. It was kind of a cross between a grilled cheese and an chicken salad sandwich. It was nice and toasty on the outside and filled with delicious buffalo chicken in the middle. There’s some cheese in there as well but it’s not the kind of grilled cheese you would pull apart and have super stringy cheese in the middle. This sandwich was constructed much more like a chicken salad…but Buffalo style.
I kind of regretted not picking one of the Cake Jars or Mini Cakes but I regretted nothing after biting in to the cupcake. The chocolate cupcake had chocolate frosting an a Ferrero Roche candy stuck on to the top. I took the hazelnut and chocolate candy off first and kind of crushed it so I could get a bit of it in my mouth with the cupcake. The cake was super most and very chocolatey. Picking a chocolate cupcake is not something I usually do but this one was really good and a chocolate cupcake I could keep going back for.
Dessert First is an interesting place downtown. They actually have a pretty great location next to the new courthouse. The sandwiches are simple and a pretty light option for breakfast or lunch and there are so many amazing sweets to choose from. The shop is a long time coming for the bakery’s owner and it’s a great addition to downtown as a place to grab a cupcake (or two) on your lunch break.
SW Michigan Dining 