Horrocks Farm Market (Lansing)
7420 Saginaw HighwayJ and I first moved to Michigan in 2008. J had gotten a job in Lansing and I was disgruntled enough at my job that I decided to move with her. We had only been dating a few months but I think we saw where this was going.
I didn’t work for quite a while after moving to Lansing. I was able to pick up freelance work and made enough money to cover bills and have a little extra for spending.
Saturday’s were our shopping days. J worked second shift so most days were us sleeping in late, lounging around until lunch time then she’d head off to work in the afternoon. I’d do some small runs to the nearby Meijer but our big shopping trips were always on Saturday’s.
We lived on the Lansing/Holt border but we liked to do our shopping in Delta Township. We’d first go to Horrocks then whatever we couldn’t get there, we’d go to Walmart and finish up.
We moved to Kalamazoo about a year and a half later and our shopping habits changed. There was no Horrocks in Kalamazoo. There was one in Battle Creek but it was too far for a weekly shopping trip. We just started shopping at Meijer.
Needless to say, we really missed Horrocks.
We don’t get back to Delta Township anymore so it has been years since I’ve been there. When I meet colleagues for work trips to Detroit, we always meet at the carpool lot on Grand River Avenue in Grand Ledge so I drive by this Horrocks quite a bit.
I had to go to Detroit two days earlier this week and had to meet a colleague at that carpool lot both days.
Wednesday morning, we didn’t have to meet until 11:30 AM. I had to get up to get B to school and the longer I laid around the house, the more I wanted to go back to sleep. I couldn’t do that so I decided to just get up and head to Lansing with the idea of getting lunch before I met my colleague.
I didn’t know what I was going to eat until I got to Saginaw Highway. I figured I’d go check out Horrocks. If it’s anything like the new Battle Creek location, there would be something for me to grab.
Horrocks Farm Market in Delta Township is the OG Horrocks. It’s on the corner of Saginaw Highway and Canal Road just to the east of the I-96 interchange. The business has a long history in Lansing first getting started at the Lansing Farmer’s Market in the late 1960’s then moving to this spot out in Delta Township. The building is kind of landlocked but it’s undergone quite a bit of expansion over the years and quite a bit since I was last there 15 years ago.
I headed in to the main entrance to start looking around. We always started our shopping trips to Horrocks because of their huge selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. That hasn’t changed any. As soon as you walk in, you’re bombarded with huge displays of anything you could possible need to cook dinner.
Those large tables filled with goodies goes all the way to the back of the original part of the store. I don’t cook with as much veggies as I used to…I don’t have the time to make meals like I did when I wasn’t working but I still miss walking through these displays looking for dinner ideas.
I headed towards the back of the store to find a newer (to me) part of the building where the beer is stocked. I didn’t need anything, I just wanted to look. I don’t think Horrocks even sold beer when I lived in Lansing and now they probably have one of the best selections in towns.
As I walked past this area, I also passed my favorite room. The cheese room. It’s not just the cheese room, it’s where all of the cold dairy items are, but it was still my favorite place to go on Saturday morning. I’d grab everything I thought I needed for the week then eat it all by the next day and have to make an emergency trip back.
I was at Horrocks for lunch though so I started to head towards the prepared food items. Again, none of this was here 15 years ago when we were regularly shopping at Horrocks. We just went for veggies, bread, and cheese. Now, you can get a good meal while doing all that.
I headed to the salad bar just to look. It’s massive. There are two sides that are just filled with lettuce, salad toppings, and prepared cold salads.
There’s also one of the biggest olive bars I’ve ever seen on one end of the salad bar.
A few rows over was the soup bar. There are several selections of freshly prepared soups out each day.
A few more rows over is the hot bar. It looked like they were just getting this set up so there wasn’t much out yet. I couldn’t get down this aisle if I wanted to. People were just always in the way. I figured I’d keep walking to see what else was around and if I wanted chicken, I could always come back.
I kept moving through the store and headed in to what was the greenhouse when I lived here. It’s not a greenhouse anymore. It’s more space for more food and more unique items including huge bags of their gourmet popcorn.
Further down, you can’t have all this yummy food and not have dessert. They had chocolate displays and a large case of gelato.
There is also a coffeehouse in part of the store now but I don’t drink coffee and there was a lot of people in that section so I didn’t even walk back there to see what they had.
As I got to the front of the old greenhouse section, I found what I was looking for. Pizza. There’s a pizzeria right inside the doors to this area.
You can order full pizzas online and pick them up but they also have pizza by the slice options ready to go right there in the store.
This area is separate from the rest of the store. With the salads and hot bar, you load up and pay at the cashier with all your other items. The pizza is paid for right in the pizzeria and they don’t check out groceries. There are signs to pay for all your other stuff before heading in to the pizzeria. I had nothing else so I grabbed two slices off pizza, which cost me a little over $8, then headed out to my car to eat.
Horrocks pizza slices are pretty much New York style slices. They’re thin, they’re huge, and they have a nice snap to them when you fold it over. I started with a pepperoni slice. It had a lot of crispy, cupped pepperoni on it. The pizza really is similar to a NY slice. It’s the kind of grab and go pizza I love having around.
The other slice I grabbed was a bacon pizza. There was A LOT of bacon on this pizza. Each bite had a huge hit of that salty, crunchy goodness. At first, it kind of looked overwhelming like it was just going to taste like biting into a salt lick but that wasn’t the case. This was actually a really solid, delicious slice of pizza.
Obviously, things have changed a lot in the last 15 years at Horrocks. I still wish we had one right down the street. Yes, there’s a really nice Horrocks in Battle Creek but it’s too far to drive every weekend. We do most of shopping between Harding’s and Meijer now but man, wouldn’t it be great to go to Horrocks every weekend?
SW Michigan Dining 
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