The Dock at Bayview
12504 East D AvenueThursday’s have really become my day to eat out. I’ve explained over the last several weeks that L is doing strength and conditioning classes in Richland three nights a week. J has to do a lot of the running back and forth because I work later than she does.
The night I can help out is usually Thursday. L gets a ride to Richland and she gets done at 7:30 so I usually have plenty of time to get there to pick her up if I can’t get off in time to get her there.
This past Thursday I would have gotten off early to get her there but she told me she was riding with a friend if I could just pick her up. I decided to take advantage of that and left straight from work to go get dinner.
There’s a place just outside of Richland I have wanted to stop at forever but it’s far enough out of the way that we wouldn’t go there just to eat and it’s just a little too far for me to drop L off first and get back in time to pick her up.
The Dock at Bayview is right on Gull Lake on D Avenue near M-89. Well, that’s the offical address anyway. Most people will enter the parking lot from M-89 just to the east of North 38th Street. There’s a Marathon gas station right in front of the restaurant and that’s probably the easiest thing to look for when you’re heading down the road. The building looks kind of like a house overlooking the lake to the west. It sits just high enough on a bluff that you can see the lake over Gull Lake Marina.
My plan was just to go in, sit at the bar, have a burger and a beer then get out of there. I failed to take in to account it was the first Thursday of March Madness and I had no way of knowing there was some kind of party also going on in the bar. I walked in to find the U-Shaped bar right inside the door to be full. I didn’t see any open tables in the bar area either because they were pushed together for some kind of gathering. Bar seats opened up as I was leaving so I was probably just a bit too early to do what I wanted to do.
Since I walked in planning on going to the bar, I walked right past the host stand just inside the door. There’s a nice large carpeted dining room just behind this area. It was dinner time on a Thursday night so the place wasn’t full yet and this area wasn’t being used.
There’s another dining room closer to the south end of the building that has large windows so you can see out to the lake. There’s a large wood dance floor in between the two dining spaces and they have quite a bit of live music on the weekends. The dining room on this side of the room has a little bit of a homey feeling to it. There’s a fireplace on one end and large windows let in a lot of natural light. This dining room is much bigger than I expected it to be but they have a pretty prime spot on the lake so I’m sure it’s all used during the summer months.
I took it upon myself to just show myself to a table where I could see a TV in the main dining room. Again, I didn’t do this on purpose or to be a jerk. There wasn’t a host when I walked in and my brain was thinking sit at the bar. I panicked a bit when the bar was full and just sat down someplace I could watch the end of the MSU game. The host did eventually see me sitting there and came over with a menu and took a drink order. I realized then I was sitting at a way larger table than I needed but my plan was to eat dinner and get out of there.
The Dock at Bayview is known for their Bloody Mary’s. During COVID, we got one of their kits and took it to my in-laws for a special treat. These things are massive and even the to-go kit we got was over the top.
I am not a Bloody Mary drinker though so I did what I always do. I ordered a Two Hearted.
When the waitress came back with the beer, I put in an order for the Black ‘n Bleu Smash Burger. This sandwich is two 3 oz. smash patties topped with bacon, bleu cheese, lettuce and tomato on a pretzel bun. The sandwich was a top notch smash burger. The pretzel bun added some stability to burger by soaking up all of the juiciness. The bacon was thick cut and slightly crispy but not at all burnt. There was a large mound of bleu cheese that added a delicious tanginess to every bite. This was really a night I wanted a cold beer and delicious burger and that’s what I got.
The sandwich came with home made chips or fries. I should have gotten the chips but saying fries is just an automatic reaction. The fries were the tasty skin on fries with quite a bit of salt on them. If I’m not getting fresh cut greasy fries from some place, these are the kind of fries I like to see show up on my plate.
The cost for my meal was right around $21 before tip.
I really like bars like this. I don’t really have a friend group that hangs out and has a couple of beers after work but if I did, it’s a place like the Dock at Bayview I would hope would be our go-to. It’s a cool atmosphere which I’m sure is even better during the summer and they have delicious food.
SW Michigan Dining 