Get Hooked at Curries
Time for my annual trip to Mackinac Island.
I needed to be on the Island in the afternoon on Tuesday but I prefer to not get up at 5 AM to drive if I can help it. I typically go up on Monday. I like to take my time and just drive. It’s one of those few times I’m in the car by myself. I can listen to whatever podcast I want or whatever bad classic rock or 90’s pop music playlist that I want. I can stop wherever I want and not have to worry about making sure everyone else is happy.
J and the kids were still at her parents house on the lake in St. Joseph County Monday morning so I got up around 10:00 and hit the road. I had several stops I wanted to make along the way including stopping for lunch somewhere north of Grand Rapids.
I got to Big Rapids right around noon. I actually had some errands I needed to do while I was in town so I took care of them then started looking for lunch.
I’m not sure how I found it but I found a sandwich shop on Google in a gas station. I needed gas to so this was going to work out.
Get Hooked at Currie’s is on Maple Street near 2nd Street on the Northeast side of Big Rapids. The small sandwich shop is inside the Amoco gas station known as Currie’s just to the east of Muskegon River. The gas station actually has a pretty long history in the City of Big Rapids. The original gas station was just down the street at Maple and State Street but they eventually moved to this location. The station was a BP for years but when offered the chance to rebrand to Amoco, they jumped at the chance. The name comes from the towing business also owned by the family that owns the gas station.
The sandwich shop is fairly new having been part of the renovation that changed the store from a BP to an Amoco. It’s just inside the door to the left when you walk in. There’s a little space on that end of the building carved out amongst the cases of pop and display’s that make up the rest of the convenience store.
There is a menu that hangs above the order counter but there are also paper menus on the table. It’s not a huge menu but what makes this place so unique is how much of it is made in house.
The biggest draw for me was the bread. The bread is baked fresh in house. I was surprised to see loaf pans full of homemade bread. These sandwiches are more panini like. They’re not subs so the bread is loaf bread that is sliced fresh when needed.
I put in an order for the Italian which they call “The Long Haul.” There are options for combos which include a bag of chips and a 20 oz. fountain drink. I passed on the combo because I was planning on buying a coupe of 20 oz. bottles from the other side of the store for the rest of my trip. The cost was a little over $11 and the guy who took my order when to work assembling my sandwich.
It took a little less than ten minutes for him to hand over the freshly pressed sandwich wrapped up in wax paper. There is actually a couple of booths in the restaurant area of the building to sit and eat but since it’s a sandwich, I decided to get back on the road and continue my drive to St. Ignace where I was staying for the night.
The Long Haul is their take on an Italian sandwich. The sandwich starts with fresh baked white or wheat bread (I chose white) and it’s stuffed with ham, salami, pepperoni, tomato, banana peppers, red onion, Havarti cheese, and an Italian aioli. The sandwich is pressed which gave it a delicious, buttery, crunchy bite. Each bite had a little bit of that tanginess from the aioli and from the banana peppers. There was enough meat and cheese to make this a hearty sandwich and enough to keep me satisfied for the rest of my drive Up North.
I still don’t know how I found this place. It’s kind of out of the way and there really isn’t any good signage on the road. I was just scrolling through a search on Google Maps and this popped up. Get Hooked at Currrie’s is really kind of a hidden gem in Big Rapids. Everything that can be made from scratch is made from scratch. You really just kind of have to know this place exists. Like I said, I don’t know how I found it but man, am I glad I did.
SW Michigan Dining 