Savvy Sliders (Kalamazoo)
3205 S. Westnedge AvenueLast week was our last figure skating competition of the year. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go anywhere.
The National Solo Dance Finals were held right here in Kalamazoo at Wings Event Center. After six months of intense training and traveling all over the country for qualifying competitions, both of my kids qualified for the national final.
That meant my week at work was going to be a little wonky. They both competed first thing in the morning on their respective days so I only had to take half days off work. I could go to the competition in the morning and go in to work in the afternoon.
I knew it was going to be a weird week and likely, an expensive one. The rest of my family was still treating the week like we were on the road so there was still a lot of eating out and a lot of time spent at the rink hanging out with and watching friends compete.
I was sitting at the office Monday night before any of this started and trying so hard to not give in to the temptation to go out to eat. I knew I wasn’t going to eat out as much during the week but I knew Starbucks or 7 Brew runs would happen every day the rest of the week plus countless trips to fast food or the concession stand at WEC.
I gave in though. I was hungry.
I didn’t feel like putting much effort in to finding dinner though and there has been a place that’s been on my list since I bought pizza from the same location.
Savvy Sliders is part of the Happy’s Pizza franchise on South Westnedge and Cork Street in Kalamazoo’s South Westnedge Neighborhood. The slider shop is part of the same franchise and in the same building as the new Happy’s Pizza location that opened up. The building sits on that weird part of Cork Street before it fully merges with Whites Road at the top of the hill. As I explained in my blog post on Happy’s, this building was a Big Apple Bagel when I moved here then it became J. Gumbo’s before sitting empty for several years. Savvy Sliders began as a co-branded franchise with Happy’s Pizza in Commerce Township back in 2018. Since then, they’ve expanded to about 60 stores. Most in Michigan are still co-branded but there are some standalones outside of the state.
The building facing Westnedge but the parking lot is behind the building and that’s where most people are going to enter the restaurant.
The problem with this entrance is the stairs. If you can’t use the stairs, you can go around the building to the front door which brings you in to the main level of the restaurant.
The order counter is actually near the entrance closest to Westnedge Avenue. There’s a little bit of a wall separating it from the dining room when you walk in the door. When I’ve been in here in the past to pick up pizza, it has a felt a little crowded but those nights were busy. There wasn’t as much of a rush on this Monday night. Once you get past that, the counter is set up like a typical fast food place although this isn’t fast food. There is a menu above the counter on TV monitors but if you go in to order, you’re going to have to wait a little bit to get your food.
The cashier said they were just finishing up my order when I walked in so it would be just a couple of minutes. I headed to the dining room to wait and unlike the Savvy Sliders in Battle Creek or Grand Rapids, this one actually has a pretty large dining room. It’s left over from the previous life of this building and they make good use of the space with a variety of seating options. There actually were several people dining in on previous visits but again, this night was a little slow and the dining room was empty.
It took less than five minutes after I arrived at the store for a box of food to be handed over to me. I had to get back to work so I grabbed it and headed back to the office. My order was three sliders and an order of Cheesy Curds. The cost came out to right around $18.
I started with the cheese curds in the car because I was hungry. These things were delicious. They’re very similar to Cuvler’s cheese curds but they’re a little bit bigger and a little bit less uniform. Each one had a bit of the cheese curds sticking out from the breading so you got some crispy bits of cheese in there too. I’ve gotten fries in the past but I’m glad I branched out a bit this time. I really liked these curds.
I did the 3 for $10 slider option. My picks were the Boomin’ Chicken, The Hangover, and The Savvy Classic.
The Boomin’ Chicken was probably my favorite. It’s simple with fried chicken, pickles, and Boom sauce. It’s really just a miniature version of the chicken sandwich craze from a few years ago. The chicken was really crispy and really juicy. The Boom Sauce is a spicy mayo but it lends more towards the spicy and less towards the mayo. It’s not overly powerful but a really nice touch to a delicious chicken sandwich.
The Hangover is a beef patty topped with bacon, fried egg, cheese, and boom sauce. This slider is a “premium” so there is a bit of an upcharge for it. The beef patty is just kind of…meh. The rest of the sandwich is alright and it saves the patty here but there’s not a lot of flavor there. It’s very different from the chicken sandwiches were a lot of the flavor and texture come from the meat. I get this slider every time and I’m always just kind of meh about it. With the upcharge, I should probably stop doing that.
The last slider I chose was a pretty simple one. The Savvy Classic is a beef patty with cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, lettuce, mayo and ketchup. I left the mayo and tomato off. Like The Hangover, this one suffers from a meh piece of beef. They’re so fall it’s easy to overcook I guess. The rest of the sandwich is classic All-American cheeseburger. It was fine and tasty but nothing really special.
I like the concept of Savvy Sliders and I do actually like the food. I really like the chicken a lot more than I do the burgers though which is such an odd thing for me to say. I need to remember to just order the chicken options when I order and I’ll be happier with the place. I like that Happy’s Pizza added Savvy Sliders in Kalamazoo when they moved down the road and reopened. My family has found they really kind of like Happy’s Pizza and I like sliders so we have options when we order carry out now.
