McGonigle’s Irish Pub
3512 E. Main StreetI’m not even going to pretend I don’t hate talking on the phone. I rarely talk to anyone other than my wife or my mom. I’ve always hated it and text messaging has made me despise phone calls even more.
That holds true when it comes time to order carry-out. If I really want something, I will suck it up and make the phone call but places with online ordering win out most of the time.
I had a day pretty much to myself at work in the middle of last week. I had some housekeeping things to do around the office and a late afternoon meeting but for the most part, it was a leisurely day. I started looking for some place to order lunch from and came across a really surprising place that has online ordering.
McGonigle’s Irish Pub is on East Main Street in the Eastwood Plaza near the intersection with Nazareth Road. I’ve seen advertisements for the pub before but never even given it a thought when we’ve discussed meal plans. Being on the Eastside of town on a road we rarely drive on. The restaurant is marked by a green awning jutting out from a shopping center that has clearly seen better days.
Pigeon Inn
110 Chicago RoadI don’t get to White Pigeon very often. Most of the time it’s just a drive through on US-131 on our way to the Indiana Toll Road. I’ve probably only been to the town a couple of times of for work.
A few weeks ago, a co-worker and I spent the better part of the day in town. We didn’t have a lot of free time so I ended up eating lunch at Speedway and he got Subway.
There was a place that I wanted to know more about. It is right in the heart of town and has a great old sign hanging off the front of the building.
The restaurant is the Pigeon Inn. The small restaurants sits on Chicago Road (also US-12) near the intersection with Kalamazoo Street which appears to be the main downtown intersection. The building sits pretty close to the very busy street. There is a parking lot behind it and they also use the lot from Poor Boys Pizza & Subs next door which is no longer open.
Revel and Roll West
4500 Stadium DriveL has been asking for quite a while to go bowling sometime and we always say, “We will soon.” Soon never really comes though as no one thinks about bowling when we’re trying to decide what to do for the day.
This past weekend, J wanted to get out of the house again. L and I had done Allegan Event on Saturday while B and J went to the McDonalds play area. Everyone was finally getting over their sickness so we were trying to make up for lost time on Christmas break.
J suggested we go bowling.
We picked Revel and Roll West because J had some free tokens for arcade game play. L has been begging to bowl and B was really intrigued by the “rolling ball game,” so we figured we could make an afternoon out of it. Bowling, arcade games, and lunch.
Revel and Roll West is on Stadium Drive in the University Commons shopping plaza. The building used to to be Pinz but about a year and a half ago, became more than a bowling alley as the new owners introduced a restaurant, an arcade, and laser tag to space.
Burrito Boss
1256 Lincoln RoadWinter break didn’t quite go as planned. J took 11 days off around Christmas and New Years so she could be home with the kids. She had all sorts of plans of fun things to do with them…then she and B got sick right after Christmas.
L handled it pretty well. She spent a lot of time playing with Legos, her Barbies, or just vegging out and watching Youtube on her Kindle. By Saturday though, we wanted to reward her for being understanding and dealing with the boredom.
I was going to take her to South Haven to go ice skating but J had a better idea. Allegan Event. If you’ve never heard of this place, you need to click on this link. It’s an indoor ropes course built by the people who build most of the ropes courses you see around the country. It’s pretty cool and both L and I had a blast.
We spent about two hours climbing and riding the zip line before we both got pretty tired. I got out of the course about fifteen minutes before she did and when I finally called her to come down, there was no argument.
It was close to 2:00 by the time we got back on the road and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. L has been really big into tacos lately and we passed a place on the way in to town that sounded really good.
Burrito Boss is on Lincoln Road (or M-89) just outside of Allegan proper to the southeast. This odd little building was the original location of U.P. North Sandwich and Pasty Company. U.P. North closed in November of 2017 after new owners took over just about six months prior. The Pasty game had dried up in Allegan and it was time for something new.
Mitten Pizza
11446 Chief Noonday RoadSometimes, not usually, but sometimes, it’s fun getting off work late two counties from home.
I got stuck in Hastings one day last week and when I told J it would be 6:30 before I left for home, she stopped expecting me home for dinner. She took care of herself and the kids and told me I was on my own.
I’m typically fine with being on my own for dinner. It just means I’ll order a pizza and when I’m on the road, it means I get a pizza from a place I hadn’t been before.
Hastings actually has a couple of places I wanted to try but I didn’t want the pizza to sit a full hour before I cracked open the box. I compromised a picked a spot not quite halfway between Hastings and Kalamazoo.
I’ve driven by Mitten Pizza (and it’s predecessors) so many times over the years but never had time to stop. The small pizzeria near Gun Lake is on Chief Noonday Road (or M-179) just to the west of Briggs Road. The address is listed as Middleville, but that’s just the closest town. The restaurant is in Yankee Springs Township just north of Yankee Springs State Park and Gun Lake. The building isn’t much more than a metal building that houses a pizzeria and a vape shop on this very busy stretch of rural highway.
MOD Pizza (Oshtemo Township)
5097 Century Avenue, Suite DWhen the homes and trees along Century Avenue in Kalamazoo were taken down several years ago and Costco was planned, we were told how that area was going to be bustling with shops and restaurants. For the longest time, we got a bunch of empty storefronts and banks…seriously, this town doesn’t need anymore bank branches. The township to limit those like they limit liquor establishments.
A little over three years later, the rest of the development is starting to fill out. Trader Joe’s and Field & Stream are the big stores, but there are finally more restaurants going in to the slots that we were promised.
The newest restaurant to open is MOD Pizza. They take up a little corner shop in the building connected to Trader Joe’s and Chowhound Pet Supplies. It can be hard to see from the parking lot off of Century but if you just follow the lot around to the backside facing Stadium Drive, it becomes more obvious where the fast fired pizza chain set up shop. Read more…
Grand Traverse Distilling Kalamazoo Tasting Room
224 E. Michigan AvenueA few weeks ago, J and I ended up at The Wine Loft after a show at Miller Auditorium. We headed downtown to have a few drinks since we had a babysitter for the night. Our intended destination was a new tasting room for a popular Northern Michigan distillery, but they close at 10:00.
We had another opportunity this past weekend when Frankie Ballard was in town for a show at the State Theatre. We dropped the kids off with J’s parents then went to dinner at University Roadhouse. We still had time before the 8:00 show so I once again suggested drinks.
We parked about halfway between the State Theatre and Grand Traverse Distilling’s new Tasting Room in Kalamazoo. The distillery took over a store front on East Michigan Avenue in a space that has sat empty since not long after the smoking ban took effect and pushed Winston’s out. Read more…
University Roadhouse
1332 W. Michigan AvenueHaving grandparents close is something new to J and I. We moved to Michigan 10 years ago from Central Illinois. We both grew up in north eastern Illinois. She grew up in a Chicago suburb. I grew up about 60 miles south of Chicago in a small farming community. For the first ten years, our families still lived in the communities we grew up in.
J’s parents began looking at lake houses last fall. Her dad had retired and there wasn’t much keeping them in Chicago. They had always planned to move away from the city after retirement but it was Wisconsin that was always their intended target.
When it came time to pull the trigger, they wanted to get closer to the grand kids. That was a big relief to us. For the first time, we’d have family nearby (and really, who would rather move to Wisconsin over Michigan?)
We’ve been able to take advantage of Nana and Grandpa nearby a few times already and it worked out perfectly when we needed a babysitter this past weekend for the Frankie Ballard concert. My mom had offered to come up again, but J’s parents didn’t have plans and offered to take the kids overnight at their house.
We had the whole evening to ourselves and we expected to take advantage of it. Dinner, drinks, and a concert.
We kicked around a few places to eat. The only places downtown we really haven’t eaten at didn’t have much to appeal to J. We discussed a few of our favorites downtown as well but ultimately, went for something we haven’t done in a while.
University Roadhouse was one of the first restaurants we ate at after moving to Kalamazoo in 2009. We’ve eaten there a few times over the years, but it has been at least a couple since the last time I can remember being there.
J met some friends at University Roadhouse a few months ago and didn’t recognize the place. She came home and said we needed to go back. The idea came up when discussing dinner plans on Saturday so that’s what we decided to do.
University Roadhouse is one of the Houz Restaurant Groups restaurants. They’re the same group that owns the Main Street Pubs, Fletcher’s Pub, and The Old Goat Tavern. The Roadhouse has been a staple situated between Waldo Stadium and Western Michigan’s University’s campus on Michigan Avenue for almost 30 years.
Factory Coffee
213 E. Frank StreetI’m not a morning person. I get up about a half hour before I need to get the kids off to school and my breakfast is usually a Pepsi and leftover pizza if we have some in the fridge. I like breakfast food. I like cooking breakfast food. I just don’t like getting up early enough to do so.
I walked out of the house really hungry on Friday. I was going to just hit the gas station on my way to work and grab a Pepsi and a Hostess, but I really wanted more than that.
As I’ve already mentioned, my morning caffeine is a bottle of Pepsi, not coffee like most people so I don’t spend a lot of time in coffee shops. I noticed a few weeks ago that a new(ish) coffee shop popped up on Grubhub. I clicked on it and noticed a few breakfast items on the menu.
Factory Coffee is on Frank Street on Kalamazoo’s north side. It’s in a business incubator known as the Reality Factory. A ceramics company and the owner’s moped business also have space in the building that was built in the 1930’s. It’s pretty much always been a factory of some kind and still kind of is with the moped business.
Grand River Brewery (Marshall)
101 W. Michigan AvenueIt’s usually me who is pressuring J in to going out to eat at a new place someone has told me about but this past weekend, she turned the tables on me.
We were planning our day on Sunday when J kept saying she wanted to go to Marshall. One of her colleagues has been raving about a brewery there and, well, she had me at brewery.
Grand River Brewery in Marshall is the second location for the Jackson based brewing company. The Marshall location is right in downtown on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Jefferson Street in the 150 year old Cronin Building. If that names sounds familiar, you know you’re Marshall history. The Cronin Mansion is the inspiration for the book The House with a Clock in it’s Walls which became a movie starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett. This building downtown was used for many things over the years. It’s original purpose was a dry goods store, but it’s been an antique store and a couple of restaurants over the years. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 