The Local
116 W. Main StreetI told you there were going to be more St. Joseph County blog posts coming soon. My in-laws bought a lake house near Centreville and J and the kids have spent a lot of weekends out there while I work.
Last Saturday, I worked late Friday night so everyone else went to Nana and Grandpa’s. Saturday morning, I decided to drive that way and meet everyone for lunch at Nana and Grandpa’s new favorite restaurant.
The Local is something that is totally unexpected in a small town like Centreville. The restaurant is on Main Street across from the courthouse in the center of town. The space has a pretty long history of being a bar, it was Round Up Grill & Bar before, but it was never a bar like this.
Jaspare’s Pizza and Fine Italian Food (Vicksburg)
111 S. Main StreetFriday night is pizza night. It doesn’t matter if we’re together as a family or if I ‘m at work and eating dinner by myself. Friday night is pizza night.
My Friday night overtime took me to Vicksburg this week. I had time to eat before my assignment actually began which is rare. I’m usually rushing to these overtime assignments and have to wait until I’m done around 10:00 to eat dinner.
There are a couple of pizza options along the way but there is one local place that always hits the spot.
Jaspare’s Pizza and Fine Italian Food’s original location is on South Main Street in downtown Vicksburg. The restaurant takes up two storefronts with the original building being used as the kitchen and order/pick-up window and the building next door, which was last an antique mall, being used as the dining room. Read more…
Lindbergh’s Landing
5222 Portage RoadIt seems like once a year one of my buddies from my time in Peoria gets a job in Kalamazoo. He works for ESPN and usually gets at least one of the “MACtion” football games at Western Michigan. He was in town this week for the game and got in on Wednesday night. He asked if I wanted to meet for dinner after work.
I got off work a little before 6:00. I picked him up at the Hampton Inn near the airport where he was staying. I didn’t want to go too far for dinner because I still needed to get home and help with bedtime so I wanted us to have as much time as possible since it has been a while since we’ve actually seen each other.
I picked Lindbergh’s Landing for dinner since it’s right across the street on Portage Road. The large restaurant is on the corner of Portage and Fairfield on the Portage side of the Portage/Kalamazoo border. The restaurant used to be Fat Tony’s Grill and Sports Bar and has sat empty for several years after that place closed.
The Stamped Robin
128 Portage Street- Kalamazoo, MI 49007
- (269) 743-7744
- Website
I mentioned in the previous blog at 600 Kitchen & Bar that J and I don’t get many “date nights” where we can actually enjoy a meal without kids. They happen occassionaly but with no family in town to babysit, our Friday and Saturday nights are usually pizza and Netflix.
I took a couple of days off around my birthday so the two of us could spend a kid-free afternoon together. She had to work until 12:30, but that still gave us about three hours where it was just the two of us.
We went to lunch and started to head home. J had said something along the lines of, “Man, I wish one of the distilleries was open.” They weren’t, but then she had another great idea.
The Stamped Robin was just opening as we were walking out of the restaurant. It wasn’t that far away and it’s a place we had never been to so we headed over there for one more drink before heading home.
The Stamped Robin is a wine and cocktail lounge on Portage Road right next to the Kalamazoo Mall Parking Ramp. The business takes the space The Spirit of Kalamazoo occupied before they moved over to the Kalamazoo Mall.
600 Kitchen & Bar
600 E. Michigan AvenueMeals out without kids are rare. We go through spurts with them. For a while, they’re great in restaurants. Then we’ll hit a rough patch and we vow never to eat out again.
B is going through one of those rough patches right now. He doesn’t want to sit still and wants to be held as soon as food comes…oh, and neither of them ever eat their meals. Two bites in, “Can I be done?”
J and I got a rare opportunity earlier this week for lunch. I have some vacation days to burn through so I took them around my birthday. On Tuesday, B goes to full day preschool so both kids are gone from 8:30-4:00….We took advantage of that did a birthday lunch at a place we’ve been hesitant to take the kids to.
600 Kitchen & Bar is Millennium Restaurant Group’s newest venture. The restaurant is located at the corner of Michigan and Harrison just to the east of downtown. It’s part of The Foundry redevelopment in the city’s Rivers Edge district. The 110 year old building that was once Kalamazoo Foundry and Machine Co. was mostly gutted inside. They left the bones of the building which make for a really cool look.
Fiddlehead
422 Franklin StreetSo…I’m another year older. My birthday was earlier this week and to celebrate, my entire family met us in Michigan City for lunch.
I thought it was just going to be my mom and dad but my brother and his family came along too. It worked out great. The kids all got to see each other and I got a burger and a beer.
We met at the Lighthouse Place Premium Outlets before we headed to lunch. My nieces have gotten my daughter in to UnderArmour clothes so my mom has been going crazy buying for all three. We hit up the outlet there to pick out some Christmas presents then a couple of other places before heading to lunch.
We’ve been going to Michigan City for almost ten years and I still don’t really know of any great local restaurants. They have those stupid liquor laws about kids and bars so I tend to stay away from breweries even if kids are welcome.
I happened to find a place near the Outlets that looked really good…and it was open on Sunday.
Fiddlehead is on Franklin Street on the north end of downtown. The building looks kind of odd in a downtown with connected, old brick buildings. This building does butt right up to the building next to it, but instead of brick all the way up, there is metal siding that makes this property really stick out. The building has been many things in the past including a furniture store and a medical lab. It’s now home to the local newspaper, a non-profit cluster, and this restaurant.
Main Street Pizza (Lakeview)
336 S. Lincoln AvenueMore weekend work. My side hustle took me to Mt. Pleasant last weekend for another all day job. I got home Friday night after the kids went to bed and I was up Saturday morning before they even thought about waking up.
J did the soccer thing Saturday morning with L and then a Halloween activity at B’s preschool before heading to St. Joseph County for the night to stay with her parents. I wasn’t going to get home until around 10:00 anyway so they all would have been in bed before I got home again.
I left Mt. Pleasant just before 8:00 and had only had a Jimmy Johns sandwich to eat for lunch. I wanted to get out of town before picking something up so I did what I usually do. I looked for a pizza place along the way.
I had considered going to East Lansing to hit up a brewery before grabbing a pizza but decided against it and headed home taking M-46 to US-131 instead. I didn’t really know what towns I’d be going through other than Lakeview so that’s where I did my search.
I found Main Street Pizza on South Lincoln and 3rd Street in downtown Lakeview. The brick building looks like it’s been there for several decades. Main Street Pizza has been a staple on this corner in Lakeview for quite some time. I pulled in to downtown about 9:00 so it was easy to find a parking spot in the angled spaces that line both sides of Lincoln.
Railroad Cafe
555 Railroad StreetMy office mate has a little bit of time off right now so I’ve been working quite a bit on my own. Friday I headed out towards South Haven to meet up with someone for a job assignment. I was having some issues connecting with that person so I decided to grab some lunch while I was waiting.
I was kind of in the country somewhere between Bangor and South Haven. I didn’t want to go sit down somewhere. I thought of a cafe in Bangor I haven’t been to yet so I headed back that way.
The Railroad Cafe is inside the Bangor Transportation Center at the end of Railroad Street near downtown. The Transportation Center has been downsized quite a bit from the original railroad station. Only the very front of the building now is used for Amtrak customers to wait. If you go through that small lobby, you’ll find an entrance to the cafe. There is also an exterior door on the west side of the building.
Marcello’s Pizza & Subs
525 S. Broadway StreetI’ve blogged extensively about pizza in Southwest Michigan for about ten years now. I hate to be that guy, but there is nothing like Chicago pizza. No, not the touristy stuff you get downtown and on the north side (although I do like that too). I’m talking about the south side cracker thin crust.
Palermo’s 95th is by far my favorite pizza place in the world. I’m excited my in-laws are moving to St. Joseph County so they’ll be closer to my kids but man am I going to miss Palermo’s.
Over the years, whenever I complain about pizza someone will always bring up a place in Cass County. I have only been to Cass County twice in the ten years I’ve lived here and the place was never open when I was driving through.
My Friday night overtime work took me way down south almost to the Indiana-Michigan border in southern Cass County. I was able to time it out so that I could get back to Cassopolis before 10:00 and get the pizza I’ve been missing out on all these years.
Marcello’s Pizza & Subs is on Broadway Street right at the intersection with Reed Street. It’s right on the corner where M-62 and M-60 meet up and across the street from Stone Lake. The building is precariously situated pretty close to the busy road but there is a large parking lot to the south with plenty of room for the small dining room and carry-out business done here.
The Depot
555 Dyckman AvenueSouth Haven is different in the fall. I really like it. We can move around town pretty easily and things are much more laid back.
A co-worker and I had some down time while in town earlier this week. We probably could have even sat down for lunch somewhere but we were waiting on a phone call so we didn’t want to chance it.
I was driving down Broadway and I saw a sign that triggered something. I thought I had remembered seeing something somewhere about a liquor store in South Haven that also has a pretty good deli. I pulled in to the parking lot of The Depot to check my phone and sure enough, it was the place I was thinking of.
The Depot is pretty much on the curve where Broadway turns in to Dyckman near downtown South Haven. The entrance to the parking lot is right at the intersection of Dyckman and Williams Street. I don’t know if there used to be a rail line that ran through the area or what the deal is, but the building looks like an old train depot. The Depot takes up the larger building while an Edward Jones is in the smaller building to the west. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 