Kelvin & Co. BBQ (Oshtemo)
5167 W. Main StreetI could eat BBQ everyday. Couldn’t you? I mean, seriously, it’s one of the most perfect foods. Salty, tender meat (sometimes) in a thick, sweet sauce. It’s just….perfect.
I was super excited when Kevlin & Co announced they were opening a second location. Even more so when I saw that location was going to be closer to me.
The second Kelvin & Co. BBQ location opened up a few months ago on West Main Street in Oshtemo Township. It’s just to the west of Drake Road in the new building in front of Kohls that is also home to Jimmy John’s and Five Guys.
Soil Friends Farm & Market
1701 N. 33rd StreetI think I’ve talked quite a bit about how much J loves hard cider. The more places we go, the more it grows on me too. I will still always pick beer over cider, but I’m enjoying a lot of these places popping up that specialize cider.
Sunday was another lazy Sunday. We were tossing out ideas about what to do with the kids. It was lunch time and we really wanted to get out of the house. We were all on each other’s nerves at that point in the day and it was so gorgeous out, there was no reason to spend it indoors.
We had kicked around a few ideas until J pulled one out I didn’t even think of…..a farm market that she took the kids to with some friends a few weeks ago that they all loved. It’s not a place we could get lunch but we could get some snacks and a few drinks while we let the kids play.
Soil Friends Farm & Market is about a mile northwest of Galesburg on 33rd Street. It’s situated in an agricultural area with trees and farm fields all around. The public area of the market is down a gravel driveway. There are a few parking spots right near the landscaped entrance but the driveway is big enough to make spots when those are full. A cargo container acts as the rally point with drinks and donuts being served out of one window and the other being used as a cashier.
Yummies
2730 W. Michigan AvenuFriday nights are long days for me now. I pick up a little overtime on Friday nights in the fall due to an increased work load at work. I don’t mind it. I actually enjoy the work I do on those nights so it’s really not a big deal to work my regular shift all day then get spun on to something fun at night.
I don’t get much of a chance to eat dinner so I’m always looking to pick something up on my way home around 10:00. I like to find pizza places still open but they all seem to close at 9 or 10, so I usually end up at Taco Bell.
My job assignment this past Friday was in Kalamazoo so that was going to leave me some more options for late night food. A new place near campus just opened and they advertise Italian beef….so you know where I was going for dinner, right?
Yummies is on Michigan Avenue just to the west of Howard Street. It’s in the old Wendy’s building just outside the Campus Pointe Mall. The square building still pretty much look like Wendy’s but with a new paint job to get away from the chain fast food look. Read more…
Midtown Kitchen
1693 S. Westnedge AvenueJ was super excited when the new supermarket was going in where Hardings used to be on Westnedge and Howard. It’s not close enough to us that we would shop there but it is close enough to where both of us work that we would be able to stop by if we saw a sale and we could make it a regular lunch spot if the deli was as good as it was hyped up to be.
The Midtown Fresh grocery store opened at the beginning of August. This was almost three years and a half years after Hardings closed in February of 2015. The grocery store is much smaller than Hardings was. Instead of using the entire building for one big supermarket, they’ve broken the building up in to several spaces which right now includes the grocery store and an Ace Hardware with other store fronts being finished up right now.
Tastee Treet
744 E. Main StreetA day at the beach can only be capped off with ice cream.
We spent about two hours at Oval Beach in Saugatuck before heading back to Kalamazoo with two exhausted kids. J suggested stopping in Allegan for ice cream. I liked the idea and so did the kids so that was the plan.
As we were coming in to Fennville, we almost drove right in to an ice cream stand. B was very close to falling asleep and may not have made it to Allegan so J told me to just pull off the road there so we got ice cream before kids started falling asleep.
Tastee Treet (yes, that awful spelling is correct), is just outside of the Fennville city limits on Main Street right at the intersection with 56th Street/New Richmond Road. The building is a walk up ice cream shop with a parking lot that wraps around the building.
The Mitten Brewing Company (Saugatuck)
329 Water StreetWe’ve done the whole beach sunset thing the past several years on Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. J usually has it off so that means she doesn’t have to be in bed by 8:00, so we take advantage of the long weekend and gorgeous Lake Michigan twilight show.
We’ve always gone to South Haven, but this year it looked like we weren’t going to get a good sunset. There was rain in the forecast for the evening so we decided to go to the beach a little earlier than we normally would.
J and I were talking about plans when she said, “I want a pizza flight.” We had just talked about the pizza flights at The Mitten Brewing Company when we ate dinner at Long Road Distillers
in Grand Rapids. We decided then we needed to get to the Saugatuck location sometime. We figured now was as good of a time as any so we changed our typical beach plans from South Haven to Saugatuck.
The Mitten Brewing Company’s Saugatuck location is on Water Street just south of Main Street along the Kalamazoo River in downtown. The building looks like a house and was most recently a wine bar and bistro on the lower level. Read more…
O.T.’s Up-N-Smoke (Augusta)
501 E. Michigan AvenueI never pass up a BBQ place if I can help it.
I spent most of the day in Augusta one day earlier this week and after a couple hours of sitting and waiting, I was hungry. Augusta has a surprising number of options when it comes to lunch but a few months ago, I was driving through town on my way back from Battle Creek and spotted a familiar name in a location I hadn’t seen them at before.
O.T.’s Up-N-Smoke is pretty well known in Battle Creek with a location on Capital Avenue and a seasonal trailer on Beadle Lake Avenue. They’ve also opened another permanent location just on the east edge of town on Michigan Avenue/M-96 in a building shared with Unique Treasures Plus.
Riedy’s Tavern
219 S. Cochran AvenueWorking weekends. For seven years I worked nights and weekends so I do everything I can to avoid that now that I’m finally on Monday through Friday.
There were a couple of overtime opportunities in Lansing this past weekend and I really like the co-worker that I would be working with. We could use the extra money and they were going to be easy days, so J told me to take it.
I got done with work just before 5:00 on Saturday and started on the trip home. Since I was gone, J took the kids over to a friend’s house to play. I said I’d just grab something to eat on the way home since they were getting pizza where they were going.
I could have picked up a pizza in Lansing but what fun is that? I’ve eaten at most of the pizza places in town. I started looking along my route and came up with something in Charlotte.
Riedy’s Tavern is in downtown Charlotte on Cochran Avenue south of Lovett Street. The restaurant takes up the bottom floor of two buildings. At one time, the two spaces were separate but it appears Riedy’s expanded at one point and went from being Riedy’s Pizza to being Riedy’s Tavern. Read more…
Hooters (Portage, IN)
1665 Olmstead DriveA few years ago, L started a tradition with J’s parents of going to Wisconsin for vacation with. They go to a resort way up in the northwest corner where J’s family has been going since she was little.
They got back Saturday afternoon and to give them a break from driving, we said we’d meet at the Bass Pro Shop in Portage, IN on Sunday morning to pick her up.
I wanted to look at new smokers at Bass Pro so we hung out there for a bit then J’s mom suggested getting lunch before parting ways. There are really only chains and fast food in that area so we didn’t have a lot to choose from. J’s mom suggested a fairly new restaurant right next to Bass Pro.
Hooters is on Olmstead Drive not very far from the I-94 interchange with IN-249. This is one of the new stores that look nothing like the classic Hooters stores most of us went to when we were in college. Gone is the road house look and in now is a much more modern, sleek design with cleaner lines and accents of the traditional orange. Read more…
Kelsey Block Brewing Company
41 N. Main StreetAs we were sitting at Paw Paw Brewing eating dinner on Friday night, I remembered a Facebook targeted ad I had just seen the day before. I mentioned it to J who said we should go there for lunch. I said yeah and kept eating my delicious sandwich.
The next day, we were trying to figure out what to do. It was the last day of L being gone so we wanted to spend a little more one-on-one time with B before his sister came home and the fighting over toys commenced. I didn’t really have any good ideas but J brought up that brewery again. We could go get something to eat then take B to the park for a while.
That brewery is Kelsey Block Brewing Company in downtown Three Rivers right on Main Street. The brewery is part of a large building that claims to be the oldest in Three Rivers. The space right in the middle has been several restaurants over the years with a BBQ joint being the most recent tenant. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 
