Y Bar & Bistro
2941 Howard StreetSo….we’re doing soccer this year. L’s best friend kept coming over to the house on Saturday’s last spring in her soccer uniform so L asked to sign up this fall. I’ve never been a soccer fan…..at all…like not even tolerate it…I think it’s one of the most boring things in the world….but she wanted to play so I signed her up.
The thing I’ve learned about U8 AYSO soccer is that games are mostly flossing and doing somersaults. The kids have fun but they’re not all that focused yet.
L’s games get over right around lunch time so the last couple of weeks, we’ve been going out to lunch straight from the soccer complex.
Y Bar & Bistro has been on my radar for quite some time. I’ve seen the advertisements for the Mac & Cheese bar but was always skeptical. The restaurant is in the Campus Pointe Mall on the corner of Howard and Michigan where several other “college bars” have failed. The last one we went to in this location was AFB Bar & Grill. They tried to be a normal sports bar during the day but it still felt like we were out of place when we stopped in for lunch a couple of times. Read more…
Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders (Three Rivers)
103 S. Lincoln StreetFriday nights in the fall are my late nights. I work all day then pick up some overtime at night. I’m usually in a small town somewhere by myself and I’m always looking for pizza. For some reason, most small pizza joints close at 9. You’d think they’d want that after high school football crowd but finding a pizza after 9 is hard unless I want to settle for Pizza Hut.
I was in Three Rivers last week and was wrapping up my assignment just before 9:00. I Googled pizza and found a couple of places that said they were open until 10:00. I called the one closest to me and found out Google lied so I moved on to the next one.
That next one was Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders. I had no idea when I picked this place that it’s actually part of the Mancino’s family…as in it’s owned by descendants of Samuel Mancino’s. Cavoni was the maiden name of Frank Mancino’s mother. He opened the first Cavoni’s restaurant in 1977.
The Three Rivers location used to be the Centreville location. They moved to a small strip mall on Lincoln Street on the west side of town. It’s right on the corner of Michigan Avenue (BL-131) and Lincoln. Read more…
Rollo’s Mancino’s
118 E. Michigan AvenueI wasn’t planning on being at work late on a Thursday night but that’s what happened. J was expecting me home for dinner but I was stuck in Marshall until 6:30 which means it would be after 7:30 before I got home.
J decided just to go out with some friends for dinner at Latitude 42. She offered to bring something home for me but I wanted to eat before eight.
I was stuck in downtown Marshall so I had some options. I went with my standby and searched pizza places. I knew Five Star Pizza was close but I wondered if there was something else. Sure enough, there was. It was a familiar name but one I don’t get pizza from very often.
Rollo’s Mancino’s is on Michigan Avenue right in downtown Marshall near the intersection with North Madison Street. It appears to be part of the bigger chain of Mancino’s that I was familiar with back in Illinois where I grew up. The building is one of the few old buildings in downtown Marshall that looks like it’s seen better days. There is a wood facade over the brick where the name of the restaurant is hanging in large script letters. Read more…
Weller Barbecue
Food Truck- Kalamazoo, MI 49001
- (269) 910-6133
- Website
- Sample Menu
I have really been on a brisket kick lately. I just can’t get enough of it. I ate at Kelvin & Co. twice in four days and one day in between, I hit up a food truck.
It wasn’t really my intention to walk over to Bronson Park for lunch. I had some downtown at work and went for a walk. I could smell all the delicious food and there didn’t seem to be any lines so I crossed the street to look for something to eat.
It seems like BBQ food trucks are the most abundant kind of food trucks. There were a couple different ones selling ‘cue but I noticed one I hadn’t been to yet. I decided to give them a try to see how they stack up.
Weller Barbecue has been on the road for about two years now. I’ve seen them at Lunchtime Live several times, but I haven’t eaten there much this summer so I just never made my way to their big black truck. Read more…
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…
SW Michigan Dining 
