Kilwins Chocolate Kitchen
1050 Bay View RoadI know. I know. Going to a Kilwins is something tourists do. I’ve been there, done that. So why in the heck did I take the family to Kilwins for ice cream instead of seeking out a local spot.
Well, that’s easy. This Kilwins isn’t like the others. This Kilwins isn’t the small, downtown shop where you can watch candy being made in the window. This Kilwins is the mothership.
Kilwins Chocolate Kitchen is on Bay View Road just outside of the Petoskey city limits on the east side of town in the unincorporated resort community of Bay View. The store is a massive facility by Kilwins standards and looks more like a small grocery store from the outside than some cute, downtown shop. Read more…
Petoskey Brewing Company
1844 M-119The drive back from the Upper Peninsula was happening around lunchtime. We left the Garlyn Zoo sometime around 12:30. There weren’t a whole lot of lunch options along M-2 heading back towards the bridge so once we got good cell phone service, we started looking in St. Ignace and Mackinaw City for a place to stop and eat.
We decided to stop at Darrow’s Family Restaurant. We went in, got a table, then got ignored. Waitresses walked past us several times and after about ten minutes, we got up and left. B was beyond nap time and wasn’t content on sitting and if it took that long to get drinks, how long was lunch going to take? B wasn’t going to make it.
Everyone was now hungry and cranky as we started to drive back towards Petoskey. B fell asleep by the time we got off I-75 so J just told me to find someplace to stop and she’d stay in the car with B while L and I went to eat.
At this point, I figured I’d just go back to Petoskey. There was still a brewery that I wanted to eat at and if we were going to be eating lunch after 2:00, we wouldn’t be eating dinner until late and restaurants have a habit of filling up quickly at dinner time. I didn’t want to miss out on this brewery, so we headed there for lunch.
Petoskey Brewing Company is just outside of the Petoskey city limits on M-119 heading towards the Petoskey State Park. It’s not a building that is easily missed. The building has been many things over the years but actually started it’s life as a brewery in 1898. Petoskey Brewing Company took over the location in 2012 and returned the building to it’s roots. Read more…
Garlyn Zoo
W9104 US Highway 2- Naubinway, MI 49762
- (906) 477-1085
- Website
Our second full day of our Petoskey Vacation started bright and early when B went around the cabin waking everyone up before we really wanted to. We had planned to get up early….but not B early.
We did actually plan on getting an early start anyway. About a week before the trip, I saw a segment on Fox 17’s Morning Mix about a zoo in the Upper Peninsula. Once we realized it was less than two hours away, we decided to take a little road trip.
Garlyn Zoo Wildlife Park is a private zoo east of Naubinway along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the Upper Peninsula. It’s about forty miles west of St. Ignace on U.S. 2. Once you get across the bridge, make sure to fill up because there’s really not a whole lot of places to pull off between St. Ignace and the zoo.
American Spoon Cafe & Gelato
413 E. Lake StreetWe decided to do some walking around after we finished dinner at Beards Brewery. Petoskey is a tourist lake shore town and there are a ton of cute shops that line the streets. J remembered visiting when she was a kid and getting a Petoskey Stone necklace that she still has. We were sort of looking for one for L but she was more interested in toys and stuffed animals so we just went home with the Petoskey Stones we found at the State Park.
The previous day we had drove around downtown a little bit after picking up pizza from Mighty Fine Pizza. J noticed a gelato shop on the edge of downtown and we promised the kids we would stop after dinner if they were good. They were….somewhat good during dinner….so we kept that promise.
American Spoon Cafe & Gelato is the original American Spoon. There are five locations along the Lake Michigan shoreline. The one in Saugatuck is the closest to us, but there are also stores in Traverse City, Charlevoix, and Harbor Springs. The Petoskey store is the only one with a cafe though although I know the Saugatuck store have gelato. I’ve never been to the other three so not sure if they do as well.
The store in Petoskey is actually two stores. One is the market. The space right next to it is the Cafe. Both stores are located on East Lake Street right next to Pennsylvania Park.
Beards Brewery
215 E. Lake StreetI’ve been excited about this Petoskey vacation for some time. I really, really needed a break from work. I don’t get enough long breaks where I have no responsibilities, so I’ve been counting down to this for a while.
There’s also two breweries that I’ve really been wanting to make a pilgrimage to. When we decided we were going to Petoskey this summer, I told J I had two places I had to go. She likes breweries as much as I do so I didn’t have to do much arm twisting to get her to agree.
The first full day we were in town, we kind of relaxed around the cabin, played at the playground at Bayfront Park, then, after naps, headed out to Petoskey State Park to swim and look for Petoskey Stones.
We actually did find a handful of Petoskey Stones so that part of the afternoon was a success, but the swimming….pardon my french here, but holy shit is that a terrible beach. I mean, I literally thought we were swimming in shit. It was so insanely dirty and my feet still hurt from the rocks along the shoreline. I guess we’re so spoiled with South Haven because every time we’ve went to a state park, we’ve left wondering why people would ever go swimming there. Our original plan was to swim, change at the park, then go straight to dinner, but L had so much garbage (literally) in her hair that it took two showers and a lot of combing and screaming to get it all out. We had to go back to the cabin and take full on showers before we could go out downtown. There won’t be a next time at Petoskey State Park.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, dinner. After showers and getting cleaned up, we headed back downtown to eat.
Beards Brewing is visible from US-31 right on the edge of downtown on Lake Street. The large building is both a pub and a small production facility. They moved to this building last spring after operating at a different, smaller building without in downtown for five years. Parking is along the street or in public lots around downtown. At 5:00 on a Wednesday night, the closest spot we could find was about two and a half blocks away.
The Original Pancake House (Bay Harbor)
4165 Main StreetThe great thing about staying at a cabin on vacation is you get more rooms and don’t have to squeeze the family into a hotel. The bad thing is you don’t have that sweet, free breakfast most hotel chains offer up nowadays.
We didn’t buy any food to cook at our cabin since we were only going to be there three nights. We’re not super big breakfast people anyway so we knew there’d be a lot of grab and go type things. Our first morning in town, however, we had no plans to leave the city so when the kids got up early, we got moving on finding a place for breakfast.
There weren’t nearly as many breakfast options as I assumed there would be and nothing really jumped out at me as this is the place we need to go to. I decided to pick something close to our cabin and a chain we’re not really familiar with, but a chain nonetheless, as a safe bet for a good hearty breakfast.
The Original Pancake House is in the luxury resort community of Bay Harbor on the west side of Petoskey. The address on Google lists it as Bay Harbor, but tax records show it’s in the city as Bay Harbor doesn’t exist as a municipality as far as I can tell. The restaurant is tucked in the corner of a mixed-use development on Main Street that has a number of high end shops and other businesses on both side of the street.
Mighty Fine Pizza
222 E. Mitchell StreetWe started our “Up North” vacation on Tuesday afternoon. J worked her morning shift and when she got off around 11:00, we hopped in the car and started heading to Petoskey.
We took a detour in Rockford to get lunch at Rockford Brewing Company so it put us in Petoskey at almost exactly 5:00. We rented at cabin at Petoskey RV Resort on the west side of town and the first thing we did was unpack the car then hit the pool.
Our plan for the evening was to swim for a while, pick up a pizza, then find a spot to watch the sunset. We did the swimming and we actually passed a good spot on our drive from Charlevoix to Petoskey…so all that was left was to find a pizza place.
I didn’t find many local places when I did a search for pizza. The one place that did come up came up rated pretty highly. That was good enough for me.
Mighty Fine Pizza has been in downtown Petoskey since the mid-1960’s. It really doesn’t look like it fits in the landscape on Mitchell Street just north of US-31…actually, let me rephrase that, it looks like it fits like a glove wedged into a space where there shouldn’t be a building. The small, take-out or delivery building is just eight feet wide…about the size of an alley…which is exactly what used to be in that space.
Rockford Brewing Company
12 E. Bridge Street NEWe finally did it. We finally became true Michiganders. For the first time, we’re taking a vacation “up north”….and not just to go to Great Wolf Lodge. We’re staying in a cabin in a campground and everything. Not quite roughing it but not in a hotel either.
Neither one of us wanted to use a full week of vacation so I worked Monday and J worked her shift Monday and Tuesday. She got out of work about 11 AM and we hit the road.
The plan all along was to stop along the way and get something to eat. I asked if she could make it as far as Rockford. She said yes. I had a brewery in mind.
Rockford Brewing Company is another one of those breweries that has long been on my short list of places to eat at. We just don’t get to Rockford very often…or at all.
The brewery sits near the Rogue River on the southeast corner of downtown Rockford. The brewery is on Bridge Street right along the White Pine Trail. They share a parking lot with Ramon’s Table. Ramona’s was packed for lunch so we had to go to the public lot on the other side of the trail and walk up the hill to get to the building.
Black Rock Bar & Grill (Portage)
550 Trade Center WayChain restaurants are not something I usually get excited about. We eat at chains. It’s usually because we have a gift card or we’re being lazy….or, my kids love Chili’s because they have tablets on the tables. It’s not usually because it’s our first choice.
A new steakhouse in Portage though caught my interest early on. It’s a Michigan based chain, so we had to check it out but the more I read about the place, the more I was getting interested in what looked like a pretty unique concept.
Black Rock Bar & Grill sits in front of the Homewood Suites by Hilton on Trade Center Way….that’s the road that fronts westbound I-94 at the Westnedge exit. The small, twelve store chain began in Hartland, MI between Howell and Pontiac in 2010. They’ve grown to stores in several Michigan cities as well as in Florida and the Chicago suburb of Naperville with an expansion into Ohio coming soon.
Speedy Cafe (Texas Township)
5250 S. 9th StreetJ and I both have weird jobs. Neither of us work 9-5 and we can get called in to work at weird hours.
That happened Thursday night as I was laying on the couch watching a movie. I was about halfway through Spider Man: Homecoming when my phone rang. It was work. They needed me to come in for a few hours.
Right after I left, the doorbell rang. At 9:30 at night, one of the kids in the neighborhood was trying to deliver some cookie dough that J bought from her as a fundraiser. I wasn’t home to get the door so she rang a couple of times waking J up. J never really got back to sleep after that and her alarm goes off at 1:45 AM…so it was a short night.
J realized she was going to be tired and hungry when she got up for work so she asked if I would pick her up a pizza and a fountain pop before I came home. I think she was just expecting half a Tombstone when she got up but I had a better idea that would actually turn out to be cheaper.
I went a little out of my way to the Speedy Cafe at the Speedway Gas Station on 9th Street in Texas Township. The gas station has been there for years but they tore it down and put up a newer, bigger, cleaner building a few years ago. At that time, I was perplexed why they didn’t make it a Speedy Cafe. The location near I-94 made it the perfect place to put one. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 