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…
Roma Pizza (Bangor)
111 W. Monroe StreetAnother Friday night working away from Kalamazoo means another Friday night I get to find a pizza place in a small town.
My co-worker and I spent the day in South Haven on Friday…tough assignment, right? Anyway, that meant I wouldn’t be getting home until closer to 8:00. J had already ordered a pizza from Hungry Howie’s for her and the kids. That would have been fine if I was closer to home, but since I was going to be late and I was passing pizza places I’ve never been to, I decided to bring home my own pizza.
For years now we’ve been driving to South Haven using M-43. The only town between Kalamazoo and South Haven we have to slow down for is Bangor. M-43 runs right through their main business district which has a few restaurants and shops alongside the very busy highway. On the east edge of town is a non-descript white building that has piqued my curiosity for a long time. It looks like it’s been around for quite a while and if that’s the case, it must be hiding something good.
Roma Pizza is on Monroe Street, or M-43, just to the west of Walnut Street as you enter downtown Bangor from the east. The boxy building isn’t much to look at it. It appears that it was connected to another building which then connected to another and so on at one time, but now it sits between a grassy lot and a credit union. There is parking on the street along M-43 but there’s also a lot behind the building and a sidewalk that leads to the front door. Read more…
O’Duffy’s Pub
804 W. Vine StreetIt’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post about a place in Kalamazoo. We’ve been traveling on weekends this summer and when we’re home, we’ve been trying to save money and not eat out.
J has been doing this thing on Monday nights where she gets together with a group of friends who also have husbands that work second shift. They do a potluck and let the kids play. B is doing a dance class on Monday nights for a few weeks so this week, they pushed it back to Tuesday.
I don’t work second shift on Tuesday so J told me I would probably want to grab something to eat before coming home as there would still be a lot of kids running around and mostly “healthy food” from their potluck. I probably could have found something to eat but I decided to take advantage of her telling me to get a beer and something to eat after work.
I picked O’Duffy’s Pub in the Vine Neighborhood. I’ve always heard they have great burgers but their pub menu is pretty much only burgers so I’ve never asked J to go.
O’Duffy’s Pub and Cosmo’s Cucina share the same 19th century building on the corner of Vine and Locust Streets. There’s a little construction in the area right but the building is still accessible from both streets at night. Parking is on the street in the surrounding neighborhood. Trees cover the front of the building and I actually drove right past it at first. I knew it was there but it wasn’t until I was the past the building that I realized where I was.
Sherman’s Dairy Bar
1601 Phoenix StreetGo to South Haven on a gorgeous summer Saturday afternoon? That’s crazy, you say? I agree with you…but we did it anyway.
We haven’t been to the beach yet this summer and it was such a great day that we decided to fight the crowds. Parking at the beach was impossible. We tried both South and North Beaches. We eventually headed towards the smaller beaches and found a spot at Dyckman Park.
We played for a couple of hours then figured we should get something to eat. The kids were hot and they didn’t throw a fit when we left…so that’s a win.
We were trying to go to South Having Brewing Company…but….parking. We drove around downtown several times and couldn’t find a spot, so I finally gave up and declared we were having ice cream for lunch.
There’s really only one place for ice cream in South Haven and that’s Sherman’s Dairy Bar. I mean, we’ve had Sherman’s ice cream several times at different places in West Michigan but we’ve never actually been to the source.
Sherman’s Dairy Bar is on the outskirts of town on Phoenix Street near the I-196 interchange. The Dairy Bar is part of a large building where the ice cream is made. This building has been used as an ice cream shop since the late 1950’s. There’s a walk-up order window but that was closed. There was a sign telling people to head inside. We were met with a line out the door.
Stefano’s Pizzeria
165 W. Superior StreetFriday night is pizza night. How many times have I said that recently?
J actually met a group of friends and their kids at Bell’s with the idea that I would join them there after work and grab a burger to-go. That didn’t happen. I was stuck in northern Allegan County on an assignment and I wouldn’t get done until about 6:30.
I told J not to wait for me and I would just order a pizza on my way home. I was fairly close to Wayland so I decided to check to see if there was something nearby that I haven’t been to yet…and wouldn’t you know it? There was….sorta.
Stefano’s Pizzeria claims to be the King of Pizzas. The business is located on Superior Street just west of Main Street in an old strip mall that sits quite a ways off the road. The last time I was in this building, it was Wing Kingz..which was owned by one of the co-owners of this restaurant….who was also a co-owner of Joe’s Way Pizza…which was also co-owned by this restaurant’s namesake. Following along so far?
Three Blondes Brewing
1875 Phoenix Street, Ste. BWe left Chicago on Sunday morning just before 10:00 to head back to Michigan after a quick five day getaway. We wanted to get home, but we also had an idea for lunch on the way back.
South Haven is a little out of our way but there’s a new brewery that opened up on the edge of town that J has been wanting to get to. I never say no to breweries so I was on board. When we hit Benton Harbor, we just slid on to I-196 and headed up the lake shore instead of making the drive back east to Kalamazoo.
Three Blondes Brewing is on Phoenix Street about half a mile east of the I-196 interchange. It’s connected to VanDerZee Motorplex. The “Three Blondes” in the breweries name are the the three daughters of the owner of the motor sports dealership just inside the South Haven city limits. The brewery, with a large glass front facing Phoenix Street, is now accessible via a new driveway off of Phoenix that wasn’t there just a few months ago. I forgot that the building only used to be available off Dewey Lane on the backside of the building.
Hawaiian Shaved Ice – Tropical Sno
7905 Narragansett AvenueWhen we left Milwaukee on Saturday morning, we didn’t feel like making the trip all the way around the lake back to Kalamazoo. We decided to make a stop at J’s parents house in Oak Lawn.
We spent the day just kind of relaxing. It was still 100 degrees with the heat index. The kids played outside in the pool for a while and the adults just kinda vegged out.
J and I picked up a late lunch from one of our new favorite spots in Oak Lawn, Fry the Coop. We kind of skipped dinner because neither of us were hungry around the usual dinner time.
J was watching TV when she got an idea. Shaved ice. Something that used to be all over Chicagoland when she was growing up. It was a hot enough day that little shaved pieces of flavored ice sounded good so we started trying to find something nearby.
We had to go to the Googles to find a place. All the ones from J’s childhood are long gone and her parents couldn’t think of one nearby. We found a couple and tried calling ahead but both places went to voicemails. We decided to chance it anyway.
We picked Hawaiian Shaved Ice on Narragansett Avenue just to the south of 79th Street in the Chicago suburb of Burbank. The small shop is in an old strip mall on the east side of the road. The store windows had the graphics we were looking for but we were unsure if they were open. There was no sign in the window and I didn’t see anyone inside until I got out of the car and got closer. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 