10 Years…..
We’ve been in Michigan ten years. March 29, 2008 is when J and I first moved to Lansing. I started this blog not long after. My first actual post was on April 1, 2008, but my first restaurant visit blog post was ten years ago today…April, 11, 2008. It was The Nuthouse Sports Grill in downtown Lansing. I’ve blogged about that place on two more occasions since that initial post. The first one was bout a year later while we still lived in Lansing. The second was in 2012 after we had moved to Kalamazoo and I went back for work one night. The Nuthouse was the first restaurant we ate at in Lansing and one of my favorite restaurants from our time there…so it was a good place to start.
I had gotten the idea for a blog when J and I lived in Morton, IL just outside of Peoria. The Internet was different then. Myspace was still a thing and restaurants weren’t using it like they use Facebook now. Finding menus online was sometimes a maddening experience. I used to write quick little reviews for We8There.com but blogging was just becoming popular. I wanted to have a place where I could post those menus if I had to.
I had been contemplating joining the Peoria blogging scene. There were a couple of political pundits that really made blogging popular and I thought I could capitalize on their success.
J was looking for a job though and I had always planned to go with her. I decided to wait until we figured out where we were going next. Turns out, next was Lansing.
We spent about a year and a half in Lansing. In that time, I published 1,031 posts on Midmichigandining.com. I treated the blog a little different then. It wasn’t just about restaurant and entertainment spots in the area. There was more commentary, press release, and somewhat newsie posts. I didn’t have a full time job when we lived there so I had a lot more free time to write and post.
We moved to Kalamazoo in September of 2009 after J got a transfer. MidMichiganDining.com wouldn’t work in Southwest Michigan, so I created a whole new blog. I kept the old one up so I could link back to it. I probably just should have changed the address but, you know, hindsight. Also looking back, I should have picked something other than SWMichiganDining.com….I mean, I like to block about concert venues, sporting arenas, and other entertainment options in the area even if it doesn’t include food…so the “dining” part of it gets weird. You’ve also probably noticed I blog when I travel so the “SW Michigan” part doesn’t really apply there although the majority of what you read on this blog is from Southwest Michigan and does have to do with dining.
I kept doing what I was doing for a while but then I got a full time job and we had our first kid in 2012 and the time for writing was getting harder and harder to get. I still liked the restaurant part of it so I found time…and I still do, to write those posts.
Why have I done this for ten years? I like to eat. I like to explore. I think J does too. We get excited about restaurant openings. We’re not regulars at any restaurant in town because we like to try new places. We like being the people that our friends ask for recommendations or ask what we know about a place they’re thinking of taking a date or out of town guests.
The big reason I continue to blog is because this blog is my journal. The last ten years of our lives, from J and I dating and making a big move and commitment to each other when we moved to Lansing, to the day I proposed to her, to the day we got married, to the first night in our new house in Kalamazoo, to the nights each of our kids were born and all of the wild adventures, road trips, vacations, and trips to see family in between, they’re all documented on these two blogs.
I like to share my experiences because we love what what Michigan has to offer. I’m careful about how I word things when I don’t like something because an Internet post can ruin a business and who am I to destroy someone’s dream over what could be a misunderstanding or a difference of opinion? I’m not a critic. I don’t like using the word “reviews.” I like to eat and I want other to find the great things about what we have in this community.
I know there are a few people that have read this blog from the beginning and that always surprises me. I’ve never used any of our names yet there have been enough clues for a handful of people to figure it out and we’ve actually become friends with some of them. I don’t get anything out of this other than the memories and the record of what we’ve done, where we’ve gone and what we’ve eaten. There are no ads on this blog that are mined (WordPress puts some in, but they get that money, not me). I have only accepted a free meal once and I felt dirty about it. Nothing I wrote was a lie…I meant every word of it, but it just didn’t feel right. I’ve turned several offers to “review” a place before they open and I will continue to do so.
This blog isn’t the most highly trafficked food blog on the Internet. I get about 500 page views a day which, again, always surprises me. Some days, 100 of those could be me. I get lost in reading some of my old posts and before you know it, an hour is gone.
I have no plans to stop doing what I’m doing. When J tells me she’s tired of me taking pictures at restaurants, I’ll stop then. I hope I’m helping people with this blog…both restaurant owners and diners looking for someplace unique or someplace they may not have thought to try on their own.
So, if you’ve made it through this post, thanks for reading.
Old Burdick’s at Wings West
5076 Sports DriveFinding a table at a restaurant at 7 PM on a Friday night can be hard enough. Finding a table on a Friday night at 7 PM for nine people can be damn near impossible. Reservations aren’t a thing at most places anymore so it’s just a matter of showing up and preparing for a wait.
We had all of the grandparents in town plus my aunt for L’s performance at the Civic Auditorium. When the show ended, everyone wanted to go somewhere for dinner. The places they suggested I knew we had no chance of getting a table for that many people without a long wait. I knew we had to find a place with a large dining room and one place instantly came to mind.
The Old Burdick’s restaurants have been a staple in our dining out rotation since we moved to Kalamazoo nine years ago. Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill was one of the first restaurants we went to in town and Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill West in the old Holiday Inn was our go-to when we didn’t want to cook after moving to Oshtemo.
When the Oshtemo location closed, we had to move a little further west to Texas Township find our closest Burdick’s.
Burdick’s at Wings West is on Sports Drive just to the east of 9th Street near the Texas and Oshtemo Township line. As the name implies, it’s inside the Wings West ice skating rink. The restaurant gets the spot facing the road and the large parking lot for the complex. Read more…
The Civic Auditorium
329 S. Park Street- Kalamazoo, MI 49007
- (269) 343-1313
- Website
I’ve always had a weird relationship with the theater. I fell in love when my high school freshman class took a trip to see Cats at the Chicago Theatre. That couldn’t be right. I was a “jock.” I couldn’t like theater….but man, I did.
I never tried out for the school plays because they always seemed to be during baseball season. We had some guys who did both, but baseball was my priority. I still went to every performance though. If we had a show that played three nights. I was there all three supporting my friends.
J was not like me. She was heavily involved with her high school theater productions, so it’s no surprise both of our kids like to perform. We spend most of our times singing and dancing along with YouTube in our house and the Hamilton soundtrack is on a constant loop.
We needed something for L to do for Spring Break. We weren’t going anywhere and we didn’t want her home. J realized she’s old enough for the Civic Theater’s spring break camp so we asked her if she wanted to sign up and we got an emphatic “YES!”
The camps run all week culminating with a performance on Friday night. I got out of work about an hour early to make the sprint across Bronson Park to get there in time.
The performance was in the Civic Auditorium on the corner of Park and South in downtown Kalamazoo. I’ve long wanted to go to this performance venue and we’ve talked about going to see a show but now that L is old enough to sit through a performance we would have to worry about B. It always seems like getting a babysitter is such a hassle so we keep procrastinating. This spring break camp performance was finally my chance to see what is hidden behind those large concrete walls.
Chau Haus Schnitzel Station
224 W. Michigan AvenueI know it’s been a while but I’ve finally got a blog post from Kalamazoo. I’ve enjoyed the traveling these past several weeks but damn, is it good to be home for a while.
You know those days where you tell yourself you’re not going to eat out at work? Yeah, I get those a lot but then I give in. I eat leftovers a lot at home, but when I’m at work, I really just want to pick up something hot that someone else has made.
Early this week, I had one of those days. I sat around until late afternoon hungry but not wanting to give in. Curiosity won over though as I remembered the German place that used to be on Burdick moved to Michigan Avenue….and they had online ordering now so I didn’t even need to call them. Yeah, I ended up ordering lunch.
Chau Haus Schnitzel Station opened up in Kalamazoo’s Vine Neighborhood in the Fall of 2016. I ate their once last winter when I had some time for dinner one night. I really didn’t have much experience with German food before that and I really enjoyed what I had.
Fast forward to last December and Chau Haus made the move to a new location on Michigan Avenue near Rose Street in the Central Business District. They outgrew the old hot dog joint on Burdick and the space that used to be McNally’s Kitchen (then Andrea’s Restaurant) happened to be open. Read more…
Sprinkles Cupcakes (Chicago)
50 E. Walton StreetWhat’s a birthday without cake? Amiright?
We had ice cream cake earlier in the day at my parents and J’s parents had bought cupcakes for when we got home, but J and I didn’t really want to rush home. We don’t get a lot of time for just the two of us….even if it is just driving around the City of Chicago in a car.
One of J’s friends is actually a graduate of Loyola-Chicago and we happened to be in town the night LUC played in the Final Four. She asked us to pick up a t-shirt if we saw one.
We didn’t actually go anywhere that would just happen to have one so we made a couple of trips out of the way to find one for her. Again, we didn’t want to go home.
We ended up at Dick’s Sporting Goods on Clybourn just north of downtown. While J was checking out, I was Google searching the area for cupcakes. There wasn’t anything close but there was something cool not far away.
Sprinkles Cupcakes is a national bakery chain with a Chicago location on Walton Street between Rush Street and Michigan Avenue in Chicago’s Cold Coast Neighborhood. It’s a one way street that you have to access from Michigan just south of Lake Shore Drive. Read more…
Eris Brewery and Cider House
4240 W. Irving Park RoadBack in Kalamazoo for a few days then off to Chicago for a long weekend. My mom wanted to meet for Easter and it was J’s birthday. We always like to go back to Chicago for birthday’s and find someplace new in the city to eat.
As I’ve mentioned over the years, I drag J to a lot of breweries. I mean, drag is probably the wrong word because the food is always great, but she’s not much of a beer drinker. For her birthday, I like to try to find places that focus more on hard cider.
You would think in a city the size of Chicago there would be a couple options for places making their own cider, but that’s not the case. A couple of years ago, a place call The Northman opened up as a “cider bar” but they just have a large selection of other people’s ciders. The menu has never looked good enough for us to make that trip so this year, I did a search again for “Cider Bar Chicago.” The difference in this search was that I actually got a good hit.
Eris Brewery and Cider House is in the Old Irving Park part of Chicago. It’s on West Irving Park Road about three blocks from I-90/94 on the north side of the city in an old Masonic Temple. Read more…
Rolling Stone Bar & Grill (LAX)
700 World Way, Terminal 7One more Los Angeles blog post. Don’t worry. I know most of you don’t read them, but as I’ve explained on other trips, this blog works like a journal for me so I blog about more than just dining experiences in the Kalamazoo area….so you can just keep ignoring them. I have almost ten years worth of blog posts now that I can go back and read..and, quite honestly, I do every so often.
Our last day in Los Angeles was a travel day. Our flight left Los Angeles International Airport at 1:30, but I wanted to make sure we got their early. We had to get the rental car back, get to the terminal, then get through TSA. I had no idea how long that was going to take so we left downtown LA about 9:30.
We got everything done through TSA at a little before noon which gave us plenty of time to grab something to eat before getting on the plane heading to Denver.
We were flying United so we were in Terminal 7. There aren’t a lot of choices in Terminal 7. I wanted a beer so we headed towards the restaurant that I could see had a bar because it was out in the open.
Rolling Stone Bar & Grill is one of the first restaurants you see in Terminal 7 at LAX. The whole thing is kind of out in the open and only contained with a small fence around it.
Maple Block Meat Company
3973 Sepulveda BoulevardOur week in Southern California was wrapping up and, honestly, I didn’t get to any of the restaurants I was hoping to. We were pretty confined to downtown L.A. on our trip and while we had a car, we just didn’t get time to go explore very much. I had never been to L.A. before and the only touristy thing we got to do was spend an hour walking the Hollywood Walk of Fame and looking at the hand prints at TCL Chinese Theatre.
Saturday was our last day of actual work in Los Angeles. Sunday was a travel day so we had to button everything up. I had borrowed some equipment from a firm in Culver City that I needed to return before we really go in to our workday on Saturday. I had an 11:00 AM meeting set up with them that I didn’t need my co-worker for so I left him at the hotel to work while I went to the meeting.
It was a quick, five-minute kind of thing where I just had to drop something off and thank them for their help while we were there. Before leaving I asked about places to eat. Without hesitation, they mentioned a nearby BBQ restaurant.
BBQ? In Los Angeles? I was skeptical but when I looked it up, it had great reviews. I figured I should give it a try and BBQ sounded really good.
Maple Block Meat Company is on Sepulveda Boulevard north of Washington Place near The 405 in Culver City. The building was an Italian place before Maple Block came in in 2015. Read more…
Master Burger #4
1001 S. Broadway- Los Angeles, CA 90015
- (213) 536-5039
- No Known Website
- Menu
Friday in Los Angeles was a pretty easy day for us. We still worked twelve hours but we weren’t as stressed and running around as much as we had been for a few days.
When we were out driving around downtown earlier in the day, my co-worker pointed out a restaurant that was right down the street from our hotel. The advertised burgers, pasta, and pizza on signs outside. When it came time for dinner, he asked if I’d be interested in walking to get some pasta.
The restaurant on the corner of Broadway and Olympic in downtown Los Angeles is Master Burger #4. The #4 comes from being the fourth in a small chain of burger joints. The original is in Vermont Square southwest of downtown.
Carl’s Jr. (Olympic Blvd., L.A.)
106 E. Olympic BoulevardHow funny is it that I just ate at a Hardee’s in Niles a couple of weeks ago and here I am doing a similar blog post after my trip to L.A. To most people, that’s not funny…..but I’ve honestly never been to a Carl’s Jr. and there was one close to my hotel, so why the heck not?
Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are both owned by CKE Restaurants and they look really, really similar. Their logos are similar as are there menus. CKE kept the Hardee’s branding in the east and Carl’s Jr. branding in the west….which is why I’ve never been to a Carl’s Jr.
I’m sure there are a couple Carl’s Jr. in downtown LA, but the one closest to me was the one on the corner of Olympic and South Main on the bottom floor of a parking garage.
SW Michigan Dining 