Museum of Broadcast Communications
360 N. State Street- Chicago, IL 60654
- (312) 245-8200
- Website
There’s not a lot of things that I drag J to because I really want to go. We’re not going to WWE events or rodeo’s or monster truck rally’s just because it’s something I would want to do. We make sure our very limited entertainment time without the kids is something we both want to do.
I don’t even remember how I found it but back in October I saw an article in a Chicago newspaper about Saturday Night Live: The Experience opening in Chicago and immediately bought tickets. J watches SNL most weeks so I just assumed she would like it and if nothing else, it would be some time in the city for just the two of us.
I’m not gonna lie. I love SNL as much today as I did growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. It’s still one of the highlights of my week and while not every show is a winner, there’s still a sketch or two from every episode that makes me chuckle. I’ve seen a good chunk of the episodes including a lot of the early years both with and without Lorne Michels as the Executive Producer, so I was really excited for this exhibit.
The Chicago exhibition is taking place at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in downtown Chicago. It’s on the corner of State Street and Kinzie Street. It’s in a four story building that almost didn’t get finished. The construction had a lot of funding issues and it took about seven years for the building to be completed. The museum opened in June of 2012. Read more…
PFC Natural Grocery & Deli
507 Harrison StreetI’ll tell you. I’ve eaten more salads since I started working downtown than I have in the last ten years. I end up at Irving’s Market & Deli quite a bit. It’s close to where I work and it’s a quick, simple, delicious lunch to just either hit up the salad bar or the hot bar for the day.
I started to do the same thing last Thursday but when I got there, a salad didn’t really sound good and the hot bar was pretty picked over since it was closer to 3:00. I ended up just grabbing a couple of Pepsi’s and coming up with a new plan.
I remembered seeing somewhere that People’s Food Co-Op has a deli and Thursday is taco day. I checked their website to see if that was the case and sure enough, it was. I walked back to my car to head to the east side of downtown.
PFC Natural Grocery & Deli is on Harrison Street between Michigan and Ransom just north of the railroad tracks. This new, larger building opened in the spring of 2011 after moving from a much smaller location on Burdick Street near the State Theater.
Elk Brewing North
400 Dodge StreetI love the way Founders Brewing does their big ticket beer releases. Buy tickets online. Show up a few weeks later to pick up your bottles. That always gives a reason to load the family up and head to Grand Rapids for an afternoon. I get my beer. We get a trip out of the house to someplace new.
We picked up my two bottles of Canadian Breakfast Stout but had no intention of staying for lunch. The taproom was packed with a line out the door just to get a table before noon. I had a couple of other ideas for lunch but it turns out, some places that are open for lunch during the week aren’t open for lunch on Saturday.
I was actually kind of stumped once my first idea fell through. J asked if there were any breweries that we haven’t been to. There, of course, are, but the ones I initially thought of don’t have food the kids would eat and I was even unsure if there was anything J would eat.
As we were driving back down Division, I thought of Elk Brewing. I asked J to look up to see if they had food. She said they did at their Comstock Park location. I didn’t even know they had a Comstock Park location, but they had food and a kids menu so I pointed the car that way. Read more…
Mannie’s Pizza, Subs, and More
110 S. Farmer Street Suite BWe haven’t gotten any snow yet but that hasn’t stopped the ski slopes from opening in November.
Last week, my assignment took me out to Bittersweet Ski Area just outside of Otsego. My co-worker called in sick, so this became a solo assignment that I quickly knocked out and moved on to the next task.
I was working an evening shift so it was dinner time as I was getting back in the car to head towards Kalamazoo. I knew there was a pizza place just off the main drag in Otsego so I did a little research to see if I could find a menu. It didn’t take long before I pulled up a Facebook page and found what I was looking for.
Mannies Pizza, Subs, & More is a small pizzeria on Farmer Street just south of M-89 in downtown Otsego. It’s in a small building that is shared with Amish Oak Treasures. It became Mannies pretty recently after being Joe’s Way Pizza for several years. Read more…
Potters Lounge & Restaurant
3600 E. Cork StreetI talk a lot about the travel I do for work but I have friends who live on the road. At times, I’m jealous. It’s work I would love to do, but I love having a family and being home with them.
A few weeks ago, one of my buddies called and said he was coming to Kalamazoo for a midweek job. He got in to town on Halloween and asked if I wanted to meet for dinner. I wanted to take my kids Trick-or-Treating first so I told him we could meet as long as he was ok with a later meal.
He was good with and suggested I just meet him at his hotel and we’d go from there. He told me he was staying at the Four Points by Sheridan on Cork Street which I knew had a restaurant. He was pretty tired from travel and had to get up early the next day so I suggested we just hang there and have a few beers. Read more…
Chicago Subs & Grill
1408 Portage Street- Kalamazoo, MI 49001
- (269) 382-6871
- No Known Website
- Menu
Amazingly, it’s been almost ten years since J and I moved to Michigan….and eight of those years we’ve been in Kalamazoo. I started this blog as Mid-Michigan Dining when we lived in Lansing. When we moved to Kalamazoo, I started the current iteration.
If you’ve read this blog for any time, you’ll know how much I love Italian beef sandwiches. They’re easily one of my favorite foods and I look forward to every trip to Chicago to get one.
It’s hard to find a good one in Michigan. There are a few places that do a pretty solid job. There are a lot of places that do a pretty awful job. Finding the good places means going through the bad ones.
The first place I found that had an Italian beef in Kalamazoo was Chicago Subs & Grill. About a month after we moved to Kalamazoo in 2009, I drug J to this little sandwich shop on the corner of Portage Road and Stockbridge Avenue looking to get my fix. I was happy with what we got….not blown away by any means, but I liked the sandwich.
I drove by the shop a few weeks ago and realized I have never been back since that first visit. Earlier this week I had time for a lunch break so I decided it was time to change that.
Chicago Subs & Grill isn’t the most inviting building in the world. The sign is fading. The paint is peeling off the wall. It’s a restaurant that’s been around for a while and very little attention has been paid to the appearance of the building.
Nonla Burger
2103 S. Burdick StreetJ doesn’t usually find out about new restaurants before I do. She will typically say “have you seen xxx is opening” and I’ll usually say, “Yeah.” She got me this week though when she asked if I had heard about the new burger place on Burdick. I had not but as soon as I found their Facebook page, I had to get down there for lunch.
Nonla Burger is on the corner of Burdick and Alcott Streets in Kalamazoo’s Southside Neighborhood. The little corner shop is just that. Little. It has a very small parking lot around a very small building on a very busy intersection.
Hop N Pizza & Grinders
106 W. Main StreetI think I’ve made it pretty clear over the years, when I travel, whether it’s for work or personal, I like to find local places to eat. Every town has a Subway or McDonalds which would make it easy for me, but what’s the fun in that?
A Co-Worker and I recently took the short trip out to Fennville for an afternoon assignment. Neither of us really planned on getting lunch figuring this would be a quick trip and we’d be back in Kalamazoo with time to grab a sandwich, but the assignment took longer than we expected.
We were downtown for quite a while and noticed a bar on the corner of West Main and South Maple Street. I went in and grabbed a to-go menu then headed back to the car. We finished what we had to do in town but before leaving, I wanted to grab a sandwich and the menu I grabbed earlier had a lot of delicious sounding sandwiches.
Hop N Pizza & Grinders is on the west end of downtown on M-89. It’s impossible to miss as you drive through town. Downtown is only a couple of blocks long but they have a lot packed in to it. Hop N is right next to Salt of the Earth and actually shares some of their building.
Coney Island (West Main)
4635 W. Main StreetI used to do a lot of freelance work outside of my normal job. I don’t do nearly as much as I’ve done in the past but whenever a job comes up, I like to try to take it. It’s something I really like doing (but can’t make a career out of) and it’s a welcome change of pace.
Friday was one of the only days the rest of the year something will come up. I was working at Western Michigan and got a lunch break around 1:00. This is the same time J usually takes a nap with B so I decided to just go to lunch by myself and not chance waking them up by going home.
I was close enough to campus that I had plenty of options, but I got a weird craving. I just wanted a cheap hamburger and fries. Nothing fancy but something still delicious.
I remembered a cheeseburger I had last year downtown. It wasn’t fancy. It was a simple burger grilled on a flattop and served on a pretty standard bun. It was from Coney Island…..a hot dog place….but it made an impression on me.
Coney Island has a second location in Westwood. It’s in the Westwood Plaza right next to Penn Station near the corner of West Main and Drake. Read more…
Legends at Revel and Roll West
4500 Stadium DriveA late night at work on Saturday meant a fairly lazy Sunday. We didn’t have any plans other than to just hang out at home so which means we didn’t have any lunch plans either.
J wanted to get out of the house so take out was out of the question but we didn’t really have any good ideas. L wanted to go back to the place “with the big grassy area.” It took us a while but we eventually realized she meant The Strand near Dowagiac. Not a bad idea, but a little far away.
I came up with what I thought was a much better idea. A new place just down the road that is an entertainment venue rather than “just” a restaurant.
Legends at Revel and Roll West is the restaurant portion of the new Revel and Roll West entertainment complex. The venue takes over two storefronts at the University Commons plaza on Stadium Drive near Drake Road. The main portion of the complex is in the old Pinz bowling alley. The restaurant is in a space which was formerly The Fashion Connection right next door to the east of the main building.
SW Michigan Dining 