Staymaker at Journeyman Distillery
109 Generation DriveWe started something last summer when J’s mom and dad asked if they could take L with them on vacation to Wisconsin. L was so excited to spend a week with NaNa and Grandpa fishing, swimming, and winning too many prizes from the claw machines.
It was always that L would go again this year. They typically go a week around the 4th of July and their schedule worked out this year to leave the Friday after.
I worked on the 4th and in return, my company gave me Thursday off as my holiday. We decided to meet J’s parents in New Buffalo to hand L off to them for the week.
We did the same thing last year and after getting L ready to go with NaNa and Grandpa on vacation, J, B, and I went on a little side trip for lunch. We picked Round Barn Public House. It’s a place we had been wanting to go to, but Baroda is pretty far to go just for a meal with both kids.
Our decision this year was to go to another place we’ve been wanting to go in Southern Berrien County. Staymaker at Journeyman Distillery.
Studio Grill
312 W. Michigan AvenueThere are days where everything you do just doesn’t work out. That was my issue last Friday. My colleague was off, so I was in the office by myself. Every task I was attempting to complete was failing and my day was going by pretty slow.
Around lunch time, J asked if I wanted to meet her to grab something to eat. At first, I assumed she meant Lunchtime Live, but she actually wanted to go sit down at a restaurant somewhere.
I love working downtown now and having options, but I also needed something fairly quick. My day could pivot at any moment and I could go from throwing playing cards into a hat to extremely busy in a matter of seconds.
I asked if she wanted to meet me at the Studio Grill on West Main Street. We last ate there in 2010 despite the fact any time the best burger in Kalamazoo is brought up, Studio Grill is mentioned.
Studio Grill is on West Michigan Avenue just past the Park Street intersection. The building is part of several older buildings built all connected to each other. Before becoming Studio Grill, the building served as home to a place called the Copy Cup. Read more…
Latitude 42 Brewing Company (Portage)
7842 Portage RoadJ and I go to a lot of breweries. I like beer and the food is almost always amazing. It’s just kind of craft brewery thing to put the same amount of love and creativity into the food as they do the beers.
We almost exclusively go to breweries that serve food because J doesn’t like beer as much as I do and we have two little ones who are with us 99% of the time.
We have no problem taking our kids to breweries, but we also realize, it’s a brewery and it doesn’t have to be kid friendly. I’ve eaten lunch with a baby on my lap before and specifically ordered food off an adult menu that my kid(s) would eat because there is no kid menu and never (and never will) complain about it. Beer is for adults so why should a brewery be expected to cater to kids.
With that being said, the ones that do cater to families always seem to be busy during off peak hours. There are lot of people like me….mid to late 30’s with a little bit of disposable income and a family they love being around…who drink craft beer. The 20-something college kids that are off drinking their Natty Light and trying to hook up aren’t really spending the $6/beer that craft breweries offer.
One of our favorite breweries to take the kids to has always been Latitude 42 in Portage.
Read more…
Watermark Brewing Company
5781 St. Joseph AvenueI’ve been to more Major League Baseball games this year than I have in several years. We took the kids to Milwaukee and Detroit, I did my yearly trip with my dad, brother, and friend from high school, then my dad and I went to the game this past weekend to see the White Sox retire Mark Buhrle’s number 56.
Normally, J would come with me and she and the kids would stay at her parents house while I went to the game with my dad. Her parents were out of town this weekend, so J stayed home. I waited until we put the kids to bed then I headed to my parents house in Illinois about an hour south of Chicago.
I left Kalamazoo around 7:30. I realized I had the opportunity to make a quick stop at one of the breweries that don’t serve food. If we’re going to eat dinner, J and I have no problem stopping at breweries with kids, but when no food is involved, it makes it harder for them to sit and makes it harder for us to justify going to a brewery with kids.
There’s a place in Bridgman I’ve heard a lot of good about, but they’re only open for four hours a day and close by eight. I knew there were a couple of more along the way, so it was just deciding which one I was going to stop at.
For no particular reason, I picked Watermark Brewing Company in downtown Stevensville.
Haymarket Brewery & Taproom
9301 Red Arrow HighwayOur most recent long weekend in Chicago wrapped up on Father’s Day. J usually lets me pick someplace for dinner on my birthday and Father’s Day and usually, I pick a brewery.
We left Chicago just before noon and started heading towards Michigan. I could have found someplace in the Chicago suburbs, but I wanted to take advantage of the trip back home and stop in Bridgman.
Haymarket Brewery & Taproom is the third brewery to open in the small town of Bridgman near the Michigan/Indiana border. Haymarket Pub & Brewery is already established in Chicago, but when the duo that owns the brewery was looking to expand, they looked to the east side of Lake Michigan after striking out in their hometown.
Haymarket Brewery & Taproom is on Red Arrow Highway on the north side of Bridgman. It’s right across the street from Lost Dunes Golf Club just inside the city limits. The new venture took over the old Michigan State Police post that was vacated by MSP in 2011 when the State Police closed 21 posts statewide.
Slice Factory (Oak Lawn)
9600 S. Pulaski RoadIt didn’t take me long to find an Italian beef on our most recent trip to Chicago, but the rest of my family doesn’t really like the foods that I like. A lot of times I have to make two or three stops to get food for everyone. I get the beef I want. The kids get what they want. J gets what she wants. Everyone is happy.
I asked L what she wanted for lunch before I headed out. I was assuming she was going to say a grilled cheese or McDonalds. I figured I could find either along the way. She surprised me and said pizza. I really didn’t know what I was going to do. Sure, I passed a lot of pizza places, but I just needed something for L and she wasn’t going to eat a whole pizza by herself.
I took Pulaski north into the city from Oak Lawn to find my Italian beef. To my surprise, I passed a pizza by the slice place and I would have to pass it again on my way home. My pizza dilemma with L was solved.
Slice Factory is a small Chicago chain with eight locations (including one in Champaign, IL near the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana). The Oak Lawn location sits near the intersection of South Pulaski Road and 96th Street just a few blocks south of the very busy Pulaski and 95th Street intersection. Read more…
Tony’s Italian Beef
7007 S. Pulaski RoadIt doesn’t take me long. The first thing I usually do when we get to Chicago for a long weekend is start planning out my meals. An Italian beef is always on the agenda and finding a new place to get one from is always exciting.
We were in Chicago last weekend because I had a three day weekend. It just happened to work out that my niece’s birthday party was on Saturday so we could hang out with J’s family in the Chicago suburbs then head south to my brother’s house for a Saturday with my family.
We got in to town around noon on Friday. J asked what we should do for lunch. She was hungry and started snacking so I started looking for food. I stumbled upon an Italian beef place not far away that happened to be on a couple of Chicago’s best lists (including Chicago’s Best, Thrillest, and The Hungry Hound..who didn’t really like it but still made the list.)
Tony’s Italian Beef is on Chicago’s south side near the corner of Pulaski Road and 70th. The small restaurant can best be described as something you will only find in Chicago. It’s a true Chicago sandwich shop with just enough room to barely breath with a kitchen full of fast talking and quick working employees serving up what Chicago does best.
Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders (Portage)
10100 Shaver RoadThere’s a billboard near Schoolcraft right along US-131. The billboard is advertising a Mancino’s in Portage. For the longest time, I always wondered why that billboard was there. Shaver Road in Portage always felt so far away. In my mind, you’d have to go all the way back to I-94 to the Westnedge exit then drive so far south to get there. It was quite a while before I realized that Shaver Road actually Y’s off with 131 just before it turns into a freeway and that Mancino’s is just a few miles up the road.
I’ve blogged many, many time about my fondness for Mancino’s grinders. In all the years we’ve lived in Kalamazoo, we’ve never had much reason to go that far south to get a grinder. J doesn’t love them like I do, so I’ve never pushed a trip out of our way just to get one.
Last week, I actually had business in that area of town and spent a couple consecutive days in the area. Finding time for lunch was hard, but on the third day, I was finally able to get away just long enough to pick up a sandwich for lunch.
Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders in Portage is at the corner of Shaver Road and Beethoven Avenue just south of the Shaver/Oakland intersection in the far southern tip of the City of Portage. The building really doesn’t look like a restaurant. I saw the sign from the road, but was unsure of where the shop actually was until I spotted some signage in the window after we turned in to the parking lot. It shares a building with Bella Creamery, but it doesn’t share the space. They are two separate in two separate spaces within the same building that looks more like it should be home to retail than restaurants.
Comerica Park
2100 Woodward Avenue- Detroit, MI 48201
- (313) 962-4000
- Website
We’re in enemy territory. That’s what I kept telling me daughter.
J and I grew up near Chicago. We’re both White Sox fans. My whole family is White Sox fans. Her whole family is White Sox fans. Even after almost 10 years, it’s still weird living in a market that doesn’t support Chicago sports teams.
J and I took our first trip to Comerica Park not long after we moved to Lansing in 2008. We don’t root (and never will) for the Tigers, but we really liked the game day atmosphere at Comerica and went back a few times when we still lived in Mid-Michigan. One of those trips, we even took my parents as well as my brother and his family. His oldest daughter was maybe 18 months old at the time….so, it’s been a while.
The last couple of years, the White Sox and Tigers haven’t played many games in Detroit on weekends. When the schedule came out this year, my dad noticed several weekend games between the two teams. He asked if I’d be interested in going to game….and there’s no way I can say no to that.
Comerica Park sits right in downtown Detroit in an area that has really built up as an entertainment destination. The park’s address is Woodward Avenue, but it really sits on Witherall Street between Montcalm and Adams. It’s right across Brush Street from Ford Field and just a parking lot away from the Fox Theatre.
Irving’s Market & Deli
125 S. Kalamazoo MallMany years ago, when I was in college, I did an internship near the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago. A lot of the people I worked with went to the same little deli almost everyday for lunch and/or dinner. They could grab a salad out of the cooler or there was a rotating hot bar where they could quickly pick up something to eat and get back to work.
Now that I work in downtown Kalamazoo, I’m noticing more of the places that offer quick, healthier options for lunch for the office crowds that work in the Central Business District.
A couple of weeks ago, as vendors were getting set up for Art on the Mall, I went for a walk looking for a food cart that I had seen several times in the area. It wasn’t there that day and I wasn’t in the mood for Taco Bob’s, so I kept walking not really knowing where I was going for lunch. A sandwich board outside of the Kalamazoo City Centre reminded me of a place I haven’t eaten at in several years. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 