Founders Brewing Company
235 Grandville Avenue SWSo many of the big beer companies have that one special release every year that you just can’t wait to get your hands on. Goose Island has Bourbon County Brand Stout. Bell’s has Black Note. Dark Horse as BBA Plead The 5th. Three Floyd’s has Dark Lord. And, of course, Founders has Kentucky Breakfast Stout.
Out of all the breweries that do special releases, Founders is by far the easiest and most efficient. Tickets are bought online a couple weeks ahead of the release. There are five days to choose from. Whichever day you choose, you show up with your ticket and get your beer. No waiting in line. No having to make plans about a single day release. No hearing through the grapevine that the beer has been released.
The last several years have saw me getting my tickets for a day that I had to work. I would either stop before work and pick up my allotment or head over on my dinner break. This year, a friend from Chicago asked if I wanted to ride up to Grand Rapids with him. I figured I hadn’t been to the taproom in quite a while, so I took a vacation day and got my ticket for the same day as him.
We chose to get tickets on Wednesday because it wasn’t the first day and it wasn’t the weekend so we figured we’d both have a better shot of getting the tickets. Our gamble paid off. We both got tickets for Wednesday, so after he dropped his daughter off in school back in the Chicago suburbs, we met up in Kalamazoo then drove together to Grand Rapids.
The allotment this year was either two four packs and two bombers or three four packs and two bombers. I went with the smaller one while he chose the larger. We picked those up first from the side of the brewery. After we dropped them off in my truck, we headed in for lunch.
Founders Brewing Company is on Grand Rapids southwest side. What was once a small taproom and production facility now takes up a whole city block and has added to the Grand Rapids skyline. The brewery in on Grandville Avenue between Bartlett and Williams Streets right across the street from The Rapid Central Station. Read more…
Little Caesars (28th Street)
725 28th Street SWI’m not a huge fan of Little Caesars. I’ll stop every so often because who can pass up a $5 pizza?
That $5 pizza isn’t great, but they do have a couple options that are a little more expensive that I can honestly say that I like. The Deep! Deep! Dish is pretty darn tasty and the Crazy Bread is craveable.
I was on my way to work last Sunday and was getting really hungry. I didn’t eat lunch and I knew I was going to have a fairly easy day, so I decided I was going to be nice. I stopped at Little Caesars to pick up a couple of pizzas for the office.
I first stopped in Wayland, but was told it would be about a twenty minute wait for what I wanted. I didn’t have that much time, so I kept going north until I hit 28th Street.
Little Caesars on 28th Street is just to the west of US-131. It’s a corner lot where 28th meets McKee Street. This is one of two locations in the city of Wyoming. The other is on 36th and Byron Center. Read more…
Club Car Grille
6225 W. D AvenueIf you’ve ever made the drive from Kalamazoo to the Kalamazoo Speedway, you’ve likely passed a train car in the middle of Alamo Township where there are no train tracks. When J and I first moved to Kalamazoo in 2009, this train car was a restaurant. They even had a bar underneath it that was open at night after the restaurant closed.
The Club Car Restaurant closed several years back and has sat empty since, so imagine my surprise when Facebook ads started telling me it was open again. Not only was it open, but the food looked amazing and after a couple of co-worker of J’s stopped in there last week and tweeted their meals, we had to find time to get out there.
It didn’t take us long. Saturday was a somewhat lazy day, but L has swimming lessons at 10 AM. When she and J got home from lessons, we started discussing lunch. I said why not make the drive out to Alamo and J eagerly agreed.
The Club Car Grille is on D Avenue in Alamo Township about just to the east of Ravine Road. If you get off US-131 and head West, the restaurant is a little less than a mile from the highway on the south side of the road. Read more…
Chick-Fil-A (Portage)
6202 S. Westnedge AvenueI bet you’re tired of hearing about Chick-Fil-A, aren’t you? I am yet I can’t stop eating there. I mean, it’s good, but is it really wait in the drive thru line for 40 minutes good?
Yeah…..I’m not waiting in any long line for fast food. The few times we’ve gone since it opened, J has went and went inside instead of waiting in that long drive thru line. I have avoided the place so far….until last Friday.
I wanted to try the breakfast. J has been telling me how good the breakfast is. I’ve only ever had the chicken sandwich, so I knew I had to try breakfast at some point.
The Portage Chick-Fil-A is the third one to open on the west side of the state and the first in Southwest Michigan. I’ve been to both the Gaines Township and Wyoming locations in the Grand Rapids area a time or two but always for lunch or dinner. I was hungry after I dropped L off for school on Friday morning and I needed to stop at Meijer, so I just kept going south until I hit the Chick-Fil-A.
The Portage store takes over the space that used to be Bilbo’s. I know a lot of people were sad to see that business go, but many more were happy to see Chick-Fil-A move in. The store is right along South Westnedge in the Southland Shopping Center. Read more…
Arturo’s Tacos
305 N. Beacon BoulevardI write a lot about burgers, pizza, wings, and BBQ, but there’s really one food that I crave fairly often. Tacos. Not Taco Bell or Qdoba tacos, but a good steak taco on a corn tortilla with just cilantro.
I’ve got a place in Grand Rapids that I really love going to when I get that taco craving. I don’t have one of those in Kalamazoo, but there is at least one good place and one I haven’t tried yet.
Early last week, I was traveling along the lakeshore for work and ended up in Grand Haven. I had time to stop and pick up dinner and there’s a taco place I drive by a lot when I’m in that area.
Arturo’s Tacos is right off US-31 which is the way most people come in and out of Grand Haven. Through town, 31 is Beacon Avenue and Arturo’s is on the corner of Beacon and Elliot Avenue. It’s a small shop that was extremely busy when I stopped in around 4:00 on a Monday evening. Read more…
The Union
125 S. Kalamazoo MallDate night! Holy cow, it’s been a while. Whenever our parents come to town, we usually spend all day running around and when dinner rolls around, J and I are too exhausted to take advantage of Nana & Grandpa or Grandma and Papa. It sucks because that’s really the only opportunity we ever have to go out by ourselves, but we spend so little time sleeping during the week that when weekends come around, neither one of us has the energy to do anything after 6:00.
This past weekend we tried to make things different. We slept a little longer, got a little longer naps, and had a little more of a relaxing day at home. J’s parents were in town and they were staying at the Holiday Inn on 11th, so L went back with them to swim while J and B took a nap. When B woke up, J asked her mom if a date night was a possibility and she said yes. J’s parents went to Panera to get dinner for themselves and the kids while J and I got out of the house as fast as we could.
We got in the car and didn’t really know where we wanted to go. I suggested Fieldstone Grill or Martell’s since it had been a while since we’ve been to either. J wanted to go downtown and suggested another Millennium Restaurant. One that I hadn’t been to in a while but one she was just at a couple of weeks ago during a day out with one of her friends.
The Union is one of several of Millennium Restaurant Group’s restaurants in the Kalamazoo area. It’s one of two downtown with Central City Taphouse being the other. J was just there a couple of weeks ago when she and a friend took an afternoon to just relax by themselves, so I didn’t bring it up when we were talking about dinner. The last time I had been there was in February of 2010 so it’s been seven years since I had been there and time for a revisit.
The Union is billed as a cabaret and jazz bar. It’s on the main floor of the Kalamazoo City Centre building which is part of the old Gilmore Brothers Department Store on the Kalamazoo Mall in downtown Kalamazoo. Read more…
Vitale’s Pizza & Subs
320 Western Avenue #A- Allegan, MI 49010
- (269) 673-2121
- No Known Website
- Menu
Some days are crazy at work. I started out in Kalamazoo. Made my way to Centreville. Started towards Bronson, then got called back to Allegan and finished up the night in Grand Rapids. I didn’t think I was going to get a dinner break, but I decided to force one. There’s a pizza place in Allegan that I’ve wanted to stop at for as long as I can remember and since I had a little bit of time. It was time to make that happen.
Those of you that live in Grand Rapids are very familiar with the Vitale’s name. There’s a number of them in the area. Those in Kalamazoo are not quite as familiar with it….and that’s unfortunate. Vitale’s always delivers with great pizza.
Vitale’s is another one of those places where I don’t quite understand how they’re all connected. The Allegan store goes by “Vitale’s III,” but appears to have no connection to the Kent/Ottawa County stores..at least by the Vitale’s of Comstock Park website.
Vitale’s Pizza & Subs is a pretty small shop right on the corner of Western Avenue (which is M-40) and Grant Street on the west side of the City of Allegan. It a small corner building with very little parking. There’s a gravel area right next to the building and another gravel area right across Grant Street near the Autozone. For some reason, this was a really busy Thursday night and there were a lot of cars parked in the area, so I had to park across the street. Read more…
Frosty Boy
5030 Gull Road- Kalamazoo, MI 49048
- (269) 345-5360
- No Known Website
- Menu
Sixty degrees in February?! Seriously, that’s not Michigan weather.
We had to take advantage of this rare, awesome Saturday in the middle of winter. We planned on trying to eat on the patio at Hopcat, but we got there before food service outside began, so we just took a table at the bar. As we were eating lunch, J suggested we find an ice cream place where we could sit outside.
Kalamazoo really lacks local ice cream stands. We typically go to Culvers if we get ice cream because there just isn’t any place to go other than a couple of Dairy Queen’s and Ritter’s Frozen Custard. We really didn’t want DQ or Culvers and didn’t know if Ritter’s was even open yet….so Google to the rescue.
Google pointed me towards Frosty Boy on Gull Road. We had never been to Frosty Boy and it never even crossed my mind when we were talking about ice cream. We were already downtown, so the drive down Gull Road wasn’t that far. Read more…
Finale’s Pizzeria
8885 N. 32nd StreetA co-worker and I had a quick trip to Galesburg the other night and I hadn’t eaten all day. I was really hungry, but time was at a premium because we still had to go back to Grand Rapids. I knew I didn’t have a lot of choices, but I knew there were some pizza places along the way in Richland.
Google can be my best friend when I’m in a hurry and in an unfamiliar place. I mean, I know a little bit about what’s in Richland, but Google gives me options.
I got a couple of options when I put in pizza places in Richland, but only one was on my direct route back to Grand Rapids. That’s the one I chose.
Finale’s Pizzeria is right outside of Richland on 32nd Street in Richland Township. It’s actually kind of hard to spot coming from Richland. It shares a building with Texas Corners Cleaners, but there’s no sign on the 32nd Street sign of the building. I trusted my GPS and pulled in to the parking lot because I could see lights on in the front of the building. Read more…
Chau Haus Schnitzel Station
410 S. Burdick StreetAlright. All done with the travel blogs and time to get back to Kalamazoo. I only have a couple of ideas for new blogs in this area though because there just isn’t much opening. I have some intel on some really cool things in the works, so hopefully that will pick up as we get closer to summer.
One place I had been trying to get to for a while though is the Chau Haus Schnitzel Station on South Burdick near the State Theater. I saw this place had opened last fall, but it’s not a place I think J would enjoy, so I was kind of saving it until I had time to eat lunch by myself.
That time came while I was working an extra night at WMU. I got my lunch break around 2:00 and headed downtown.
The Chau Haus Schnitzel Station took over the space that used to be Dogs With Style right next to Harvey’s on the Mall. There was another hot dog place in between the time I first blogged about Dogs With Style and when Chau Haus moved in. I never made it there. It didn’t seem to last long because they wanted to be strictly a hot dog place and there just isn’t enough of a bar crowd in that area to support something like that. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 