Willow Run Barbecue Company
FOOD TRUCKHoliday weekends are for relaxing.
We spend most holidays at J’s parents in St. Joseph County. We’ll always do some grilling but lunches are a lot of leftovers are pre-made meals.
We headed to the lake Friday morning for the holiday weekend. Not long after getting there, J’s mom asked if we wanted to head over to Klinger Lake to pick up lunch from Mamazzoni’s Italian beef. I never turn down an Italian beef.
Saturday was kind of the same. J’s mom always makes breakfast but for lunch, she said there was another food truck nearby that she wanted to go to. It was BBQ and just like Italian beef, I never turn down BBQ.
The food truck was Willow Run Barbecue Company out of Ypsilanti. They were parked at The Parlor on M-66 south of Finley Road in Sherman Township north of Sturgis. Being from Ypsilanti, we had never heard of this truck but the kids wanted ice cream from the Parlor and J’s mom and I wanted BBQ so it was a win-win for everyone.
Read more…Louie’s Lake Bar & Grill
8946 Sprinkle RoadUPDATE 7.13.25 – I wasn’t the only one who found the sound to be a little too much. Louie’s posted on Facebook earlier this week that they will be adding some features to absorb sound and hopefully bring the decibel level down some.
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My mom called me last week and said they had some paperwork that I needed to sign. She had the week off so instead of mailing it to me, they decided to drive to Kalamazoo and drop it off.
They had never been to Shipshewana so they wanted to see what that was all about. They dropped the packet off in the morning, went to Shipshewana then came back to Kalamazoo to stay the night.
J and I found a notary on my lunch break and we got their papers signed so we were able to get it back to them. Since they were in town, they wanted to take us to dinner. They didn’t have a preference but I, of course, wanted to go somewhere new.
I started driving down Portage Road which was the totally wrong way to get to Louie’s Lake Bar & Grill. By the time I realized I was a dumbass, I was almost to Vicksburg. We turned around, avoided some construction, took the scenic route then finally got to where we wanted to be.
Louie’s Lake Bar & Grill is on Sprinkle Road at Long Lake Road just a stone’s throw from Long Lake in South Portage. The restaurant is the third Louie’s restaurant in the area joining the original downtown Louie’s Trophy House location and the Texas Corners’ Louie’s Corner Bar. This location is a remodel of Long Lake Tavern which closed last year.
Smokin’ Dutchman BBQ
4212 Stadium DriveMy parents are in the process of leasing out some of the farmland they own back near where I grew up in Illinois. My brother and I also have an interest in the farmland because it was handed down by my grandparents to families of their kids.
In order to execute the lease, J and I had some paperwork to sign. They were just going to mail it to us and we’d send it back but my Mom got the idea to take a day trip to Shipshewana. She has the week off work and wanted to get out of the house.
The drove up to Kalamazoo in the morning, dropped the paperwork off at our house, went to Shipshewana for the afternoon, then came back to Kalamazoo to take us to dinner and stay the night.
J is off work this month too for summer break and I didn’t have a lot going on at work. She asked if she could find a notary would I be able to take my lunch break and get this taken care of. That way, when my parents got back to Kalamazoo later that night, we could just give the papers back to them.
She was going to come downtown to the Library but their notary wasn’t going to be there until 5:00. A quick Google search shows the UPS Store on West Main has a notary so she signed up for an early afternoon appointment and I met her there.
We got the papers signed and notarized then I headed back to work. I hate turning left out of that shopping plaza so I just went right and headed back to Stadium Drive. There was an ulterior motive for doing so though. I was hungry.
I pass what was formerly the Dickey’s Barbecue Pit restaurant on Stadium Drive everyday on my way to and from work. Last week, I noticed a banner covering up the Dickie’s sign for a new BBQ place. The name rang a bell but I couldn’t quite place it right away.
Smokin’ Dutchman BBQ is on Stadium Drive in the Shops at Stadium Village east of Senaca Drive. The restaurant takes over the space that has been occupied by Dickey’s Barbecue Pit since 2018. Not much has changed about this restaurant other than the name and there’s a good reason for that. The reason I recognized the name is because Smokin’ Dutchman Holdings operated this Dickey’s location as well as locations in Rockford, Jenison, and Holland. They filed for bankruptcy last fall due to “extreme and unreasonable demands” by Dickey’s. There have been several stories from franchisee’s losing millions of dollars due to the franchise agreements. Dickey’s has denied all of those claims. The owners of Smokin’ Dutchman Holdings reopened this location as a locally owned BBQ joint using what was learned from their years as a Dickey’s franchise.
Read more…Top Shelf Catering
FOOD TRUCKIt’s summer time in downtown Kalamazoo and that means Friday’s are Food Truck Friday’s.
The City’s Lunchtime Live returned to Bronson Park a few weeks ago. We were out of town for the first couple of Friday’s but last week, I carved out some time to walk over to Bronson park to see what was new this year.
There are a lot of the same trucks that have been there the last few years but there are also a couple of new ones that I have been following on social media for a while.
I didn’t make it too far down South Street when I came across one of those trucks. I stopped there and figured I have a whole summer to keep exploring all the new options.
Top Shelf Catering is a Portage based business that is both a cartering company and a food truck. The catering side predates the food truck by a couple of years but the truck has been rolling around the Kalamazoo area for about four years now. I don’t remember seeing them at Lunchtime Live in years past but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been there. I’ll go on streaks of several weeks in the summer without getting over there for lunch so I miss trucks from time to time.
Read more…Bill’s Lakeside Grill
981 Doster RoadMy job is at a remote site from the main office in Grand Rapids. Whenever there are all office meetings, I’m usually working on something in Kalamazoo so I don’t get back to Grand Rapids for those kind of things often.
Last Wednesday, my particular department had a meeting after the our shift ended. There was pizza and I had nothing else to do so I made it a point to get to the home office.
Yes, there was pizza but that’s not always a good thing at office events. There’s usually either not enough or the only thing left when I get there is pizza covered with vegetables. And as The Simpsons famously said, “you don’t win friends with salad.”
My schedule was pretty light on Wednesday so I left Kalamazoo pretty early to start the trek north. I had seen a Facebook post for a restaurant near Plainwell that piqued my interest quite a while ago. I figured I’d just eat before getting to Grand Rapids and if there was any decent pizza, that would be a bonus meal.
Bill’s Lakeside Grill is on Doster Road north of Merlau Avenue on Pine Lake. The restaurant isn’t so much as restaurant as a pop-up type store. They have a large tent in right outside of Pine Lake Boat & Motor. It’s a great spot right next to the boat launch so people putting their boats in for the day can grab something to eat to take out with them or grab a burger after a day of fishing on the lake.
Read more…Bomba’s BBQ
The last couple of weekends have been weird. I haven’t traveled for any skating competitions.
Knowing that I’m not going to eat several meals out on the weekend opens up a little bit of cash for me to grab a meal or two during the week.
I didn’t have a lot going on at work last Tuesday. I had to run some errands and tie up some loose ends but other than that, it was a pretty relaxed day.
I was sitting at my desk thinking about what I could grab for lunch that day. Not sure why but I remember a BBQ place that I really liked in Milwood moved out to Kalamazoo Township a few months ago. It has been a while since I’ve had BBQ so I headed east from downtown.
Bomba’s BBQ is a familiar name in Kalamazoo. It started as a food truck, then a brick and mortar store on Portage Street which has now moved out to Kalamazoo Township.
The restaurant is on Nazareth Road just south of Gull Road. The small building has been many, many things over the last several years. Panderia y Antojitos Guatemaltecos was the most recent business in there but it has also been Taste of Soul by Dips and before that, it was a Chicken Coop for a long time. Now, it’s a BBQ joint. It looks about the same but there’s a new coat of paint on the outside and it looks like they’re still waiting for a sign for the exterior.
Taqueria Y Mariscos El Primo
27 W. Main StreetI knew I was going to Hartford for work on Friday so I kind of planned my meals in the preceding days around it.
Thursday I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner. I had a taco place in mind but I knew my colleague had said we needed to go to Hartford on Friday.
There’s a Mexican place in Hartford that I’ve been wanting to stop at so that was going to be my excuse to finally do that.
I could have had tacos two days in a row but I chose Steak ‘n Shake instead. Tacos were for Friday.
That taco joint in Taqueria Y Mariscos El Primo on West Main Street in downtown Hartford. The restaurant is a fairly large building right next to City Hall west of Center Street which is the only stop light in town and the road that brings you back to I-94. This spot has been a restaurant for the better part of a decade having been a family style diner and a different Mexican restaurant previously.
Read more…Steak ‘n Shake (Oshtemo Township)
5371 W. Main StreetThursday’s are going to be long days for the kids this summer. They get dropped off at the ice rink around 2:00 and we’re not going to get home until 8:00.
Last week was our first one of these long Thursday’s. J texted me and said she was just going to order dinner for her and the kid’s from Burdick’s. She said she could order me something but it was going to be a while before I got there so I just told her I’d take care of dinner myself.
I had a couple of ideas. One was tacos. The other was a chain restaurant. I was actually planning on tacos the next day so I went to the chain I haven’t been to in quite a while.
I picked the Steak ‘n Shake on West Main in Oshtemo Township. The 24 hour restaurant is on the southside of West Main east of Maple Hill Drive in a very commercial section of Oshtemo Township. The restaurant shares a pretty long parking lot with several other businesses going from the First National Bank to the east and Maple Hill Drive to the west. The white building with a black and white striped awning and red lettering is easily recognizable from a distance.
Read more…Kwik Trip (Kenosha/76th Street)
8900 76th Street- Kenosha, WI 53158
- (262) 697-7966
- Website
Is it even a trip to Wisconsin if we don’t stop at a Kwik Trip?
We made our yearly trek to Pleasant Prairie last week for the Southport Summer Classic figure skating competition at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex. We thought we were only going to be there Wednesday through Friday but the competition threw us a curveball. L had one more event on Saturday afternoon so we had to stay an extra day.
The first thing we did each morning was hit the Kwik Trip between our hotel and the rink on 120th Avenue in Pleasant Prairie. J and I would grab breakfast sandwiches. The kids got the fuel they needed for the day.
Our last day in town I wanted to run some errands before L competed. I dropped everyone off at the rink then I headed to Tenuta’s Deli to pick up an obscene amount of pasta sauce then headed over to Woodman’s Food Market to go through their beer selection looking for something for my Mother-in-Law.
It was getting close to lunch time and I didn’t really know our plans for the rest of the day. I knew we had to make a stop in Vernon Hills on the way home to get some skates fixed and sharpened but other than that, I was pretty sure everyone just wanted to get home as fast as possible.
On my way back to the rink, I decided to stop at the Kwik Trip on 76th Street and 88th Avenue in Kenosha. This is a funny intersection because this Kwik Trip actually faces away from the high traffic road, 75th Street. It faces what is more of an access road to the shopping plazas which is 76th Street so essentially, this Kwik Trip is on the corner of 75th and 88th but you enter on 76th. Even funnier, there is another Kwik Trip directly across 75th Street on the north side of the road which you access from 74th Street.
Read more…Buona (Pleasant Prairie)
7523 115th AvenuePleasant Prairie, Wisconsin isn’t Chicago. But I guess it’s close enough.
We had quite a weekend in Pleasant Prairie last week for the Southport Summer Classic figure skating competition at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex.
Thursday we were subjected to an absolutely ridiculous six hour delay due to the ice melting. Friday L had a rough day in her event.
We needed to get L away from the Rec Plex for a while so we took her to the Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets then we all went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A. I didn’t want Chick-Fil-A so I held out.
The kids wanted to go back to the Rec Plex after we ate lunch because they still had friends they wanted to see skate. It was also good for L to go back to the rink and not dwell on what happened earlier in the day.
J was pretty tired though and asked to go back to the hotel. We were staying pretty close so that wasn’t a big deal. B actually wanted to go back to the outlet mall to get a new pair of shoes. We dropped L off, got B’s shoes, dropped J at the hotel, then B and I headed back to the rink.
I wasn’t comfortable leaving B at the rink. He’s still pretty young and sometimes I just have to redirect him away from people so he doesn’t wear out his welcome. I’m pretty used to eating only one meal a day at work so I just looked at this like a work day.
We left the rink around 8:00 and headed back to the hotel. I asked everyone if they were hungry. My plan was pizza if someone else was hungry or Italian beef if it was just me.
It was just me.
I headed to the Buona on the corner of 115th Avenue and 75th Street in Pleasant Prairie. The Chicago based chain shares a building with another Chicago based chain (and owned by the same people) The Original Rainbow Cone. The building was built just a few years ago just east of the I-94 interchange.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 