Michelle’s Stone Ridge
25441 Red Arrow HighwayIt’s been a while since I’ve gotten my butt out of bed on a Sunday so we could go to breakfast. I made the decision Saturday night that I was actually going to set an alarm just to get out of bed and go to breakfast.
The plan worked. I got out of bed, L and J were already up, and everyone was hungry.
A few weeks ago, I was driving from Kalamazoo to Paw Paw via Red Arrow Highway. Just past the Main Street intersection in Mattawan, I noticed one of my favorite breakfast joints took over an old restaurant.
Michelle’s Stone Ridge moved in to the building formerly known as Stone Ridge Inn. The restaurant is just outside of Mattawan on Red Arrow HIghway at the stoplight at County Road 662.
We never went to Stone Ridge Inn because I never read very good reviews of the place. From the outside, it always looked like a nice place, so I’m not really sure what was going on inside. I was excited to see the Michelle’s sign on the restaurant now so we could finally check the place out. Read more…
Ben’s Soft Pretzels – Oshtemo
501 N. 9th StreetI don’t go to Walmart often. I don’t have any of the usual objections to Walmart, I just like Meijer better. I do, however, go to Walmart when I want to get in and out quickly. It seems like I’m not the only one that prefers Meijer over Walmart.
This past Friday, I needed to pick up two things quickly, so I headed to the 9th Street Walmart in Oshtemo Township. As I was wrapping up, I noticed a neon sign hanging above what appeared to be a little closet near the entrance closest to the pharmacy. I came in near the grocery section, but I decided to walk down to the other entrance to see what that little sign was advertising.
Turns out, that little closet is a pretzel shop called Ben’s Soft Pretzels.
Ben’s Soft Pretzels got started just south of the (Michigan) border in Elkhart, IN. They have a number of stores in Indiana, a couple in Florida, and one each in Illinois and Wisconsin in addition to the three Michigan stores (Oshtemo Walmart, Comstock Meijer, and Sturgis Walmart). Read more…
Sarkozy Bakery
350 E. Michigan AvenueI have to be honest. Before the fire, I had only been in Sarkozy Bakery once. J and I, like fools, tried to walk in on Fat Tuesday and just pick up a paczki. No surprise now, but they didn’t have any left. Unfortunately, that was the only time we had ever stopped in the old store.
Fast forward to last Friday, we had some work crews at our house still fixing damage from last winter and we wanted to get out for a little bit. I had read in the Gazette a few weeks ago that Sarkozy was serving lunch now and that sounded like a great option.
The new Sarkozy Bakery is on Michigan Avenue in downtown Kalamazoo in the Columbia Plaza Building just west of South Pitcher Avenue. The new bakery is gorgeous. There is a big, open layout with modern furniture and stainless steel everywhere. We actually weren’t sure that we could eat in until I parked my truck on the street right in front of the building and saw the large dining room through the picture windows that overlook the busy downtown street.
The menu is pretty small serving up only a few sandwich options, soup, salads, quiche, and some pizzas. None of the sandwiches really did anything for me so I ordered off the pizza menu. Read more…
Big Moe’s BBQ Express
1928 Gull Road- Kalamazoo, MI 49048
- (269) 488-5502
- No Known Website
- Menu
There’s never enough BBQ. Never. Seriously….never.
A couple of days ago, I got a text message from J saying she just passed a building on Gull Road with Big Moe’s BBQ signs plastered all over it.
Turns out, Big Moe’s opened a new restaurant to serve up their award winning BBQ sauce alongside some delicious smoked meats.
The new restaurant is near Borgess Medical Center on Gull Road. It share a building with a party store across the street from the Max 10. The last I knew, that building had a sign for what I assumed was going to be a Chicago Style joint, but that never seemed to come to fruition.
Big Moe’s just opened their doors a few days ago. I’m pretty sure J and I were in there on day two. We left L at home with J’s mom and just planned on doing carry out for the four of us.
The menu is pretty standard for a BBQ joint. They have all of the pork favorites, but they’re notably missing brisket which is what J’s mom likes. They did have a Beef BBQ Sandwich so that’s what we got here. Read more…
Lafayette Coney Island
118 W. Lafayette BoulevardIt’s 1:30 AM and you’re awake and hungry in downtown Detroit. Where do you go? Duh. Do I even need to spell it out.
That’s the situation I found myself in the other night. After a long day of work, I headed to the Holiday Day Express in Downtown Detroit where my company was putting me up for the night. I handed my keys off to the valet and checked in to my room first, but the whole time I was thinking about dinner. There was a bar right next to the hotel, but seriously, downtown Detroit at night means only one thing. Coney Island.
My hotel was about two blocks from the famous corner Coney Island restaurants…Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island. I dropped my bags off in my 14th floor room then headed back down to street level to make the two block walk.
I chose to go in to Lafayette Coney Island because that was the one I thought I remembered as native Detroiters telling me was better. In all honesty, I had no idea. Lafayette just looked more authentic to me. It was smaller, dingy, and quite full for being well after midnight. Read more…
Buddy’s Restaurant Pizzeria – Livonia
33605 Plymouth RoadA long time ago, back in 2009, I took my family to a Tigers game for the first time. On that trip, I really wanted to check out a pizzeria in Detroit that I had seen on the Food Network. It wasn’t in a great part of town and the building was actually a little scary, but inside was hiding one of the most delicious pizza’s I had ever eaten.
Fast forward to Tuesday night. I was on my way to Detroit to meet some co-workers. I was hungry and I wanted to be a nice guy, so I found a different location of that awesome pizza place and picked up a couple pizzas to share.
That awesome pizzeria? Buddy’s. The name synonymous with Detroit pizza. So many people try to copy it, but it’s just like all of the Chicago-style copiers, it’s not the same. Call it what you want, it’s not Buddy’s. Read more…
The Grind Cafe
2728 W. Michigan Avenue- Kalamazoo, MI 49006
- (269) 459-8401
- Website
- Menu
I seem to have this vision in my head of college towns being rich with late night and 24-hour food joints. It just seems to make sense that, near campus, there would be places open late to serve the drunk , after-the-bar-closes crowd, but apparently, very few in Kalamazoo actually want to serve that population.
Working second shift in Grand Rapids gets me home pretty late. The earliest I get home is about midnight, but some nights it’s much later and most nights, I’m really hungry. Actual lunch breaks are rare in my profession and eating fast food gets really old.
There has been a little movement lately with a couple places staying open later, so I have been fed a little bit better lately, but I was really excited when I noticed a 24-hour cafe just opened near campus and the kitchen is open the whole time too.
The Grind opened just a few months ago on the corner of Howard and Michigan near WMU. It’s not in Campus Pointe though. It’s actually in the smaller strip mall behind Campus Pointe that is also home to Blaze Hookah Lounge and The Mix Kzoo. It takes up the corner space closest to the Wendy’s on Michigan Avenue. Read more…
Memphis Smokehouse
180 Monroe Avenue NWI can’t pass up BBQ. Seriously. I just can’t drive by good BBQ and a few weeks ago, a new BBQ place opened in downtown Grand Rapids just in time for Artprize. As much as I try to stay away from downtown during Artprize unless I have to go down there for work, I just couldn’t pass up BBQ.
Memphis Smokehouse takes over the storefront recently vacated by Donk’s Mexican Joint (or Taco Boy) on Monroe Avenue right across the street from the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.
Memphis Smokehouse has a small menu of Memphis BBQ favorites and gourmet burgers. The restaurant itself is pretty small. There’s only room for a dozen or so people to eat in, but the location in downtown lends itself to carry-out and eating outside.
I stopped in to Memphis Smokehouse because I saw the sign for BBQ, but the burgers seem to take center stage. They’re a gourmet burger at a “reasonable price.” I went back and forth, but eventually, I stuck with the BBQ. Read more…
AFB Bar & Grill
2941 Howard StreetLate night meals. I never know what to do when I get off work and I’m hungry. Too many times I have stopped at McDonalds in Wayland on my way home, but that gets old….real fast.
Somewhere on Twitter, I noticed that a bar near campus has half off burgers on Monday. I like burgers, I like half off, and since it’s a Monday, I don’t have to worry too much about the rowdy college crowds.
I headed home first to drop off my work car so I could enjoy a cold one then headed back towards WMU.
AFB Bar & Grill is in the Campus Pointe Mall on the corner of Michigan and Howard in the Arcadia Neighborhood near Western Michigan University. The letters AFB look like they should stand for something…and whadya know, they do. It actually makes the name a little redundant. The AFB stands for Another F^&cking Bar. Remember, it is a college bar…
AFB takes up three store fronts in the Campus Pointe Mall. Most recently, one of them was Pop’s Italian Beef & Sausage, another was last Geno’s Golden Pizza, and I don’t really remember what the third space was. The Pop’s portion is pretty much a large game room with pool tables and several HD TV’s all tuned to sports. The entrance to the bar is at the old Geno’s locaiton. The main bar and dining area is in the third store front. Read more…
Station 702
702 Douglas AvenueWe didn’t plan on going to breakfast this morning. J let me sleep in a little bit and we had leftover BBQ from the night before so that was the plan for lunch. While I was playing with L, I got the idea just to go grab something real quick.
My plan was to check out Station 702. This new, fast-casual breakfast/lunch place just opened in what I feel is a pretty unlikely place. With the help of a Community Development Block Grant, they turned an old, run down building in the Northside Neighborhood into a bright, welcoming space at the intersection of North and Douglas. If you saw this place beforehand, you would have a hard time believing it’s the same building. In a previous life, it was the popular Dips Soul Food restaurant…now, it’s a hip, fast casual breakfast spot that focuses on omelets.
We walked in just before noon on a Sunday. We actually questioned if it was open as we were pulling in the parking lot. There were no other cars, but the “open” sign was lit, so we headed inside.
Station 702 uses the term fast casual because they don’t do table service. There is an order counter that gives you a glimpse in to the small kitchen behind it. They serve breakfast all day and start lunch service at 11:00. We had the opportunity to order of either menu, but chose the breakfast because…well, it’s Sunday.
I surprised J…and even myself a little bit, and ordered The Station Hash. The plate is a sauteed medley of potatoes, topped with scrambled eggs, cheese, and choice of meat (I chose bacon). There were too many kinds of potatoes for me to pick out which ones they were, but I stuck to the smaller, more cooked pieces. There were big pieces of sweet potatoes on my plate and I really don’t like sweet potatoes, but it was easy to pick around. J actually took a few of those for herself. The dish came with choice of side and I took the pancake. It was a small, golden brown pancake that was delicious with or without the provided butter and syrup. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 