SW Michigan Dining

• 225 E. Sixteenth Street
• Traverse City, MI 49684
• (231) 944-1239
• Website
• Menu

If it seems like we go to a lot of breweries, it’s because we do.  We always look ahead of time and try to figure out if it’s kid friendly or not.  We’ve learned that almost every brewery is.  I actually can’t think of one that we’ve been to where I wouldn’t take my toddler.

J’s not a huge beer drinker, so there are also considerations for her.  Do they have a cider?  If not, is there some kind of wheat or fruit beer that she will drink?  Also, a big consideration is do they have food.

We had our meals pretty much planned out on our Traverse City trip, but there was one question mark.  There was one brewery I really, really wanted to go to, but the food menu was iffy.  We couldn’t really find anything for L to eat and didn’t know if they’d let us bring something in for her.

I was going to call and ask, but after a couple hours of swimming in the water park at Great Wolf Lodge, L was exhausted.  We had to drag her back to the room, but her eyes looked so tired….she just wanted to keep swimming.

J was pretty tired too as she didn’t sleep well either night we were there.  I needed to get out of the room so both could get a good nap in, so I asked if it’d be ok if I just went to do a flight somewhere.

I asked to make sure J wasn’t really wanting to go with me before heading down to Right Brain Brewery on Sixteenth Street in what they’re calling the “SoFo District” (South of Fourteenth) of Traverse City.  The brewery is a huge warehouse.  I don’t use the word “huge” lightly here.  It is really large for what I pictured to be a small brewery.   Read more…

• 13512 Peninsula Drive
• Traverse City, MI 49686
• (231) 223-4333
• Website
• Menu

Our beer tour of Traverse City continued after we left Mission Point Lighthouse.  It was around lunch time and J asked where were going to eat.  There was a brewery on the way back, so..duh…we were going to another brewery.

Jolly Pumpkin Restaurant, Brewery, and Distillery is right on the Old Mission Peninsula on Peninsula Drive just a stone’s throw from Bower’s Harbor which is part of the West Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay.  It shares some land with Mission Table which was waaaay to fancy for the three of us and not open for lunch anyway.

For being away from town, I was actually surprised at how many people were there at just a little after noon.  I noticed we were joined by a few people we saw at the light house, but there also looked to be a good number of regulars and locals as well.

Jolly Pumpkin and North Peak Brewing work together under an umbrella corporation and share brewing facilities in Dexter.  It took me the longest time to figure out why there was so much North Peak gear on display when we walked in.  As we walked to the hostess, I noticed a lot of North Peak merchandise and thought that was a little odd because there didn’t seem to be a lot of Jolly Pumpkin which would have made more sense.   Read more…

• 20500 Center Road
• Traverse City, MI 49686
• (231) 223-7324
• Website

There was so much I wanted to do on our quick getaway to Traverse City, but L was going to be content just playing in the water park at Great Wolf Lodge.  We took the trip for her, so I wasn’t going to push her too much.

On our second day of vacation, I suggested we go for a drive.  I thought it might be nice to get out of the hotel and drive out to the Old Mission State Park.  We didn’t have to spend a lot of time out there, but I wanted to go check out the old lighthouse.

The Mission Point House right on the end of the Old Mission Peninsula on the Grand Traverse Bay.  It’s about a half hour drive from downtown Traverse City and the whole twenty miles is gorgeous.  There are a number of places where you get a great look over the rolling hills of the peninsula looking out on both the West Arm and East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay.

The lighthouse is at the end of M-37 inside the Old Mission State Park.  Once the highway ends, there is a road leading in to the park and to a parking lot near the lighthouse.

The Mission Point Lighthouse was built in 1870 as an exact replica of another lighthouse on the Detroit River. The location is just to the south of the 45th parallel which is the halfway point between the North Pole and the Equator.  The lighthouse was only used up until the 1930’s, but the building was purchased by the State of Michigan.  Up until 2008, the lighthouse was used as the park manager’s residence.  Now, the building and the tower are open the public and that’s the reason we made the trip out.   Read more…

• 400 W. Front Street
• Traverse City, MI 49684
• (231) 941-7325
• Website
• Menu

Our goal on this trip up north was to hit up as many breweries as we could.  The breweries that serve food always have outstanding food.  It just seems like people who care enough to make good beer care just as much the restaurant side of the business as well.

Our dinner choice on the first night in Traverse City was North Peak Brewing Company.  The beautiful brewery is a 100 year old building that originally housed a candy factory on Front Street just to the west of Downtown Traverse City and the Boardman River.

The parking lot is on the west side of the building and it’s shared with an Irish Pub next door.

The entrance to the brewery brings you buy some of the brewing equipment and to a set of old wooden stairs that lead you up to the main dining room and a hostess station.

The large pub is exactly what you would expect from a 100 year old building.  It’s fairly dark to due to the color of the wood and the color palate is a simple black and white.  The space feels much more like an upscale dining establishment than it does a brewery.   Read more…

• 3575 US Highway 31
• Traverse City, MI 49684
• (231) 941-3600
• Website

When I was growing up, my parents took my brother and I  to a lot of water parks.  I wasn’t always a fan.  I always wanted to go to theme parks.  I was more of a roller coaster rider while my brother and dad loved water slides.

My daughter takes after her Papa and Uncle when it comes to water parks.  She loves them.  She loves the beach.  She loves the lake.  She loves the pool.  It doesn’t really matter what the body of water is, she loves to swim.

J and I desperately needed some time away from work and started talking about Traverse City.  I started looking at Great Wolf Lodge knowing L would love it.  Last month, they were running a booking special for this month which got me a room for less than I have paid at some regular hotels.  I decided to book two nights so that L would have three days to play in the water park.

Great Wolf Lodge is a chain of indoor water parks.  The company was founded in the late 90’s by the brother’s behind Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin Dells (one of my families favorite vacation spots).  There are a dozen Great Wolf Lodge’s across the country including the Traverse City location on US 31 on the south side of  Traverse City.

The resort is huge.  It sits up on a hill and is visible well before you pull up to the entrance.  The resort consists of the water park, hotel, and a conference center.  The entrance to the hotel is kind of “around the back” on the north side of the building which is the farthest away from US 31. Read more…

• 121 N. Bridge Street
• Bellaire, MI 49615
• (231) 498-2300
• Website
• Menu

It’s time for a vacation.  J and I both work in pretty high stress jobs and our schedules are all sorts of messed up.  We’re not 9-5ers or even Monday-Fridayers.  We needed a getaway…badly.

We started looking in to spending a few days in Traverse City and found a pretty good deal on a couple of nights at Great Wolf Lodge.  We knew L would love the water park and it put us in a position to seek out some of the great breweries Up North we’ve never been to.

We left Kalamazoo early on a Wednesday morning and headed straight for Bellaire, MI.  There’s not a whole lot in the town.  It’s a nice, quaint little dot on the map, but it’s not the kind of place you seek out on a three and a half hour car ride…unless, that is, you’re looking for delicious beer.

Short’s Brewing Company is in downtown Bellaire on North Bridge Street not too far south of the Cedar River that runs through downtown.  The pub takes up two storefronts in what used to be an old hardware store.  It looks like you can enter from either.  The first one we walked in to is the bar area.  There’s a nice large bar with 20 taps.  Short’s always has a huge beer list and I can never clear enough space on my shelf to try everything they bottle, so it was nice to get to sample some fresh from the source.   Read more…

• 601 W. Hoffman Street
• Three Rivers, MI 49093
• (269) 279-9800
• Website
• Menu

It’s been four years since I’ve had a Saturday off that I haven’t used a vacation day for.  That always made it really hard for my family to get together.  My mom would use vacation days on Monday to come up for a Sunday-Monday visit or I would have to use vacation days on Friday and/or Saturday so we could head to their house.  Now that I have Saturday’s off like a normal person, it makes traveling better for everyone.

My parents came up this past Saturday morning for a visit with their granddaughter.  It just so happened that my dad’s cousin with the lake house in Three Rivers was also in Michigan this week.  We spent the morning at the Farmers’ Market and ate lunch at University Roadhouse before heading home to play with Play-Doh and take a nap.

When nap time was over, we all loaded in to my parents van (which L looooooves because she can watch Frozen on their DVD player), and headed south towards Three Rivers to meet my dad’s cousin and part of her family for dinner.

I suggested we meet at Brewster’s.  I have eaten at the Paw Paw and Kalamazoo locations with good luck and J had actually been to the Three Rivers location once with her parents while I was at work.

We timed it out pretty well and we both pulled in to the parking lot around 6.  The restaurant is a little deceiving when you look at it from the outside.  The parking lot entrance is off Hoffman Street and the building is visible from the US-131 Business Route.  It sort of backs up to the large factory and is kind of hidden in some brush.  What you don’t realize until you get in is that the restaurant has a pretty great view overlooking the Rocky River.  There is a great patio on the banks of the river and most of the dining room looks over the landscape via large windows. Read more…

• 8441 W. Main Street
• Kalamazoo, MI 49009
• (269) 375-0120
• Website
• Menu

Daddy’s making dinner.  Hand me the phone!

Ok, usually, I’m the one that cooks and I’m actually a pretty decent cook, but on Friday nights, it just seems like the right night for pizza.

J left L and I at home while she headed across town for a hair cut appointment.  It was pretty late in the afternoon and I knew I was going to have to feed L before she got home.

Earlier in the day, we were going to try to take advantage of Blaze Pizza’s free pizza giveaway, but the line was out the door and all the way down Check ‘n Go.  We said, “screw that” and went to Nisker’s instead.  L really wanted pizza though and I promised her we would get pizza for dinner.

For a couple weeks now, I’ve been wanting to order from Kazoopy’s Pizza and Grinders in Oshtemo.  J really likes Cottage Inn and the ease of ordering and delivery, so she’s always talked me back in to that.  I didn’t really mind going to pick the pizza up myself (I think we’re outside of the delivery area) and L likes car rides with daddy anyway.

Kazoopy’s Pizza & Grinders is a familiar name to Kalamazoo, but they are in a new spot.  The last incarnation of the pizza joint was in Mattawan but that closed down some time ago and is now a different pizza place.  This new Kazoopy’s opened up inside the Dougherty’s Corners Market which used to have it’s own pizza and grinder shop attached to the party store.

The space is strictly carry-out and delivery as there is no place to sit and eat.  To get to the restaurant, you have to walk through the market.  It’s easy to spot with a large “Kazoopy’s” sign hanging from the ceiling. Read more…

• 5015 W. Main Street
• Kalamazoo, MI 49009
• (269) 254-8081
• Website
• Menu

Some people are just better than others when it comes to marketing….especially in today’s digital world where word of mouth is amped up to 11 with the help of social media.

For a few weeks now, I’ve been seeing signs of a new pizza place coming in to the West Century Center on West Main and Drake in Oshtemo Township.  A couple of weeks ago, I opened up my email to see a note from this new pizza joint.  They had found this blog and offered to send me a couple of coupons for a free pizza.  It’s not something that happens often with this blog nor is it something I expect.  I was going to stop in on opening day regardless just because the concept sounded like something that we were going to love.

Blaze Pizza’s first Michigan location outside of Metro Detroit opened Thursday in the corner space of the West Century Center where a Verizon store was before the big remodel.  Before I started seeing signs for the restaurant, I had never heard the name Blaze Pizza before.  They’re a fairly new chain concept getting started only a couple of years ago and they have some big name backers from the West Coast….including the founder who is also the founder of Wetzel’s Pretzels. Read more…