SW Michigan Dining

• 1301 S. Pennsylvania Avenue
• Lansing, MI 48912
• (517) 483-4222
• Website

More zoo’s.  I think we’ve figured out that we have to been to 10 zoo’s in the last 18 months.  I love.  J loves it.  L loves it.  So I don’t feel bad about checking out as many different zoos as possible.

We had to make a trip over to the Lansing area to drop off an antique chair for my mom.  She was having a hard time finding someone in Illinois to repair it, but she found someone in Holt.  She asked if we could take it over for her one day.  I was going to to do it one morning when it was just L and I, but J mentioned something about going to the zoo, so I waited until Friday.  That’s my day off, so when J got home from work at 12:30, we loaded up the chair and L then headed off to Lansing.

The Potter Park Zoo is in Potter Park just south of downtown Lansing on Pennsylvania Avenue.  J and I have actually been there a couple times.  When we lived in Lansing, we always took advantage of the awesome “Be a Tourist In Your Own Town”  put on by the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau.  This awesome event allows you to buy a passport for $1 then get in free to a number of different attractions around the area.  This was the first time, obviously, that we have taken L though.

Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the zoo is part of Potter Park which is operated by Ingham County.  Unfortunately, they charge you to park in this park which means even though you’re going to pay admission to the zoo, you still have to pay to park.  The fee for a non-Ingham County resident is $5.  Not a big deal, but is just another expense even though you still have to pay to get in to the zoo.

Once we paid, we made our way to the back of the park to find the zoo.  Potter Park Zoo is the oldest public zoo in the state of Michigan.  It opened in 1920 after being moved from a different park in the city of Lansing.  The zoo is neatly tucked in to the park surroundings and makes use of the natural trees and landscapes to blend in the animal exhibits. Read more…

• 8765 Goldenrod Avenue
• Bitely, MI 49309
• (231) 745-3754
• No Known Website
• No Online Menu

Usually I’m the guy that comes up with interesting places to eat while on trips with co-workers.  Last night, it was my co-worker who knew exactly where we were heading in northwestern Newaygo County and talked excessively about a bar that he found with a different co-worker a few years ago.

That bar is Woody’s Bar & Grill in the area near Bitely in Newaygo County known as Woodland Park.  It’s right off of 11 Mile Road on a small road known as Goldenrod.

The bar is a classic country bar.  It’s the place all the locals go and when my co-worker started asking people about it, they told us again and again that we had to go to Woody’s for dinner.

We pulled in to the gravel parking lot just before 6:00 on a Thursday night and a number of regulars were already stopping in for a drink after work and a bite to eat.  We were greeted by an enthusiastic bartender when we walked in and told to sit wherever.  I started towards a booth, but my co-worker started making a big deal out of the women’s bathroom and asked the bartender if I could take a peak in.  That sounds odd, but the tank of the toilet is a fish tank.  It’s actually pretty cool although I did feel a little odd walking in to the women’s bathroom just to see the toilet.

After our little excursion to the bathroom, we headed back to a booth and sat down.  The bartender followed us with menus and we both ordered Coke’s to drink since we were on the clock. Read more…

• 5043 W. 111th Street
• Alsip, IL 60803
• (708) 424-2470
• Website
• Menu

Usually when it comes to gluttonous restaurants, I’m on top of things, but J found one that I must have glanced over.

We were spending a few days at J’s parents house and after a long day in the city, we didn’t really have any ideas for dinner.  While lounging on the couch, J remembered a newer restaurant not too far away that that had menu right up my ally.

Fatso’s has two locations in the Chicago suburbs and both are pretty close to where J lives.  The original location is on 95th Street in Oak Lawn in what appears to be an old Checker’s.  For some reason, we have never been to this one.  I don’t think we knew what it was about until the second location opened up in Alsip on 111th Street near Cicero.

Fatso’s is mostly a carry-out place, but they do have a few tables in this new location.  It’s in a strip mall wedged between a Mexican restaurant and a nail salon.  The space used to be a pizza joint before turning into this haven of oversized delicious foods.

The menu is pretty standard for a take out sandwich place.  There are  number of options, but it’s their big items that make this place stand out.  J and I both went to opposite ends of the spectrum on the big item part of the menu.   Read more…

• 2150 N. Cannon Drive
• Chicago, IL 60614
• (312) 742-2000
• Website
• Menu

A couple of hours walking around the zoo is enough to work up an appetite.  We had already been at Lincoln Park Zoo for a little over an hour when everyone started asking about lunch.  J asked if there was anything we could walk to, but it’s a little bit of a walk through Lincoln Park to get to any restaurants outside the zoo, so we just took advantage of the restaurants inside the zoo to quiet the rumbling stomachs.

We made our way back to Park Place Cafe for a potty break and after J took L, she came back out to the patio where her step-dad I were waiting.  J said they had a decent looking food court and she was hungry, so we followed her back inside to grab a quick bite to eat before finishing our zoo journey.

The Park Place Cafe is in the middle of Lincoln Park Zoo which itself is in the middle of Chicago’s Lincoln Park.  The zoo is free so this is a place you could stop in for lunch whether you’re wandering around the zoo or not.  Heck, if you’re just in the park or at the nearby beach you could wander over for something to eat.

The Park Place Cafe is actually the zoo’s old Reptile House.  It’s a large stone building with an open floor plan.  One one side is a cafeteria style food court and the other side is the dining room.   Read more…

• 2001 N. Clark Street
• Chicago, IL 60614
• (312) 742-2000
• Website

We really have an affinity for zoos.  All three of us love spending a day at the zoo and we’ve done it several times already this summer.

This past weekend, J needed to go home for an event at Skydeck Chicago.  L and I tagged along and we were joined by J’s parents.  After we had some fun on The Ledge, we decided to continue our tourist look at the town by heading out to Lincoln Park.

The Lincoln Park Zoo is Chicago’s free zoo.  It’s also one of the oldest in the United States with a founding date in the 1860’s.  The first animals were a pair of swans from Central Park’s Board of Commissioners.

While there’s no admission fee to the zoo, there is a parking fee if you’re traveling by car as we were.  The entrance to the parking lot is on the north side of the zoo off of Fullerton Parkway.  It’s not a one admission for all approach either.  Like all parking in Chicago, how much you pay depends on how long you stay.  You take a ticket when entering the lot and pay an attendant on the way out.  We were there a little over two hours which falls in the range for a $25 dollar parking day.

There are actually several entrances to the zoo because, again, it’s free, so they just open up the gates and let you wander in and out from the park.  It’s not uncommon to see joggers make the zoo part of their path and if you take public transportation or find a spot to park outside of the park, you can enter from many different places.  Read more…

• 233 S. Wacker Drive
• Chicago, IL 60606
• (312) 875-9447
• Website

Being a tourist in Chicago is always a little weird…but at the same time, I’ve missed out on some neat things just because I’ve always thought of them as touristy things.

After spending a few days in Traverse City, we made the long drive back to Chicago for a few more days of vacation.  It’s hard to explain why we had to go to Chicago without being to specific, so you’ll just have to take my word that there was a reason that J needed to be at the top of the Willis Tower at 9 AM.

As for L and I, we decided to tag along.  J parents joined us because, even though they have lived in Chicago their whole lives, they had never been to the Willis Tower either.

Skydeck Chicago is the tourist part of the Willis Tower (or as most people still know it, the Sears Tower).  It’s the part of the building that has those really cool ledges that let you hang over traffic 103 stories above the street.

The Willis Tower is located on South Wacker drive, but the entrance to Skydeck is on Jackson Boulevard between Wacker and Franklin.  Make sure you go in the big glass entrance on Jackson.  If you try to go in to the Willis Tower, they will kick you unless you have business there.   Read more…

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

It seems like we always do it.  We go hard for the first few days of vacation.  We go out to nice meals.  We seek out the best a town has to offer.  Then, as we get near the end, we just want to eat.  We want to put as little effort in to it as possible yet still get a good meal.

On our last night in Traverse City, we were sitting in our hotel room discussing dinner when I told J I didn’t care if we just ate at the resort.  We could order a pizza or we could go down to the bar in the lobby and eat there.  J was fine with that, so we got dressed enough to make ourselves presentable and headed downstairs.

Camp Critter Bar & Grille is the standard restaurant at the Great Wolf Lodge resorts.  The restaurant is designed as a kid friendly pub that carries the lodge theme through the dining areas.

There were only one or two other families in the restaurant when we showed up for dinner at 5:30 on a Thursday night.  The waitress showed us to a booth in the bar area and handed us a couple menus before taking drink orders.  J ordered a Red’s Apple Ale (which the waitress called a cider….it’s not yet it’s a mistake almost everyone makes) and I ordered a Coke.  I was kind of beered out even though they did have a couple of craft offerings both on tap and in bottles.   Read more…

• 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…