Potawatomi Zoo
500 S. Greenlawn Avenue- South Bend, IN 46615
- (574) 235-9800
- Website
This summer has been pretty busy for us and zoos. L loves going to see the animals and J and I enjoy checking out new places.
Last weekend, was the first weekend in a while where we didn’t have family commitments, so I asked J on Saturday if she wanted to get up on Sunday and take a day trip to South Bend. She was excited to check out a new zoo and so was I.
The Potawatomi Zoo is in the Potawatmi Park on the east side of South Bend. It’s in a pretty heavy residential neighborhood and quite a ways from an expressway, so it takes a lot of weaving to get back to the large park.
The zoo opens at 10 AM and we had planned on being there close to that time. We arrived to the park about 10:15 after a few potty breaks. The parking lots in front of the zoo entrance were already starting to fill up. It appears others had the same idea we did.
The Potawatomi Zoo is on the Association of Zoos & Aquariums reciprocal list which always works in our favor as members at Binder Park Zoo. Admission is $8.50 for adults and with our half off with the Binder Park membership, we only end up paying for one adult. Two and under is free, so we were able to get in for the price of one adult admission.
The Potawatmi Zoo is one of those deceptively large zoos. It’s not huge, but it’s much bigger than it feels when you first look at it. The zoo is situated on 23 acres of land and it holds the honor of being Indiana’s oldest zoo. Read more…
Bistro on the Roll
Various – Food TruckLast summer, the City of Kalamazoo introduced Lunchtime Live on Friday’s during the summer. They invite a number of food trucks then provide some entertainment in Bronson Park for a couple hours. J and I took advantage of it a couple of times last summer, but we were yet to make it down to the park this summer.
This past Friday, I sent J a message around 11:30 asking if she’d like to me L and I for lunch. She was up for it, so when she was bout to leave work, L and I headed downtown.
J beat us so she got in line at the Twisted Tail to get some of their fantastic Bacon Mac & Cheese. While she was waiting there, I headed over to Pig Out, Take Out to get J some Pig Out Fries. I was going to pick up a sandwich from there, but there happened to be another food truck just down the street from them that I haven’t tried yet….so of course, I go for something new.
Bistro on the Roll is an upscale sandwich truck that seems to have just popped up this summer. I saw them for the first time about a month ago Fontana Chamber Music in the Park concerts. We had brought some sandwiches from Penn Station with us that night, so I didn’t even walk over to see what they had. Read more…
Bert’s Bakery – Westnedge
4419 S. Westnedge AvenueBalloons and cake. That’s what we promised L if she could go three days without an accident. It took a couple tries, but she did it and we lived up to our end of the bargain.
We made a stop at Party City in Portage to pick up her balloons. She picked out two Frozen balloons and they lady blowing them up gave her a pink one and a blue one to go with them.
As we left Party City, we started talking about where to go for cake. I figured we’d just do something from Harding’s or Meijer like we usually do, but J said she had heard Boonzaaijer Bakery did mini cakes that you could just walk in and buy. Unfortunately, they are closed for a while according to a sign on their door, so we needed a back up. Luckily, I always have a back up.
After striking out at Boonzaaijer, I turned the car back towards Kilgore to the shopping center on the corner of Westnedge and Kilgore right at the city limits. There’s a bakery that has been there for a while but with us not living on that side of town anymore, we haven’t had a reason to stop in. Read more…
Moe’s Southwest Grill – Portage
6225 S. Westnedge AvenueParenthood comes with celebrations that would seem odd to non parents. Lots of celebrations for things that we all wish we got prizes and stickers for. Right now, we’re going through the potty celebration with L. A couple weeks ago, she told J she wanted to wear undies, so we put her in them and hoped for the best. We made a chart where she got a sticker for every time she successfully made it to the potty with a goal at the end of cake and balloons.
She made the end of the chart over the weekend and L told her if she had no accidents over three days, we’d get a cake and balloons for her.
When L got home from work on Monday, we lived up to our promise. We took a trip to Party City in Portage to get L some “Frozen” balloons.
On the way, we needed to get lunch. We were all hungry and since it was L’s special day, we went to her favorite restaurants.
Somehow, Moe’s Southwest Grill became L’s favorite place for lunch. When the first area store opened up on Stadium Drive near our house, it quickly became a go-to for a quick lunch. We all enjoyed the food and L loves it when the employees yell out “Welcome to Moe’s” when anyone walks through the door.
Not long after the Stadium Drive Moe’s opened, a second location opened on Westnedge in Portage. The store took over the big glass building in front of Toys R Us that most recently housed a Happy’s Pizza. Read more…
Hovey’s Pizza & Grinders
226 Enterprise DriveI wish I could spend every weekend on the lake. As a Michigander, I feel a little left out when all of my friends go to their family’s lake house for a quick weekend. My family is not from around here…and we don’t have a lake house anywhere, so trips to the lake only happen about once a year.
When I say “my family” I mean my immediate family. My dad’s cousin actually does have a lake house near Three Rivers on Pleasant Lake. For the last two years, we’ve been able to get my whole immediate family and my dad’s cousin and her husband to meet up for a day of jet skiing and boating…as well as drinking and eating.
We grilled burgers and brats for lunch after a couple hours of swimming and attempting to ski. When dinner time rolled around, I asked what the plan was and was told we were thinking pizza. My dad’s cousin only had a couple of menus to places in the area and one of them she said took forever..the other was Little Ceasears. I knew we could do better than that, so with the last ounce of battery life, I quickly searched for pizza places in Three Rivers.
The best hit I got was for a little place on the north end of town. I got the name before my phone died and told J to look it up. She found the Facebook page and they posted a pretty good deal just an hour earlier, so we all decided that Hovey’s Pizza & Grinders was going to be our place.
Hovey’s Pizza & Grinders is in a strip mall just off of Main Street near where Main meets up with US-131 on the north side of town. The strip mall is anchored by a Goodrich movie theater and the address is actually on Enterprise Drive which intersects with Main. Read more…
Wingstop Crestwood
13211 S. Cicero AvenueOne of my favorite days all year is the day that my dad, brother, one of my best friend from grade school and I go to a White Sox game. It’s a tradition that we started at my bachelor party five years ago. No strip clubs for me. I just wanted baseball and beer and that’s what I got. Since then, we have made it a yearly tradition for the four of us to get together, get wings and beer and do our best to stumble in to US Cellular Field for what passes for baseball on the South Side.
That very first year, I stumbled upon the best wing place ever. We used it for the next three years, but last year, it abruptly closed and didn’t pop back up anywhere. We scrambled for a new place last year that I enjoyed but everyone else was “eh” on. So, this year, I was on the look out again for someplace new.
A few weeks ago, J and I were driving down Cicero Avenue in Crestwood for something and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the word “wings” It turned out to be a chain I had heard of, but have never actually been to. I got online to see if they did large orders. They did and we found a new wing place for this year’s trip.
Wingstop on Crestwood is on busy Cicero Avenue just to the just south of Cal Sag Road. It’s in a small strip mall with a few other business, but along that stretch of road, it sort of blends in with it’s surroundings.
I was meeting the rest of the gang at 3:30 at a gas station on the corner of Cicero Avenue and 167th Street near the Intersection with I-57. That meant I needed to pick up wings around 3:00. Around 1:00, I got online and put in my order. I asked for it to be ready by 2:45.
The order was for 75 classic wings. I could have gotten up to five flavors, but I stuck with four because both my dad and I really like Garlic Parmesan wings. I ordered 30 of those while getting 15 of the other three flavors. Those flavors were Louisiana Rub, Mild, and Hickory Smoked BBQ. Read more…
Hitts The Spot Cafe & Ice Cream
1053 E. Wilcox Avenue- White Cloud, MI 49349
- (231) 689-5080
- No Known Website
- Menu
You know how I’ve said many times I never know where I’ll end up for work? Yeah. It’s been one of those weeks.
On Monday, a co-worker and I were quite a ways north of Grand Rapids. We were heading home on M-37 in northern Newaygo County when she asked if we could stop for dinner. I’m not really familiar with that area, so I said we could look for something.
Whenever I drive through an unfamiliar town, I head towards the main business district. I did the same once we got to White Cloud, but didn’t really see a lot. I was starting to give up and just keep heading south when the co-worker noticed a sign in front of an ice cream joint. They were advertising chili dogs. She didn’t want chili dogs, but figured if they had that, they might have burgers.
The old, white building is called Hitts The Spot Cafe & Ice Cream. It sits on Wilcox Avenue which appears to be White Cl0ud’s downtown area right across the street from the Newaygo County Complex.
They have the traditional walk up ice cream window, but there is also a little cafe with a dining room and table service attached to it. They had a menu hanging out front and they did have burgers among other things, so we went inside and put in an order to go.
I sort of skimmed the menu, but all I really wanted was a burger. I ordered the 1/2 lb hamburger with cheese and bacon (both extra). I then upgraded to a basket to get fries and slaw but asked them to just keep the slaw. Read more…
Flat Lander’s Barstillery
855 Michigan Street NEI always feel sorry for co-workers who don’t normally work Friday nights get stuck working with me on Friday nights. I’m used to having no social life and plucking away while the rest of the country is gearing up for the weekend.
This past Friday, I had a co-worker who switched at the last minute with my regular nightside partner out of the sheer goodness of her heart. He had been invited to a wedding last minute so she stepped up and switched shifts with her so he could go.
It was a pretty easy night and we got to a stalled point in the evening. I asked if she wanted to find something for dinner. Normally at work, we pick up fast food or find a quick sit down place, but we had some time and I knew she was in a bad mood because she was stuck at work on a Friday night, so I suggested a nicer place that I’ve been wanting to try.
I chose Flat Lander’s Barstillery on Michigan Avenue just east of of Eastern Avenue. It’s in a new mixed use development. I first heard about the place about a month when I saw it as a new addition on Urbanspoon. I pointed it out to J, but we don’t really take a lot of trips to Grand Rapids and when we do, it’s always with a toddler.
The bar is on the corner of the strip mall. There’s a large parking lot in front and off to the side of the building plus it’s right on a bus line. When we pulled up, I noticed the patio was full and I thought we might be out of luck. We had time to eat, but we didn’t have time to wait for a table.
The space inside Flat Lander’s is awesome. It’s a multi-level lay out with a very whiskey cellar like feel to it. There is a small ball when you first walk in to the place and there are different dining spaces on three different levels in the space surrounding the bar. Read more…
The Hot Dog Shack
105 E. Monroe StreetIs there anything better than a summer day at the beach? I love living within an hour of a great beach in South Haven. For reasons beyond our control, we just haven’t been able to make it over this year as much as we’d like to.
This past weekend, we were finally able to get to South Beach for an afternoon. We got there a little before noon and swam and played in the sand for almost two hours before L started to get exhausted. To get her back to the car, we promised her we’d stop and get ice cream on the way home. We were going to do so in South Haven, but downtown is too far to walk with an overly tired toddler and parking on a busy weekend isn’t very easy either.
Instead, we started heading back towards Kalamazoo. On the way too the beach, we passed a place in Bangor that advertised ice cream and hamburgers….something for everyone.
The Hot Dog Shack has been open about six months on the east side of Bangor. I always remembered seeing the place as a Mexican restaurant called El Palenque. We never stopped there, but it always stood out as a large red pole building just on the edge of town.
Surprisingly, L stayed awake for the drive back to Bangor, so we lived up to our promise and stopped in for ice cream. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet because we stopped at McDonalds in Bangor on the way to the beach to get something little for L so she wouldn’t be going to the beach hungry. I’m somewhat forced to eat fast food a lot during the week at work, so I passed and just went hungry until we could get someplace better. Read more…
Paisano’s Bar & Grill
16 N. Main StreetJ and I can never go anywhere without finding a place to eat. We took a late morning trip to Three Rivers to check out the Scidmore Park Petting Zoo. We spent 45 minutes or so there before we needed to grab lunch and head home.
On our way to the park, we drove through downtown Three Rivers and there were a couple places that jumped out. J noticed Paisano’s Bar and Grill. I mentioned that I had heard good things about it, so J said we should stop there for lunch on our way home.
Paisano’s is on Main Street in downtown Three Rivers just to the north of Michigan Avenue. It takes up a couple of store fronts in the old row building downtown. We found a parking spot on the street on the other side of the road just because we were heading that way. On a Saturday afternoon, there is plenty of parking near your destination.
The bar is separated in to several spaces. When you walk in, there is a small dining room. That’s where we chose to sit. There’s also a large, open bar area with pool tables, dart boards and a huge space that could be used for live bands.
The three of us took a seat in a large booth near the kitchen. A waitress popped her head out and saw we had sat down, so she brought us menus. A different waitress came over a few minutes later to get drink orders. They have a decent beer selection, but I stock to a pop and ordered a Coke while J got a Sprite. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 