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…Dave’s Hot Chicken (Kenosha)
6610 Green Bay Road #106Who knew ice only stays ice if it’s kept cold? Apparently, the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex did not know that.
We were in Pleasant Prairie for the annual Southport Summer Classic. This has been one of our favorite competitions for the last three years. The area around Pleasant Prairie is nice and the Rec Plex is a great facility
As long as the compressors are on.
There was a major problem with the ice when we got to the Rec Plex early Thursday morning. B’s event was the first of the day but when the Zamboni went to resurface, it turned the rink in to a puddle. Everything was melting. The compressors were off.
That delayed the competition by almost six hours. Six hours that we had to just sit at the rink, waiting for the ice to refreeze. The communication from the host club was very poor. Everyone was afraid to leave the building because they weren’t giving us a very good timeline. Then, they tried to play it off like, “oh well. Things happen” which pissed everyone else off even more.
It got to be lunch time and we knew we needed to get the kids fed. They were already stressing out. We had a couple of false starts so B had his skates on a few times only to have to take them off again because the ice was still full of puddles.
L kept saying she wasn’t hungry. She had a bagel from Starbucks earlier in the morning. B was just really stressing out and wanting to scratch at this point. We knew it’d be fine once things got going but he was prepared at 8 AM when he should of started and the false starts and lack of communication was making him anxious.
We know Jimmy John’s is always a safe bet with him. I found one not too far away so I ordered him a sandwich. J said she was hungry too and Jimmy John’s sounded good so I got her one too.
I wasn’t in the mood for Jimmy John’s so I didn’t order myself one but I went to pick it up.
My parents drove up from their place south of Chicago for the competition and they were getting annoyed as well. We were supposed to be done for the day around noon so they’d miss traffic going home. They wanted to get away from the rink for a bit too so they came with me to pick up lunch.
I told my dad if he saw something along the way he wanted to speak up and we’d grab them lunch somewhere. He surprised me when he noticed a Dave’s Hot Chicken near the Jimmy John’s and asked what that was. I explained it to him and he said that sounded like a good spot to grab something to eat.
Dave’s Hot Chicken in Kenosha is on Green Bay Road north of 67th Street in the Indian Trails Plaza. The restaurant is part of small shopping plaza in front of a Lowe’s that also includes a Red Robin. I wasn’t planning on eating there nor did I know it was even there so we didn’t put an order in ahead of time.
Read more…Milwaukee Burger Company (Pleasant Prairie)
9901 77th Street It’s been a month.
There’s a really busy stretch for us every year starting at the beginning of May and ending the middle of June with figure skating competitions. We go from Ann Arbor, to Traverse City to Pleasant Prairie, WI. I had some work trips thrown in there and we added another competition in Ann Arbor for B so we haven’t been home much.
For the most part, Pleasant Prairie is the last big family travel trip of the summer. J will take the kids to Dallas in July for a competition. We host one in August at Wings West. We hope that one or both of the kids will qualify for the national competition in Salt Lake City in Utah. I don’t get to do the big travel ones just because flights are expensive and I’m running out of days off.
We headed towards Wisconsin when J got home from a work retreat around 1 :30 PM on Wednesday. We got to our hotel around 4:30 after a couple of bathroom break stops.
My parents usually come up for part of this competition because it’s only a couple hours from where they live in Illinois. They didn’t want to pay what we paid for a hotel so they ended up staying in nearby Gurnee, IL for about $70 cheaper.
We got to our respective hotels at about the same time. My mom asked if we’d be able to go out to breakfast in between the kids’ events in the morning. IF everything had run on time (that’s another loooooooong story), we wouldn’t have had time so I suggested they just come up to Pleasant Prairie that night and we could go get dinner.
When we got in my parents van, my mom pretty much said anything but McDonalds…which is reminiscent to what she always told my brother and I growing up.
I wasn’t planning on fast food anyway. There’s a restaurant I have had my eye on for the last three years that we’ve been making this trip.
Milwaukee Burger Company is a small Wisconsin chain of seven sports pubs restaurants specializing in burgers. The Pleasant Prairie location is on 77th Street near 99th Avenue in the Shoppes at Pleasant Prairie. This whole area of east of I-94 is very heavily commercialized and is the home to dozens of restaurants. I’d be back in this area several times over our three days in Pleasant Prairie to pick up food. As for Milwaukee Burger Company, it anchors a shopping plaza in front of Target that it shares with a Crumbl Cookie and a Counsins Subs.
Read more…Gapi Coffee & Sweets (Hotel)
11177 E. Michigan AvenueI’m not a gambler. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to Firekeepers Casino since it opened in 2009.
I took my parents there once to gamble. J and I went to see Dennis Miller there once in 2019. I think those might be the only two times I’ve been there.
I had a work event at the hotel side of the property last week before we headed to Wisconsin for another figure skating competition. I knew it was going to be a long, expensive weekend of eating out so I didn’t want to spend too much on Tuesday before I left.
I was hungry though and I needed something.
I stopped at Gapi Coffee & Sweets inside Firekeepers Hotel. The hotel side is newer than the casino opening in 2012. To get to the hotel, you go in the main entrance then take a left to take you around to the other side of the property. There are large parking lots in front of the hotel which is connected to the casino. If you go in the casino entrance, you can still get to the hotel, you’ll just have a bit of a walk.
Hi-Lite
1005 E. Michigan AvenueWhile it wasn’t an weekend affair, it was pretty much an all day affair for B to participate in the Bobbie Stoermer Skills and Showcase figure skating competition at the Biggby Coffee Ice Cube – Ann Arbor.
I had gotten him lunch pretty early when I made a run to Jimmy John’s. Throughout the rest of the day, he had pretty much only eaten vending machine crap. J and I hadn’t really eaten since we ate lunch at 10:30 AM.
B’s last event finished up around 3 PM. We got his medal, got him changed, then packed up and headed back towards Kalamazoo.
I had asked J on the way over if we could off on eating until we got back to Marshall. Of course…I had an idea.
I end up in Marshall for work fairly often. I usually stick to downtown or right off exit ramps on I-69 or I-94. At the Partello Road exit, it is unusual for me to go any farther than the Love’s truck stop. If I’m downtown, I usually don’t go past downtown so there’s a gap in there between downtown and the Love’s that I almost never drive on.
Last week, I intentionally went on that stretch of road because I saw some Facebook posts for a deli inside a liquor store. Not only did I find a tasty grinder, but I was reminded there is a drive in on that side of town and we have never stopped at it.
Hi-Lite has been in Marshall on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Centennial Road since 1947. The restaurant is everything you think of when you think of an iconic American drive-in.
Read more…Jimmy John’s (Packard Street)
600 Packard StreetAfter a couple of days in Jackson for work, it was back to Ann Arbor on Saturday for, you guessed it, a figure skating competition.
This one we only brought B too. It was a Michigan Basic Skills competition so there wasn’t much L could do since she stopped doing free style.
The Bobbie Stoermer Skills and Showcase was held at the Biggby Coffee Ice Cube – Ann Arbor…a place we’re very familiar with. We were just there for the Margaret Faulkner Springtime Invitational last month.
B had four events starting at about 9 AM and ending around 3 PM. We had gotten Dunkin’ before we left Kalamazoo but as soon as he got done with that 9 AM event, he said he was hungry. That was our longest gap in the day so it made sense that I run out and get something at that point.
It was a little after 10:00 so I kind of assumed our options were limited. He was insistent that he wanted Jimmy John’s. I knew there wasn’t one really close to the rink so it would take me a little while to get to one. I assumed they opened at 10:30 but they actually open at 10:00. I left the rink to go get him a sandwich.
The Jimmy John’s I usually go to from the Ice Cube is the one on the corner of Packard and Hill Street just south of the University of Michigan campus. The building is very small and in a very, very hard corner to navigate. There are very few parking spaces and the ones that are there, are hard to get out of once you get in to them.
Read more…The Dirty Bird
140 W. Michigan AvenueJackson isn’t a place I’ve spent a lot of time. I drive by it a lot but rarely get off the highway.
I’ve picked up a job assignment in the area the last couple of years so I’ve gotten to explore a little bit more. A co-worker and I had a couple of great meals last year at Grand River Brewery and Rocky Top Beer BBQ & Grill. On my own, I’ve found Schlenker’s Sandwich Shop and Kibby Cobb Deli.
We finished up a long work day in Lenawee County then headed back to our hotel in Jackson. Along the way, I asked my co-worker if he wanted to go to dinner or go back to the hotel. It didn’t matter to me. I was going out to eat with or without him. I was just being nice and offering dinner so he wouldn’t have to find something on his own.
I already had a place picked out so that wasn’t up for discussion.
The Dirty Bird is in downtown Jackson on Michigan Avenue to the west of Mechanic Street. It was a Thursday evening so parking wasn’t really an issue. We found a pull in street space just to the west of the restaurant which sits right next to a pedestrian alley between the row of buildings.
Read more…Kibby Cobb Liquor & Deli
2628 Kibby RoadI warned you. Back on the road for a couple of days.
This short trip was for work again. I’m still not done traveling for skating this month but this is the last work trip I have planned for a while.
I was meeting a colleague at the hotel we’d be staying at in Jackson around 11:00 AM. I got to town early because I wanted to grab something to eat. We were going to be stuck out kind of in the middle of nowhere Lenawee County for the day and wouldn’t really be able to eat until we got back to Jackson in the evening.
I did my usual thing and searched for “bagels” in Jackson. I assumed I’d get hits in Ann Arbor but I was shocked to find something that looked amazing to me off the beaten path near Jackson.
Kibby Cobb Liquor & Deli really is off the beaten path on the corner of Kibby and Cobb Roads in Summit Township just to the south and west of Jackson city limits. The party store with a deli hidden inside is part of a small shopping plaza called Kibby Cobb Plaza. The store shares the center with a few other businesses including Ironbark Brewing…which I probably should have went back to for dinner. The owner of the deli is also part owner of the brewery and you can get the deli sandwiches to go with your beers.
SW Michigan Dining 