Wing City
444 Capital Avenue NEWe had a long weekend at a figure skating competition coming up so I knew money was going to be tight last week.
I was in Battle Creek for a quick job assignment that kind of fizzled out pretty quickly. I was out in the Baily Park area and not looking for lunch but as I drove back towards downtown, I passed a place that I just couldn’t pass up.
Wing City is on Capital Avenue and Wabash Avenue east of downtown Battle Creek. The small brick, almost windowless building stands as an island on a the corner surrounded by a large but oddly shaped parking lot. The building has been Wing City for a few years now but a past life, over a decade ago, this was a Chicken Coop restaurant. I don’t ever remember seeing anything in there in between so not sure how the building was used in the mean time.
Flat Rock Grill – The Breakfast Spot
Mother’s Day. And we’re not brunch people.
J’s mom had asked about meeting for Mother’s Day and wanted to go to City Centre Taphouse for their Bloody Mary Bar. We didn’t have reservations and they only had the brunch menu so we weren’t going to chance it.
Most of the other places we would have picked also needed reservations and were doing brunch buffets or special Mother’s Day Brunches. We just wanted a place that was doing a normal breakfast at a normal price so we could get together.
J’s mom suggested they just come to us and go to breakfast at LaRue’s. That’s everyone’s favorite breakfast joint and they didn’t really have anything special going on.
J’s parents are in Kalamazoo a lot. They do a lot of school pickups and drop offs at Wings West for J and I because we can’t get out of work early enough. I didn’t want to make them drive all the way up here again on the weekend so I suggested we meet in Three Rivers instead.
We ended up meeting at Flat Rock Grill – The Breakfast Spot on US-131. The restaurant is on the west side of town just north of Broadway Road in front of the Meijer. This spot was Oasis Family Restaurant for along time and appears to have been a Big Boy (just judging from the layout) before that. The restaurant is a sister location to Flat Rock Grill in Edwardsburg which is more of a bar/restaurant while this one is a breakfast/lunch spot.
Sonic (Wyoming)
5521 Clyde Park Avenue SWAn early Saturday morning shift in Grand Rapids and not a lot of sleep. That always makes for a fun day.
I got up around 3:30 this past Saturday to get to Grand Rapids for a shift that started around 5:30. I don’t like rushing so I gave myself some time to get up, wake up a little bit then get on the road.
I wasn’t super excited about working a Saturday morning but it was an easy shift and it was all overtime. I can’t pass that up right now.
I got done around 10:00 and started the drive back towards Kalamazoo around 10:30. I hopped on US-131 to head south but I desperately needed to find a bathroom. I was out of the office all morning and didn’t go back before heading home.
I got to 54th Street and pulled off. There is a Meijer at that exit and I needed to grab something. I knew I’d also find a bathroom there.
When I finished up that trip, I realized I was hungry. I wasn’t going to go looking for something but there were a couple of restaurants across the street that I haven’t eaten at in a while.
I chose the Sonic on Clyde Park Avenue to the south of 54th Street in Wyoming. The restaurant sits right along a very busy stretch of road with a Target and Menards behind it and a Meijer across the street. I pulled in a little before 11:00 and had a decision to make.
Read more…Which Wich (Wayland)
1150 129th AvenueI knew I was going to be spending more time in the Grand Rapids office last week than I really wanted to. It was just one of those weeks where there was more work there than the number of staff we had so I was going to get pulled up.
I ended up doing a really long shift on Tuesday. I had some things I really needed to do in Kalamazoo Tuesday night and it threw off the whole night when I didn’t leave Grand Rapids until just before 7:30. That’s about an hour after my normal end time plus I still had the drive home.
I didn’t get a chance to eat during my 11 hour shift so I was hungry. I still needed to get home though and do something before calling it a night. I needed something quick and not too far off my route home.
I have been seeing signs for a new sandwich shop near the Gun Lake Casino and I saw they had just opened a few days prior. I needed gas anyway so this stop was a no-brainer.
Which Wich opened up just last week inside the Noonday Market on 129th Avenue just to the east of the interchange with US-131. The gas station has been there for quite a while across from Gun Lake Casino and is owned by the Tribe. Which Wich takes up a portion on the westside of the building that used to be a Subway but that space has been empty for about three years. Now it’s a combo sandwich and gelato business.
The Original Rainbow Cone (Flossmoor)
19805 Crawford AvenueWe didn’t plan on ice cream but how could you pass this up?
We were in Flossmoor, IL for the annual Ladybug figure skating competition at the Homewood-Flossmoore Ice Arena.
J and L had been in town since Wednesday. B and I met them there Saturday morning for L’s final skate of the competition.
My parents were also there and even though we needed to get back to Kalamazoo for a birthday party, I asked if we could go to lunch with my parents at a Buona nearby.
Lunch was good and the grandparents got to spend some time with the kids. They don’t see L as much at competitions because she skates a lot more than B and she hangs out with her friends so even 40 minutes sitting at a restaurant is good for everyone.
I knew as soon as we pulled in to the parking lot at Buona that we’d be getting ice cream because right next door is a brightly painted Chicago institution.
The Original Rainbow Cone is known throughout Chicagoland for it’s unique rainbow cone and rainbow cone cakes consisting of five layers of ice cream (orange sherbet, pistachio, Palmer House, strawberry and chocolate). The original location was a small shack on the corner of 92nd and Western in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood (there’s still a location there though it’s not the original structure). In the last 100 years, the small ice cream shop has expanded to about 30 locations with the majority being in the Chicago area. There is one Michigan location right now in New Buffalo.
The Flossmoor location of The Original Rainbow Cone opened last summer on Crawford Avenue just north of Vollmer Road. It shares a parking lot with the Buona in the Meijer parking lot on the corner. The building is really hard to miss. It’s a large pink building with white polka dots and a giant ice cream cone in the center of the awning.
Read more…Buona (Flossmoor)
19801 Crawford AvenueI hadn’t planned on going to a figure skating competition last weekend but once it got extended in to the weekend, I saw it as a chance to get to see L skate.
Last week was the Ladybug competition at the Homewood-Flossmoor Ice Arena near Chicago. This has always been a competition where L has skated on Thursday and Friday but this year, she skated Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
I couldn’t make it Thursday and Friday due to work but once I saw she was skating Saturday, I made plans to get up and drive to Chicago.
B and I got up around 7:30 and started towards Chicago. L didn’t skate until 10:30 Central so we had some time.
My parents were also coming up again for this one. They live about an hour and a half away so this is an easy one for them to come to. They had come Friday morning as well since it’s so close and my mom didn’t have to work.
L was done around 12:00 and my parents had asked about grabbing lunch before heading home. We didn’t have a lot of time because the kids wanted to get back for a birthday party they had been invited to. We lose the hour coming back so we needed to be on the road by about 1:45.
I figured going to a sit down restaurant wasn’t a great idea. L was already being a little difficult about even going and I was worried about the timing. By the time she got her stuff together and we got out of the rink, it was closer to 1:00.
I pointed everyone towards Buona about five minutes down the road on Crawford Avenue near Vollmer Road in Flossmoor. The restaurant is part of the Buona chain which has about 30 restaurants in the Chicago area. This one has been on the entrance drive to a Meijer since 2018.
Read more…Jersey Mike’s Subs (Portage)
6156 S. Westnedge AvenueI keep seeing Facebook posts for Food Trucks in Portage. I don’t get to Portage that often so I miss them.
I was kind of excited on Friday because I had to make a trip by myself to Portage in the afternoon to do something real quick while my colleague continued working on something in the office.
Unfortunately, the food trucks I had been looking forward to weren’t out on Friday. They were getting ready for their weekend gigs and took the day off. Both of them.
I was still hungry and didn’t want to go back to work empty handed. There are a lot of options along Westnedge Avenue so I really had my pick of a lot.
I picked the chain I hadn’t been to in a couple of years.
Jersey Mike’s moved in to Portage a couple of years ago after Lefty’s Cheesesteak’s closed. The shop is in the Southland Mall Plaza near the road and near the corner of South Westnedge and Milham. The East Coast Sandwich shop is sandwiched between Two Fellas Grill and Noodles & Company. This is the second Kalamazoo area location with the original one being on West Main Street in Kalamazoo Township.
Read more…Burger King (Stadium Drive)
4200 Stadium DriveIt’s competition weekend again!
It feels like it’s always competition weekend in the spring. As soon as we get done with one, we’re getting ready for the next.
This past weekend, L and J headed to the Chicago area for Ladybug. They left Wednesday night after work because of space constraints at the Homewood-Flossmoor Ice Arena.
There isn’t a lot of space there so it’s hard to get ready at the rink which is how we usually do things. They wanted to be able to get ready at a hotel before heading to the rink which meant they’d need to go over Wednesday night.
B didn’t go to this competition because we didn’t know he’d be ready for dance when we signed L up. The competition then filled up really fast and they closed registration early so it was too late by the time his coaches said he was ready to go.
J’s parents came up to help me with B after school Thursday and Friday nights. They typically feed the kids when they pick them up from school so I knew when I was heading home that B had already eaten.
I didn’t really feel like cooking and I was contemplating my options on the way home. Fast food was fine because I didn’t want to spend a lot of money.
I ended up pulling in to the Burger King on Stadium Drive to the east of Seneca Drive on the west side of Kalamazoo. Why Burger King? Well..because do you know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten at a Burger King? No, you don’t because you don’t actually know me but I don’t think there’s a Burger King blog on this site and I’ve been doing this for almost 16 years.
Bricks at Campau Corner
6785 Whitneyville RoadThere are days I don’t have my office partner in Kalamazoo. Those days are usually spent working alone on special projects or sometimes, meeting colleagues from the Grand Rapids office.
Some days, they come down here. Some days, I go to Grand Rapids.
Last Wednesday was a go to Grand Rapids day for me.
Well….not actually Grand Rapids. I was heading to Alto to meet a colleague for a project. I left a little early because I had heard there is a Which Wich opening near Gun Lake Casino and I wanted to see if it was open yet.
It is not so that kind of changed my lunch plans.
I actually didn’t really have any other plans and I wasn’t passing a lot on my way to the job site. I could have doubled back towards Grand Rapids but then I came across a gas station and my lunch problem was solved.
Bricks at Campau Corner is part of a small chain of Bricks gas stations in Kent County. This one is located on the corner of Whitneyville Avenue and 68th Street. This used to just be a Marathon Station but it was rebuilt and rebranded as just Campau Corner sometime in 2010/2011. At that point, there was a Subway in the southern part of the building. There was also a small shopping plaza built on the north end of the property that initially housed a pizza place and a couple of financial offices. Those are now meat market and a pizza house/pub.
Re-Fresh Market
1070 Arcadia LoopHow about something a little closer to home?
I know…when I travel I get outside of my geographic boundaries but…you know…I’ve said it before…I treat this blog like a journal. Plus, I usually get 100’s of more page views for blog posts when I travel…especially if it’s a big brand.
Anyway, I’m back in Kalamazoo…for a little while anyway, so I can sneak in one before I’m off to a skating competition or something somewhere.
I made a run to the WMU Student Bookstore on my lunch break last week. I wanted to look at hockey National Championship merchandise and since I had some free time, I figured why not.
I didn’t find what I was looking for but since I was in the building, I figured I’d just grab lunch.
I’ve blogged about a couple of the restaurants in the new student center before. There’s Mi Pi which is kind of like a Blaze Pizza and there’s Fuego Verde which is kind of like a Chipotle.
There’s a third option that I didn’t even realize was there. I was walking through the Student Center a few weeks but I came in what might be considered the “front door” off Arcadia Loop instead of coming in through the doors near Sangren Hall like I usually do.
Re-Fresh Market is just that. It’s a market. It’s located on the first floor of the Western Michigan University Student Center on Arcadia Loop near the center of campus. Like I just mentioned, you can access the student center either from the south off Arcadia Loop which brings you in on the bottom floor near Re-Fresh or you can come in from the north off Michigan Avenue which brings you on the second floor on the other side of the building. Whatever you choose, Re-Fresh is kind of separated from the rest of the food court with an actual entrance into an enclosed space so it’s more like a store than a food court offering.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 