Moe’s Southwest Grill – Kalamazoo
4206 Stadium DriveHey! New restaurant opened in Kalamazoo. Now, we weren’t there waiting for it to open, but last week, J and I both noticed (on separate trips) that the old Red Crown Pharmacy had been converted to a Moe’s Southwest Grill and it was opening soon.
Soon was this past Thursday. When J got off work, she asked if L and I wanted to meet here there for lunch. I didn’t have any other plans and I’m always up for tacos.
Moe’s Southwest Grill’s first Kalamazoo area location is on Stadium Drive right next to Gallagher’s Eatery & Pub where, as I mentioned earlier, Red Crown Pharmacy used to be. The building has been empty since last February when the pharmacy closed down. I had been hearing rumors of Moe’s moving in for quite some time, but it wasn’t until we started seeing signs going up that we even realized construction had been started.
Moe’s Southwest Grill is an Atlanta based Tex-Mex chain with over 500 stores nationwide although this is the first of two in the Kalamazoo area. The building that houses Moe’s has undergone extensive renovations to become the Tex-Mex restaurant.
The ordering process is pretty similar to Qdoba or Subway. They have the typical American Mexican restaurant favorites. Burritos, tacos, quesadillas and nachos among other things. Each option has a protein or vegetarian option and the protein option actually has five options…they call it protein instead of meat because tofu is one of the options. Read more…
Bella Mia Pizzeria & Italian Grill By Stefano
24050 Front AvenueI feel like I’ve been slacking quite a bit on blogs on restaurants actually in Southwest Michigan. We’ve been traveling quite a bit and lunch has consisted of “what do you want?” “I don’t care.” and it turns in to scrounging up something already int he house.
J did all of the grocery shopping yesterday, but we had to run to Walmart to pick something up we couldn’t find at Meijer. As we were walking in the door, J asked if I had any ideas for dinner. I said if pizza was ok, there are a couple new places I would like to get to eventually. She said it was alright with her.
I chose Bella Mia Pizzeria & Italian Grill by Stefano in Mattawan. The restaurant is fairly new opening this summer, but it takes over in the building that previously housed Kazoopy’s on Front Street in Mattawan.
We pulled up a menu online and J was actually happy to see there was much more than just pizza. I don’t think she was totally sold on the idea of pizza, but pasta did actually sound good.
She called in the order while I got L ready for a little road trip. The reason I wanted to get pizza tonight was so I could give J a little break….which is also why I chose the pizza place in Mattawan. Read more…
Pizza Time
102 N. Van Buren Street- Bloomingdale, MI 49026
- (269) 521-6550
- No Known Website
- Menu
You never realize how much you take dinner breaks for granted until you work in a business where you’re lucky if your not eating while driving down the highway. When we do get breaks, they seem extra special and that actually happened a couple times this week.
One of those nights happened to take place in Bloomingdale where I was with several co-workers. We had some time to kill and the residents of the small Van Buren County village were all heading to the local pizza joint to pick up dinner so they could eat parked in front of their TV’s watching the Tigers game.
Pizza Time is one of Bloomingdale’s only restaurants (if not the only…I don’t remember seeing anything else) and unfortunately, it’s not going to be there much longer. The employees were telling us the building is for sale and once the building is sold, the pizza place will likely disappear too.
The rundown pizza joint is right in downtown Bloomingdale on the corner of Van Buren and Kalamazoo Streets. The place looks like it hasn’t had any work done to it since the mid 80’s and the furniture has probably been around at least that long. Read more…
Corner Bakery Cafe – Oak Lawn
9621 S. Cicero Avenue #1When it’s time to wrap our trips to Chicago, we try not to leave town without getting one last meal from all those great restaurants we just don’t have in this part of the country. We also try to time it with L’s nap.
Just before noon on the last day of our most recent trip, we started talking about lunch. The name “Panera” came up, but we get that all the time here in Kalamazoo. There’s a restaurant not far from J’s parents that actually pretty similar to Panera and one that I, somehow, have never eaten at.
The Corner Bakery Cafe is a Dallas based chain with 147 restaurants nationwide….although I couldn’t find any in Michigan…but their website wasn’t working right when I tried to look, so I could be wrong about that. I know there are none in West or Southwest Michigan though.
The Oak Lawn location is on Cicero Avenue just to the south of busy intersection with 95th Street. It’s a standalone outbuilding in a shopping center complex.
J came up with the idea to go to the corner bakery and pulled the website up on her phone. She noticed on the website they did online ordering so we all got on our smartphones to look up a menu while J complied the order. Read more…
Chuck’s Manufacturing
224 N. Michigan AvenueAfter enjoying an afternoon at Soldier Field, J and I decided to just stay in downtown Chicago. We’ve never spent the night away from L, so this was going to be odd.
We checked in to our room at the Central Loop Hotel about 4:30. Instead of paying twice for parking, we figured it would be cheaper if we just parked at the hotel in the morning and walked to Soldier Field. We didn’t realize it was almost a three mile walk, but we both enjoyed the exercise and just seeing the streets of our favorite city.
I made a reservation through open table for Chuck’s Manufacturing at 6:30. It was about a fifteen minute walk from where we were at and I needed a little bit of a nap between the game and dinner.
We actually timed our walk almost perfectly as we walked in to the restaurant right on Michigan Avenue at about 6:20. We checked in with the host (who didn’t mark us down through Open Table, so I initially didn’t get credit for the dinner and got a scolding email about no-showing) and were shown to a U-shaped table near the back of the dining room.
The space at Chuck’s is really interesting. I really don’t know how to explain. I suppose I can just take the lazy route and let them tell you how they describe it. Read more…
The Manhattan Firehouse
195 S. State StreetWhenever we go home for a weekend, it’s always a challenge to fit everything in. We need to see both families plus do whatever it is we actually made the trip home for. This time, it was for a Bears game.
J’s uncle is a season ticket holder and for the last couple of years, he has offered us a game. Last year, it was against the Lions on Monday night. This year, we originally planned for the Lions game in November, but November is hard for J and I to take time off.
A while back, her uncle e-mailed and said he had the Saints game come open and asked if we wanted to go that one instead. Being in October, it was much easier for us to take a relaxing trip home where I could take off Saturday and she could take off Monday.
Once I got off work on Friday night, we headed to my parents house about an hour south of Chicago. The plan was to spend the day with them. About a week ago, a friend of mine posted on Facebook that she was going to be mini-photo shoots the weekend we were home. We wanted to take advantage to get Christmas card picture, but we didn’t want to cut time with my family short either.
We ended up taking the last time slot for the photo shoot and invited my parents to tag along. It was about a 45 minute drive, but the plan was to go to dinner afterwards before heading to J’s parents for the night.
The original plan was pizza, but all three pizza places in the small town of Manhattan, Illinois looked to be carry-out/delivery only. That sort of threw a wrench in our plans, but on the way in town, we noticed a hand written side along Illinois 52 that sounded too good to be true. Read more…
Jaspare’s Pizza and Fine Italian Food – Portage
5965 S. Sprinkle RoadI’m a little surprised we did it. J and I ditched cable. A couple of years ago, I couldn’t have lived without it. Recently, all I’ve been watching is PBS and a few broadcast network comedies, so there is really no reason for me to keep cable.
Still, I wasn’t actively looking to get rid of it….that is until I got my most recent bill. Charter upped my bill another $20 a month and didn’t add anything. That was the last straw. At this point, it just wasn’t worth it. Sure, they eventually offered to drop it by $50 a month, but I’m not playing games. If you can charge me $50 less a month, just do it without me having to threaten you.
So, this past weekend was spent on the roof setting up an OTA antenna and running new cable in the house. We were still keeping Charter for Internet, so I couldn’t just splice in to their line. After I got all of the wires routed and amplifiers and boosters on the TV, I asked J to call and tell Charter we didn’t need their cable TV services anymore.
After that was done, J was heading to a class and L and I had nothing to do, so I told J we’d just take the DVR’s back to Charter and get that out of the way. I looked the address up and saw it was on Sprinkle Road. As we were both walking out the door, I asked J if she wanted pizza for dinner. She said she wasn’t really hungry, but she might eat a slice or two. Read more…
Tacos El Cunado at the Downtown Market
435 Ionia Avenue SW, Stall 112Hungry and early for work. What’s a guy to do? I was contemplating fast food, but as I was getting off US-131 at the Wealthy Street exit, I was struck with an idea.
I’ve been to the new Downtown Market in Grand Rapids a few times for work, but I’ve never really had a lot of time to look around. I did, however, remember that there is a taco place and I can never turn down tacos.
Tacos El Cunado has a couple restaurants in Grand Rapids, but their newest venture is at the Downtown Market. They have a kitchen set up right next to the Ionia Avenue entry doors.
The taqueria has a simple menu of tacos, quesadilla’s, burrito’s, and tortas. Even at almost three o’clock on a Saturday, there was a little line at the counter.
When it was my turn, I ordered four Carne Asada tacos with just cilantro. The tacos also come standard with onions and the option to add cheese for a small fee, but I love simple tacos. Read more…
Arctic Cafe
8450 W. Ten Mile RoadAbout halfway through our trip to the Detroit Zoo, we all started getting a little hungry. It just so worked out that we were leaving the Arctic Ring of Life Exhibit at about this time and whad’ya know, there happened to be a restaurant right in front of us.
The Arctic Cafe is one of two cafeteria style restaurants at the Detroit Zoo. The setup is pretty similar to Beulah’s Restaurant at Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek. What makes it unique…and by unique I mean unique to any cafe in a zoo across the country, is that the Arctic Cafe is Green Certified by the Green Restaurant Association.
The large restaurant can be divided in to two lines on busy days, but since it was a Monday after school was back in session, there was only one service line open.
The food is all pretty simple. They have burgers, pizza, salads, some chicken and vegetarian options, and of course, meals for the kids.
J was intrigued by the Artisan Sandwich from the Carved Deli. These sandwiches are made somewhat fresh. They’re not quite made to order. The sandwich is made on a large submarine-esque bun then it’s cut in to smaller pieces. They don’t cut until you order it though, so it gives you the feeling of being fresh carved. The sandwich comes with chips, but you can upgrade to fries. J passed on the chips and ended up passing on the fries as well. Not sure if she forgot or just didn’t want them. Read more…
Detroit Zoo
8450 W. 10 Mile Road- Royal Oak, MI 48067
- (248) 541-5717
- Website
We decided a few weeks ago that if we were going to go to Detroit, we were going to make a weekend out of it. Sunday was a concert downtown at the Fox Theatre, but on Monday, we were going to spend some quality family time outdoors at the zoo.
The Detroit Zoo is a few miles north of the Detroit city limits on the corner of 10 Mile and Woodward in Royal Oak. It’s just off of I-696 and easy to get in to and out of. There is a parking garage accessible from either 10 Mile or Woodward and there’s a large surface lot at the 10 Mile entrance.
Being a Monday, there wasn’t a whole lot of people there, so we just parked in the garage and walked to the main gate where we were the only ones in the non-members line. Everyone else was lined up to get in the members entrance.
J and I are members at Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek and that worked to our advantage at Detroit. We got 50% off our admission, so instead of paying $28 for the two of us (L was free because she’s still under 2), we got in for $14 plus $5 for parking…a total of $19.
Once inside the gates, we didn’t really know where to go. The zoo is setup so you can walk a path and see all of the animals. The zoo is divided in to eleven habitats. I pulled the map out of my back pocket and we sort of planned our route. It’s a little bit of a walk passed a lot of green space to where you start getting to animals, but we found a peacock near the bathrooms and that grabbed L’s attention right away.
The zoo is set up so there are a couple of paths you could take and see all of the animals. We chose to go counter-clockwise around the zoo which just seems more natural. The first animal exhibit we came on where we actually found an animal was the camels. We walked past the beaver and river otter habitat…which was really cool looking, but we didn’t see any animals in that area. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 