El Sombrero Restaurant
527 Bridge Street NW- Grand Rapids, MI 49504
- (616) 451-4290
- No Known Website
- Menu
Take your dinner breaks when you can get them. That’s a theme in the business I work in. It’s not always a bad thing, but it means a lot of fast food or a lot of food fast.
I was driving around downtown Grand Rapids when I realized I had time for dinner. I have a huge list of restaurants I want to try in G.R., but usually, I don’t have anywhere near enough time for a sit down meal or even to order carry-out. I do, however, make a mental note of places that I think could make good quick meals.
One of those places is a little Mexican place that has been in the neighborhood for almost 50 years.
El Sombrero Restaurant is on Bridge Street at the corner with Seward Avenue. The building gives you the impression of a fast food joint with it’s drive-thru and southwest facade. Read more…
State Burger
6384 S. Westnedge AvenueI’m bad at math. Really bad. It’s no wonder that I’m not an accountant.
A couple days ago, we got sucked in with an ad from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We headed to Portage to pick up some new curtains and curtain roads. When I got home to put them up, we realized one wasn’t long enough and the other wasn’t wide enough. Whoops.
Since I can’t do simple addition in my head, we had to do the walk of shame back in to the store and admit that I can’t figure out how many inches are in a foot and get the right ones.
Since we were on that side of town and neither of us had eaten all day, I told J we were going for lunch.
A few weeks ago, I noticed a new place had opened up where Nisker’s used to be. I didn’t realize it at first, but this new restaurant also had the Nisker’s name on it.
State Burger by Lou Niskers is in the same spot as the previous Nisker’s Char-Broiled Foods on Westnedge Avenue in Portage. It’s in a strip mall and you can’t really see it from Westnedge though. It’s actually on the Mall Drive side of the center. Read more…
Hub 51 – Chicago
51 W. Hubbard StreetFor the last couple weeks, I’ve been working on a pretty big freelance project in the Benton Harbor area. After three days of work there, the client wanted to make a quick trip to Chicago to work out of their office there. Of course my employer wasn’t going to argue with a trip to Chicago even if it was for just a few hours.
The best thing, as I’ve mentioned before about freelance jobs, is the lunch. Unlike my normal job, we always find time to eat lunch…and usually it’s a pretty nice place.
Our plan when we got to the city was take care of business before lunch in the office, go to lunch, then finish up some other things we needed to do in the city. Our initial choice for lunch was Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill. On the drive to Illinois, I called Frontera to see about reservations. I was greeted by a recording that told me they were closed on Sunday and Monday. Damn.
Choice number two was The Publican. I got online to find a menu and found out they don’t open until 3:00. Damn.
So we’re stuck on lunch. I threw out a couple ideas, but no one seemed interested, so when we got to the Chicago office, we asked the adminstrative assistant. Right away she threw out one of her favorite places and it was just a short walk from where we were.
Hub 51 is on the corner of Hubbard and Dearborn in Chicago’s Near North Side. It’s on the street level of a pretty large building. The revolving door that takes you into the bar area is on the Hubbard Street side. Read more…
Menna’s Joint – Kalamazoo
3501 Stadium DriveI need another vacation. After working 10 out of 11 days, I’ve spent my three days off so far this week painting, cleaning, buildings, fixing, and scraping. I’m sore as hell, but it’s a good sore.
Since we got most of the paint on the walls, we decided it was time to start moving our stuff. J wanted to sleep at our new place tonight and since we have TV, internet, and our new living room furniture, all we needed to do was move clothes and our bed and we’d have all the essentials.
We woke up this morning at our apartment and immediately started loading our cars to make the first of two trips. After we unloaded that first trip, we started heading back, but first, we thought it would just work out well if we stopped and got lunch.
Now that we’re on a new side of town, there are a lot of new places for us to try. I passed on a lot of those new places today because I just wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I opted for something I know and know I like. Read more…
Press Release – Fair Food Food Fair
From a Fair Food Matters press release….
Fifteen of the community’s finest chefs will compete for the “Golden Ladle Award,” and participants will enjoy a smorgasbord of late-harvest local food, Michigan beer and wine, musical and theatrical performances and more as Fair Food Matters presents the Fair Food Food Fair.
The event will be held Saturday, November 20, from 6-9 p.m. at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (314 South Park Street, Kalamazoo).
Tickets are $35 in advance (or $40 at the door), and proceeds will benefit Fair Food Matters, a non-profit organization that supports and promotes local food throughout Southwest Michigan.
Chefs from 15 of the area’s finest restaurants and caterers will each prepare a unique “small plate” dish using the best late-harvest local ingredients. Scheduled to take part are: A.F.A. Gourmet (Jared Dellario); Bravo!; Bronson Food & Nutrition Service; the Eclectic Kitchen (Channon Mondoux); Crow’s Nest; Food Dance; Gorilla Gourmet (Noel Corwin); Oakwood Bistro; Park Club; People’s Food Co-op; The Strutt; Union Cabaret & Grill; Water Street Coffee Joint; Zazios; and Zooroona.
All participants will have the chance to vote for their favorite dish, and the winning chef will be presented with this year’s Golden Ladle Award.
A smorgasbord of performers will make the evening a lively affair from start to finish. Scheduled to appear are: Quintette à Vin, a mostly woodwind ensemble from Kalamazoo; improv and sketch comedy group Crawlspace Eviction; spoken word duo Kinetic Effect; vinyl mixologist DJ Jenna; and British songstress Fiona Dickinson.
Participants can bid on local art, food items, kitchen gear and more in the silent auction. A cash bar will feature Michigan-made beer and wine (soft drinks will be available as well). In addition, Fair Food Matters will present its “Locavore of the Year” award to the person or organization that has done the most for the local food movement in the past year.
Tickets are available online (www.fairfoodmatters.org) or by visiting Fair Food Matters (323 N. Burdick St., Kalamazoo) during business hours.
The Fair Food Food Fair is sponsored by Bronson Hospital. Updated information and a complete schedule of events can be found at www.fairfoodmatters.org.
Sophia’s House of Pancakes – Kalamazoo
4700 Stadium DriveLast week I let you in our secret. After that post, things finally became official and we actually closed on our house last Friday….a week and a half later than expected.
The delay did more than stress us out. It shortened our timeline. Our moving help is coming this Sunday so we have to get everything painted, cleaned, and ready for the move.
Quite a while ago, J took the first part of this week off so we would have some days off together. That worked out perfect for us because now we have three full days to try and get everything done.
Before cracking the whip this morning, J asked if I was in the mood for breakfast. I figured it may be the only good meal I eat today, so I said yes. Good thing because she already had the place picked out. Read more…
On The Border Mexican Grill and Cantina – Kentwood
3195 28th Street SE R-101What a crazy day at work. It’s hard to explain too much without giving away where I work which I don’t want. Mixing personal blog and professional life….not always a good thing.
I did have enough time to actually grab a lunch that wasn’t a drive thru so I started racking my brain as to where I should go. Since I’m a big fan of online ordering, I started looking for something where I wouldn’t have to actually talk anyone.
Yesterday, I was driving around the Woodland Mall area and I saw On The Border which is one of those chains that I have never been to. It’s used to be part of the Brinker International chain of restaurants which also owns Chili’s. In March, the brand was bought by OTB Acquisition, LLC which also picked up Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Read more…
Outback Steakhouse – Kalamazoo
4320 S. Westnedge AvenueSo, it’s been quite a while since J and I have actually eaten out together. We’ve been so busy with work. Both of us are doing 12 hour days and in my case, today is the only day off I have in about a week and a half.
Last week, I noticed I had enough points for a rewards card on my credit card. I started looking to see what restaurants we could get a gift card for. It had been quite a while since I’ve eaten at an Outback Steakhouse, so that’s what I went with.
The Outback Steakhouse in Kalamazoo is on South Westnedge just north of the intersection with Kilgore. It’s actually a weird location for a chain restaurant. There are some local places around it, but places like Outback are usually near a big box store or at least an Interstate. This one is near neither.
Our plan was to go to lunch when J got home, but when we pulled in to the parking lot around 1:45, it was empty. They don’t open until 4:00, so we’d have to go back for dinner. Read more…
Rainbow Grill – Hudsonville
4225 32nd AvenueSo this week has been pretty crazy. I’m working 10 out of 11 days. My normal weekends at my part-time job and three days during the week at a freelance job.
The best thing about the freelance work (other than the more than double hourly wage) is that I almost always get a free lunch out of it. Most of the time it’s a pretty fancy restaurant that I couldn’t afford on my own, but when we’re in small towns, we find what we can.
We started out the morning in Martin, but our second stop of the day was going to be in Hudsonville. We didn’t think we’d even have time for lunch, but we ended up getting to Hudsonville almost an hour ahead of schedule, so we decided to find someplace to eat.
Neither of us really knew the area, so I pulled out my phone and started looking for someplace to eat. I found the place with the most reviews and that’s where we decided to go to lunch. Read more…
Pizza Hut – S. Westnedge
4438 S. Westnedge AvenueSo it’s been a crazy couple of weeks. So crazy I got way behind on blogging again. I was hoping by now to share some pretty big news for J and I, but one of the banks that were too big to fail has failed epicly for us.
The news is, J and I are staying in Kalamazoo for a while. We’re (hopefully) buying a house. It was supposed to happen last Thursday. We had everything set to close with no indication that it wasn’t going to happen. On Wednseday, we’re told the bank is having massive “system problems” with their underwriting computer and had been for five days. They get it fixed, our file goes to the underwriter, he finds a mistake from the appraiser. Closing’s not happening when it supposed to.
Needless to say, that put J and I in a really bad mood. She’s got a car full of paint. I have a truck full of furniture and we have a bed in our living room while we’re waiting for this to now happen (supposed to be tomorrow, again, bank didn’t get everything done in time). Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 