Sonny’s BBQ Pit
889 W. Columbia Ave.It’s not often work takes me to Battle Creek, but today, it did. A co-worker and I were killing time when we went by where the OT’s cart used to be on Beadle Lake Road. I mentioned that I was a little disappointed it wasn’t there and the guy I was with said he ate at a place a couple years ago that had great BBQ.
I know of two BBQ joints in the Cereal City and if it wasn’t OT’s, it had to be Sonny’s. I didn’t know the address, but thanks to modern technology (ie. smartphones), that wasn’t a problem. We found the address and realized we were pretty close, so we headed that way for lunch.
Sonny’s BBQ Pit (formerly Sonny’s Pit Stop) is on Columbia Avenue just east of Woodrow Avenue on Battle Creek’s west side. The building is a stand alone in a very commercial area. There’s a patio out front with an entrance that leads into a small dining room.
We actually entered through a side door and I saw a sign that said to sit down if you were planning on eating in. We were so I went to sit down. My co-worker noticed the buffet and headed right for it. He asked the waiter, who someone else actually called Sonny, if the buffet was going today. He said it was and that made our decision easy. Read more…
Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits – Grand Rapids
1970 Division Avenue SouthIs it wrong to love a chain? I mean really love a chain. Not a, yeah, that’s pretty good, but I mean crave food from a chain restaurant. Does that make me a horrible “foodie”?
There’s only one chain that I will pass up a local joint for. That chain is Popeyes. I fell in love with it when I was in college. That’s pretty spectacular because there were a lot of chicken choices. There was Chicago chain Brown’s and there was an amazing local place not too far from campus.
Unfortunately, there are no Popeyes locations in Kalamazoo. There’s one in Battle Creek and I found out while looking for something else, there’s one in Grand Rapids.
The Grand Rapids location is on South Division near Burton. It’s sort of out of place in the neighborhood. There are no other chain restaurants anywhere remotely close. There are a slew of local Mexican joints, but no chains as far as the eye can see.
I pulled in to a very crowded parking lot a little after 8:00 on a Saturday night. From what I’m told, this is not an unusual sight. There’s only one Popeyes in town and I’m not the only one that’s addicted to their chicken. Read more…
The Wine Loft – Kalamazoo
161 W. Michigan AvenueI am not a social person. It takes me a long time to warm up to people and I’m not the type of person that will show up to a place and be instantly social.
The Kalamazoo are Twitter users have taken the idea of a “Tweet up” and ran with it. There are now monthly meetings of Twitter users in the area that are used as a networking opportunity. J has more to gain from this kind of interaction than I do, so we’ve actually talked about going, but never have.
The last Tweet up also doubled as a fundraiser for the Kalamazoo River oil spill. We missed most of that action, but near the end of the gathering, we started getting pressure via tweet to make an appearance. We were heading downtown anyway for the Blue Oyster Cult concert, so we decided to do a “pop in.”
Most of the tweet ups have been at The Wine Loft in downtown Kalamazoo. This one was too. The Wine Loft is one of those places we’ve been talking about going to since moving to Kalamazoo, but have never pulled the trigger on. I’m not much of a wine drinker and when we go out, I like to gorge myself on hamburgers. The Wine Loft does have a small plates menu, but we’ve never been really confident that we could make it a dinner. Read more…
Texas Roadhouse – Portage
7039 S. Westnedge AvenueThere’s not many places that I crave because of the free bread you get before meals. Texas Roadhouse is one of those places.
J and I were talking about dinner this past Friday. We were going to head downtown for the Rock For Kids later in the evening but because it was hot and humid, we didn’t want to spend all night outside. Instead, we decided to find a nice air conditioned place for dinner.
Not sure what started the craving, but I really wanted Texas Roadhouse rolls. I offered up the suggestion to J and she didn’t object.
The Texas Roadhouse in Portage is on South Westnedge just south of Romence Road in front of the Sam’s Club. The parking lot for the restaurant is surprisingly small. We don’t drive a tank, but it sure felt hard to get in to one of the spots. Sure, we could have walked to the Sam’s Club parking lot as others were doing, but instead we found a spot on the backside. I say backside because the entrance is on the north side of the building and not the side of the building that faces Westnedge. Read more…
Press Release – Bell’s 25th Anniversary
Man, I wish I didn’t have to work Saturday’s. I’d love to take a brewery tour. From a Bell’s Brewery press release….
Bell’s Celebrates 25 Years of Inspired Brewing
A quarter of a century ago Larry Bell set out like a modern-day frontiersman with a 15-gallon soup kettle and a dream as he traversed the wilderness of beer brewing. Okay, maybe a little less Grizzly Adams than that, but 25 years later – the landscape of craft beer has been changed by the innovative beer stylings of Bell’s Beer.
Far from those meager beginnings as a homebrew supply shop, Bell’s is now the
oldest brewery east of the Rocky Mountains. What was once a 135-barrel a year
operation in 1986, grew into a company producing over 125,000 barrels in 2009.“In some ways it seems like just yesterday when I started this adventure,” says Larry Bell, “I’m not sure I could have imagined where it would take me.”
In honor of the journey Larry Bell took with a few loyal customers, that grew into
a massive following, Bell’s will be hosting a weekend of events to celebrate the
brewery’s 25th Anniversary from September 9-12.“It’s our customers who have made this all possible. It’s amazing to have people
who are as passionate about innovative and exhilarating beer as I am,” said Bell, “This weekend is about celebrating our customers, enthusiasts and fanatics. And,of course, it’s about really great beer.”The 25th Anniversary Celebration weekend will feature live music (no cover), lots of great food, public tours of the brewing facility and all the great beer that put Bell’s on the map – including a special 25th Anniversary Ale. $1.00 off pints until 9:00 pm on Friday and Saturday and all day Sunday, if you’re wearing a Bell’s shirt or hat.
A full schedule of events follows:
Thursday, September 9th:
9:30 pm: West Side WindersFriday, September 10th:
2:00 pm: Press Conference in the beer garden
3:00 pm: Music starts and continues all night with:
• The Kalamazoo Dixieland Band
• Great Lakes Grass
• Black Jake & the Carnies
• Greensky Bluegrass
$1 off pints until 9pm on Friday if you are wearing a Bell’s shirt
Saturday, September 11th:
11:00 am – 4:00 pm: The Galesburg Brewery will be open to the public for tours.
There will be grilled food and soda available.
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Bell’s celebrates homebrewers. You bring a 5 gallon carboy to the
Eccentric Café, we fill it with cold, unhopped wort made with our Michigan barley at no cost. Take it home, hop it, ferment it and send 2 bottles to us no later than November 1st for
judging. Guidelines available when you pick up your wort. Winners will be announced on
All Stouts Day, November 7th. Limit – one entry per person.
1:00 pm: Music starts and continues all night with:
• Ein Prosit! (40+ member, traditional German band)
• Deal’s Gone Bad
• Rolling Head
• My Dear Disco
$1 off pints until 9pm on Saturday if you are wearing a Bell’s shirt
Sunday, September 12th:
A day to recover.
$1 off pints all day on Sunday if you are wearing a Bell’s shirt
B. C. Pizza – Dorr
1628 142nd AvenueIf I could live on pizza, I would. Well, pizza and burgers…and fries…but anyway. J e-mailed me at work tonight and said she had a taste for pizza. What a coincidence. So did I. I was planning on coming home and putting in a frozen pizza, but that wouldn’t be enough for the two of us.
J asked if I wanted her to just order Cottage Inn or try something. You know me. There’s always something else.
Every time I drive to Grand Rapids I pass the exit for Dorr and just before the exit is one of those blue signs with food options off the Interstate. I looked it up, gave the info to J and let her put in an order.
B. C. Pizza is a regional chain of pizza places. The original store opened in Boyne City in 1988 and since then, they’ve expanded to over 30 in Central and Southwest Michigan. Oh, the initials B. C. Pretty simple. “Best Choice.”
The B. C. Pizza in Dorr is right on the east edge of town in a pretty empty strip mall. The row of business used to be anchored by Dick’s Food Market, but they packed up and moved to a much larger store right across the street. Read more…
Barrett’s Smokehouse
9942 Oakland DriveWednesday afternoon has become date night. Is that weird? It’s just the time that J and I have off together so we’ve been making it our day to do something together. The plan today was pick up lunch and pick up a movie from Blockbuster Express.
I was in the mood for BBQ and I remembered a place in Portage that I’ve been wanting to check out.
Barrett’s Smokehouse on the corner of Portage Shaver Road isn’t really a restaurant. It’s a meat processing center. They make a lot of packaged meat and offer deer processing in the fall, but they also have a smoker out back. Since they have a smoker, why not take advantage of it.
From 11 AM to 7 PM everyday, they offer pulled pork sandwiches and one other special. The Tuesday special is brisket, but J and I are both huge fans of pulled pork, so that’s what we got.
Since Barrett’s isn’t a restaurant, there’s no place to really eat. There are a couple picnic tables outside, but it was raining when we stopped in to get our lunch. We put in our order and started looking around the display cases to see if there was anything else we couldn’t live without. Read more…
Smashburger
4315 W. Main StreetI’ve been writing about restaurants for about 2 ½ years now. The difference between myself and a critic is that I don’t have anyone paying for my meals. Everything you’ve read about has been on my own dime. J and I really just like to eat out and try new places. I don’t do this because I’m getting a whole bunch of free food. I do it because I like to write and I like to eat. I don’t go looking to be a part of the media so I don’t usually get invited to grand openings, ribbon cuttings, or private pre-opening parties.
About a year and a half ago, I found Twitter. The service was still pretty young at that time and there weren’t a whole lot of people using it, but instantly, I started connecting with people who found it easier to talk to me through Twitter than by comments or e-mail.
There are several people I know here in Kalamazoo only as their Twitter handle. I’ve never met them. Haven’t even seen a picture of most of them, but still, I feel like I know them just through conversations and posts on the social network.
A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from the new Smashburger franchise asking for contact information. They were inviting some of the social media folks to a special preview of the new Kalamazoo store. I was a little hesitant at first only because I’m not a very social person. I’ve never tried to hard to actually hide my identity, but there are very few people who actually know who I am. Still, I mentioned it to J and she was really excited about it, so I e-mailed back and put my name on the list for this special preview. Read more…
Andrea’s Pizza
2014 Boston Street SEFunny how things work out. When J and I first started dating, we never had days off together. We made it work any way we could. I worked during the week, 9-5. She worked two days during the week, 16 hours on Saturday and a normal Sunday. We do dinner after work. We’d go to shows during the week. Whatever we could do to spend time together.
Things are pretty similar now, but the opposite. J has the somewhat normal Monday thru Friday job. I’m scheduled to work one day during the week, 12 hours on Saturday (plus two hours drive time) and a normal Sunday. We’re back to almost never seeing each other.
Saturday’s are long days for me. At least when J was doing it, she could run home for an hour or so for dinner. I don’t have that luxury. Since I pretty much miss lunch too, I’ve been grabbing a sandwich before I leave the house to eat on the drive. Dinner, I’ve been eating out. Read more…
One Stop Coney Shop
154 Fulton Road E.J and I are doing our best to cut back on eating out at work. Last week, we booked a trip to New York for our one year anniversary. We’d like to save as much money as we possibly can just so we can eat out four or five times a day while we’re in the Big Apple.
She’s been doing pretty well at packing her lunch, but I really need to get in the habit again. I was good when I worked in Peoria. I was in the habit. Since I haven’t had a steady job since then, I’ve gotten out of that habit and forget when I leave the house.
I felt bad about going out to eat, but I was hungry and J told me to go get something. I wanted to find something cheap.
For several weeks now, I’ve been driving by the One Stop Coney Shop on Fulton Road and Jefferson Avenue just east of downtown Grand Rapids. Like I’ve mentioned several times, I don’t eat hot dogs, so I kind of ignored this place at first, but I eventually saw a sign for hamburgers and Belgian fries. That was enough to get me interested. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 