Detroit Bagel Factory
18760 Middlebelt RoadIt’s synchronized skating season again.
I get asked all the time. What’s the off season for figure skating? With my kids, there is no off season. We just go, go, go all year round.
The season is starting about a month sooner than usual. Our first competition is usually our own competition, Kalamazoo Kick-Off Classic, at Wings Event Center the week before Thanksgiving.
The decision was made this year to do a competition before Kick-Off so the teams could get a judges critique in and hopefully be at their best in Kalamazoo (and oh boy did they need those critiques….).
The first competition became the Chuck Cope Synchronized Skating Competition at the Dearborn Ice Skating Center.
The kids and J took a bus to the competition which left me to make my way to Dearborn on my own.
B’s team was the first to go at about 9:30 so I had a little bit of time in the morning. I got up around 5:30 then started heading east. I had to stop and get gas once. Stopped at rest area once. And of course, I had plans to stop and get breakfast.
I’ve really been on a bagel sandwich kick lately. I love a good bagel and I love it in breakfast sandwich form. I did a search to see what was somewhat near the rink and came up with a few options.
I ended up going with Detroit Bagel Factory in Livonia. The shop is part of the Middlebelt Plaza on the corner of Middlebelt Road and Clarita Street a couple of miles north of I-96. The business has been around for close to 60 years but they’ve been at this location in Livonia for just over a decade.
Read more…Jet’s Pizza (Gull Road)
5151 Gull RoadFinally got back to the whole Friday night pizza thing.
My Friday overtime shift was on the Eastside of Kalamazoo. I didn’t have time to eat between my normal day time shift and the overtime shift so I grabbed a pop and a snack from the Speedway and hoped I could make it through the night.
I got done with my work around 9:45. I was in the Parchment area at the time and I was hungry for a pizza. There are some good local places on that side of town (Kazoopy’s and Jaspare’s come to mind) but they close pretty early. I knew it was going to have to be a chain pizza shop.
I looked at my options and found one that I haven’t ordered from in quite a while. Made my decision a little bit easier.
Jet’s Pizza in Comstock Township is on Gull Road near Jennings Drive. The small, take out only shop is in a four store shopping plaza across the street from the Menards. The Michigan based pizza chain has had a shop in this location for well over a decade.
Read more…Town Fryer
130 Broad StreetStill not opting for the Friday night pizza.
My overtime shift took me to southern St. Joseph County a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been to Constantine many times and have pretty much hit all the eateries in the small town.
There are a couple left including the one right on the edge of town. For some reason, I always thought this was a full service sit down restaurant so I never took the time to look at it. If I was going to do that, I really like both Meeks Mills Cafe and The Harvey House.
For whatever reason, I clicked on the Google link to the Town Fryer and noticed, no, it wasn’t a full service restaurant….and they had the kind of food I really like.
Town Fryer is right on the corner of Broad Street and Washington Street (both are US-131 BL) on the north side of Constantine. The small building has been a staple in the small village for decades. It’s for sale at the moment but until then, it’s still cranking out the quick service staples as well as scooping up ice cream.
Read more…Flour Child Bakery & Cafe
323 S. Bridge StreetI get relentlessly made fun of a the old man at work….especially when I travel with my younger colleagues.
Most of it is warranted. I’m the guy that likes to be at the airport four hours early (in my defense, it was LAX and last time I went through there, it took a helluva lot longer).
I was meeting a co-worker in Lansing for a job in Detroit. I let him pick the time and I picked our usual meeting spot at the park and ride between the two truck stops on Grand River Avenue in Waterton Township near where I-96 and I-69 split on the northwest side of Lansing.
I was just about to Saginaw Highway when I got a text message from my colleague. He hadn’t left Grand Rapids yet. Granted, I was early as I intended to get breakfast but I ended up having about an hour a half to kill now as he wasn’t even planning on leaving for another half hour or so.
I really just wanted a bagel sandwich. I went to the Pilot, got gas, grabbed a Pepsi, then looked up bagel shops near where I was.
A few came up. A few I already knew about. A couple I didn’t.
I picked one of the ones I didn’t know about in nearby Grand Ledge since I had quite a bit of time to kill.
Flour Child Bakery and Cafe is on Bridge Street near Scott Street in downtown Grand Ledge. The building is a one story older brick building that used to be two storefronts. Flour child took out one of the doors and has taken over the whole building. The bakery opened in 2016 after starting as a booth at the Grand Ledge Farmer’s Market. It was named best Best Lansing Area Bakery four years in a row by City Pulse’s Top of the Town. They’ve expanded over the years and even opened up an event space late last year.
Read more…Malia’s Taqueria
101 W. Michigan AvenueI’ve really gotten away from the Friday night pizza this fall.
Last week’s overtime assignment started in Paw Paw. There are some good pizza places in Paw Paw but there’s also a taco place that I pass all the time and never make time for.
That was going to change. I had time for dinner and even though it was Friday night, I was in the mood for tacos.
Malia’s Taqueria is on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Gremps Street on the west side of downtown Paw Paw. The small corner building was The Sugar Bear for a long time before the Mexican place moved in the summer of 2022. This location in Paw Paw is the second Malia’s location. The original , Malia’s Mexican Restaurant is just up the road on M-40 on the north side of Gobles.
Read more…Rinaldi Pizza & Sub Shop
14675 16th AvenueWednesday afternoon usually isn’t pizza night.
Friday night is pizza night. Everyone knows that.
I was stuck in the Grand Rapids area pretty much all day. I was west of town in Marne for a good chunk of the day. I started the day by myself then a colleague joined me later in the afternoon.
I had some downtown around lunch. I could have driven back to the office Grand Rapids but I decided to just hang out in my car and listen to some podcasts. I was hungry though so I started to look at what was around me.
I found a pizza shop not too far away and figured I’d be able to eat half for lunch then hang on to the rest of it for dinner on my way home.
Rinaldi Pizza & Sub Shop is on 16th Avenue just north of State Street in the small, unincorporated community of Marne eastern Ottawa County. The restaurant is a small, one story brick shopping plaza with room for three storefronts. Rinaldi takes up two of the three with the one being the kitchen/order area and the other the dining room. There is street parking in the area but there is also a gravel parking lot behind the building for the busier times.
Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken (Battle Creek)
14301 Beadle Lake RoadWhen I worked in Grand Rapids, a lot of our office staff was obsessed with Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken. There isn’t a location anywhere in Grand Rapids and at that time, Kalamazoo and Muskegon were the only places to get it.
I never got the obsession. Maybe it was because it was readily available to me in Kalamazoo.
We would pick up chicken from Lee’s occasionally but it was never the “oh my god! I have to have it” chicken place that a lot of my co-worker made it out to be.
It’s been quite a long time since I’ve actually been to one of the two Lee’s locations in Kalamazoo. I eat a lot of gas station chicken so I really don’t think about it as an option for dinner anymore.
I was heading to Detroit last week for a job assignment but first, I had to meet a co-worker in Lansing. I got B on the bus to get to school and still had time to take a quick nap before making the trip.
I woke up around 11:30 and got on the road about noon to meet her in Lansing by 2:00.
I was a little ahead of schedule and hungry. I typically just eat at the Hardees in Delta Township but a new gas station opened in Battle Creek with a couple of new food options.
Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken is right off Interstate 94 on Beadle Lake Road. There’s a new Amoco station right next to the off ramp on the south side of the highway. The Lee’s portion of the building is seperate from the gas station convenience store on the north side of the building. It has an exterior entrance but you can also get to it from a door from inside the gas station.
Read more…Longship Brewing Company
114 N. Main StreetJ and I used to take road trips all the time just to find new restaurants.
Our kids don’t enjoy eating out nearly as much as we do so the road trips have pretty much stopped.
There are so many breweries and restaurants outside of Kalamazoo I want to try but it’s hard to find a reason to do so anymore. And dragging the kids out of the house usually isn’t worth it.
I worked a lot of extra hours a few weeks ago and had a little bit bigger of a check than normal so I asked J if we could go to lunch last Saturday. There’s a brewery in Van Buren County I’ve really wanted to check out.
We headed to Lawton to find Longship Brewing. The restaurant is on South Main Street just south of Union Street. When we were there, and for the last several months, Main Street/M-40 has been closed for a major reconstruction project which essentially shut down access to the entire town. That’s been cleared now and the road is back open.
The building has been in Lawton for a long time. It was originally built in the 1870’s as a tailor shop. It was a lot of things over the years until a brewery was opened in 1993. It’s operated as a brewery ever since with Larry Bell opening Old Hat Brewery in the late 90’s (we tried to go there once and didn’t have the greatest experience) followed by Barn Brewery and now Longship Brewing.
Read more…Jersey Giant Subs (Battle Creek)
2245 W. Columbia AvenueFriday night has always been pizza night and I usually tried to keep that going with my Friday night overtime in the fall.
That hasn’t been the case much this year. I’m running out of new pizza places as I’m getting sent back to places I already go to pretty often.
Last week, I was sent to the west side of Battle Creek. I didn’t even try to find pizza. I knew there were a couple of restaurants on that side of town I haven’t been to yet and both of them sounded good.
I picked one of my all time favorites, Jersey Giant Subs.
The Jersey Giant Subs location in Battle Creek is on Columbia Avenue at Helmer Road. There’s a little shopping plaza on the southwest side of the intersection. There are quite a few food options tucked in to this location on the edge of town. Island Style BBQ and South Side Grubz a couple of the other occupants.
Read more…Champs Chicken (Wayland)
1331 142nd AvenueWe’ve talked a lot about my (probably unhealthy) obsession with gas station chicken.
I get super excited when I stop for gas and I walk in to the store to smell deep fried chicken.
I had to meet a colleague in the Moline area one day last week. It was an afternoon meetup so I left Kalamazoo around lunch time with a plan.
I had stopped at a gas station right off US-131 a few weeks ago and found they had put in a chicken restaurant since the last time I was there. It was closed at that time due to low staffing. There was a sign at that time saying they were pretty much only open for lunch.
I was coming through at lunch time this time so I made it a point to stop in.
Champs Chicken is a chain of chicken joints in the upper Midwest. There are four locations in Michigan right now. Three are in the thumb and the other is at the J & H Family Store on 142nd Avenue right off the US-131 interchange. The address is listed as Wayland but I would have thought of this stop as being Dorr. It’s the exit you would get off to go to Dorr, not the exit to Wayland.
SW Michigan Dining 