Schlenker’s Sandwich Shop
1104 E. Ganson Street- Jackson, MI 49201
- (517) 783-16647
- No Known Website
- Menu
Our last day in Jackson was an early one. We worked from about 3 AM to 10 AM.
I dropped my colleague off back at the hotel so he could pick up his stuff then we weren’t our separate ways. He was staying in the area for the weekend to hang out with friends. I was heading back to Kalamazoo.
It was still before lunch time but I had a plan. There’s a restaurant in Jackson that has been on my list forever and this was finally going to be my opportunity.
I had to find something to do for an hour but I had a feeling it was going to be worth my time to wait around.
Right at 11:00, I pulled in to the parking lot of Schlenker’s Sandwich Shop on Ganson Street just to the east of East Avenue. The small, nearly 100 year old restaurant sits in the middle of a neighborhood on the northeast side of Jackson.
Read more…Rocky Top Beer-BBQ & Grill
1900 Lansing AvenueOur days on the road are always long but usually end with a good meal.
Night two in Jackson was going to be a short one. We got done with work around 6:30 but had to be back up at 4 AM.
I wanted to grab dinner before we headed back to the hotel and my co-worker was on board for that.
Wednesday night we passed a spot on our way from Grand River Brewery to our hotel near US-127 that popped out at me. It had the words “beer” and “BBQ” right on the sign. I made a note and we went back there Thursday for dinner.
Rocky Top Beer-BBQ & Grill is on Lansing Avenue and Andrew Avenue on the north side of Jackson. The restaurant is a standalone restaurant in a somewhat residential area. There are some other businesses along Lansing Avenue but it’s not really a business corridor. The parking lot was packed when we pulled up right around 6:30 on Thursday night and there were people waiting outside. We were surprised by this and surprised by the half hour wait but we were already there so we decided to stick it out.
Read more…Grand River Brewery (Jackson)
117 W. Louis Glick HighwayOn the road again for work.
I’m not too far away this time. Just about an hour to the east in the Jackson area. It’s close enough that I could have driven home each night but I do have a couple of early, early mornings so the company put me up in a hotel.
A co-worker and I were spending two nights in the Jackson area working three days. I drove over on Wednesday and the drive home is Friday.
Our days were long but not as long as they usually are when we’re on the road. I was still doing 10-11 hour days but that’s significantly shorter than the 15-16 hour days I do a lot of times when I travel.
Our first night after work, we had about a half hour drive back to the hotel from Lenawee County. I didn’t know what co-worker’s plan was. Sometimes the people I travel with prefer to do their own thing or meet up with friends or family.
As soon as we got in the car, he asked me where we were going to eat.
Good thing I had an idea.
We headed towards downtown Jackson to find Grand River Brewery.
The Grand River Brewery in Jackson is the original location of what is now a chain of four breweries around Michigan. I wrote a blog about the Marshall location when they opened in 2018. The other two locations are in Brighton and Clawson.
The brewery gets it’s name from it’s location. It sits right on a very narrow, very small portion of the Grand River running through downtown. The building’s address is on Louis Glick Highway (BL I-91) but it shares a parking lot with the Grand River Farmer’s Market which is right on the corner of Glick Highway and Merchant Street. The business, which started out this new life as Grand River Marketplace before morphing in to Grand River Brewery, has been in this historic building a little over 10 years. The building was home to Kuhl’s Bell Tower Market for close to a quarter decade before it closed in 2011.
Read more…Best Coast Provisions
Food TruckThis is wild. Two weeks in a row that I’m in my office on a Friday afternoon during the summer.
Two weeks in a row I get to try out a new (to me) food truck at Lunchtime Live.
I could see from my office window that one of the trucks I haven’t tried yet was there this week but I still did my “walk the line” to see what else was parked along South Street.
The smells coming from the BBQ trucks were almost enough to get me to change plans but I resisted….for this day at least…and headed back to the truck I was planning on getting lunch from all along.
That truck is Best Coast Provisions. The large white delivery truck turned mobile kitchen was parked close to Rose Street this week which is how it initially caught my eye. The truck specializes in “food inspired from around the Great Lakes.” The truck is fairly new. They launched last fall and have become a fixture at events and parties in the Kalamazoo area.
Read more…Universal Coney Island (Pontiac)
850 Perry StreetLate night on the other side of the state.
I got sent to work one night last week in the Pontiac area. It was me and a colleague and I had to pick her up in Grand Rapids. The company offered us hotel rooms instead of having to drive back after midnight.
Usually, I wouldn’t take the room because it’s hardship on J to get everyone out of the house in the morning but adding the extra hour plus to go back to Grand Rapids then to Kalamazoo seemed like a lot.
B is at a day camp that J can drop him off at 7:00 AM so she can actually get to work on time unlike during the school year when she has to work from home for a couple of hours to get him on the bus when I’m out of town.
Our jobsite was in Lake Orion and our hotel was in Auburn Hills. We got back to that hotel just before midnight. I desperately needed a shower and I hadn’t had much to eat all day. I took care of the shower first then worried about the food.
I put in a search for 24 hour restaurants nearby and a couple of Coney Island places came up.
The one I picked was Universal Coney Island in Pontiac. The small restaurant is on the corner of Perry Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard on the northeast side of Pontiac. The restaurant is a standalone building in an odd corner lot in a small commercial area surrounded by houses.
Read more…John Ball Zoo
1300 Fulton Street W- Grand Rapids, MI 49504
- (616) 336-4300
- Website
We used to go to a lot of zoos when the kids were little.
Zoos were our summer vacation destination. We took trips to Milwaukee, Chicago, Fort Wayne, Toledo, Detroit, South Bend, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Michigan City, Naubinway, Alto, Lansing, Columbus, and Cincinnati just to go to zoos. We were also members at Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek and would go there a few times every summer.
Then, the kids grew up.
Figure skating dominates our lives right now. The sport is insanely expensive so vacations nowadays revolved around skating competitions. We also don’t really have a ton of time. It’s hard to take a week off from the rink and go somewhere even if we had the extra money to do a proper vacation.
I know things change as we all get older but I do kind of miss our zoo vacations and the excitement the kids would get from seeing the animals.
J and L were out of town last week for a figure skating camp leaving B and I home alone. I had an opportunity for some free tickets to John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids and I thought, we haven’t done this in a while. Let’s go.
John Ball Zoo is located in John Ball Park on Grand Rapids west side. The entrance to the zoo is on Fulton Street just before it merges with Lake Michigan Drive and interchange with I-196.
We got super lucky and found parking pretty close to the entrance. I pulled in to the spot and we walked past the administration building and up to the entrance.
Read more…KP Cinemas
180 Portage Street- Kalamazoo, MI 49007
- (269) 360-8912
- Website
One of my favorite things to do with the boy is go to movies. I seem to have passed my love for the theater experience to him.
J and L were in Wisconsin most of last week for a figure skating camp. J’s mom had to pick B up from his day camp all week so by the time I got home at night, he had already grabbed his iPad, his VR and headed to the basement until bedtime.
I wanted to get out of the house on Saturday and Sunday for a while. He only gets four hours a day on his VR anyway so I was doing him a favor.
He had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to see Harold and the Purple Crayon. It just so happened that the movie came out the week J and L were gone. We had some plans in the afternoon on Saturday so I grabbed B and we went to the 11:00 AM show.
I chose KP Cinemas this time because we haven’t been there yet.
KP Cinemas is on the corner of Portage Street and South Street in the southern part of Kalamazoo’s Central Business District. This notorious theater was first a Rave Motion Picture, then the super popular Alamo Drafthouse that was kicked out to make way for an AMC. The theater sat dark a couple of years before a local group bought it and reopened it as an independent theater.
Read more…Pizza Parliament
Food TruckFinally. I finally had some time to get over to Lunchtime Live in downtown Kalamazoo.
The food truck event every Friday at Bronson Park in the summer is great but I’m almost never in the office on Friday afternoons.
I had what turned out to be pretty much a catch up day and working on some tasks remotely with a colleague in Grand Rapids so I was actually able to take a lunch break and walk across the street.
There are several new food trucks I’ve seen this year and several of my favorites. Whenever I do get a chance to head to the park for lunch, I always do a complete loop to make sure I’m not missing anything.
I thought I had my mind made up but I walked all the way to the end of South Street near the intersection with Westnedge where the last truck was parked. The name sounded familiar and I’ve heard people talking about this one. Plus, it was Friday so I made my pizza night a pizza lunch instead.
Pizza Parliament is a group of three food trucks based in Wyoming. I’ve heard things about this one because I’ve heard co-workers talk about it. I’ve never seen it in Kalamazoo before but there they were. They brought what looks to be their smaller truck but they still had a great pizza menu to choose from.
Read more…Long Island Cafe (Springfield)
256 Helmer Road NorthSome days I do nothing at work. Some days I’m so busy I wonder if I’m even going to get time for a lunch break.
Last Tuesday was one of the busier days. I came in early for a job assignment. Got sent to something unexpected that almost tied up the rest of my day then headed to Battle Creek to meet a co-worker to help him out with something.
It was when I was in Battle Creek that I realized I was hungry. I was out by the airport so I just punched that in to Google to see what was around me. I was being kind of lazy and looking for places with online ordering. I found more than one that was close by but the lure of a diner burger won out.
My pick was Long Island Cafe in Springfield. The restaurant is on Helmer Road and 6th Avenue in the small enclave of Springfield. The restaurant is right across the street from the Western Michigan University College of Aviation. This is the OG Long Island Cafe. There is a second one in Portage on Portage Road near…well, the airport…these guys really like setting up next to airports.
Read more…Dunkin’ Donuts (Texas Township)
5200 S. 9th Street, Suite AMy main responsibility at figure skating competitions is making sure everyone is fed.
I’ve mentioned before, my family calls me DadDash. Yes, we could just use DoorDash but everyone wants something from different places so it’d get even more expensive than DoorDash already is.
Having the competition being at our home rink Wings West doesn’t get me out of food delivery duties. Everyone still needs a couple of meals throughout the day.
B was the only one skating at this year’s Skate The Zoo. We made L sit it out due to a knee injury. She’s still in the running for a shot in the National Finals of US Solo Dance and this is just kind of a competition for fun and to improve skills.
We got to the rink around 8:00 for B’s first practice session. I got his skates on and got him on the ice. J was actually the public address announcer for the morning session so once I got him going on the ice, I left to go get everyone breakfast.
It wasn’t surprising at all that B and L wanted different things for breakfast. L wanted Starbucks. B wanted Dunkin’
There are two Dunkin’ Donuts, or just Dunkin’, restaurants in Kalamazoo. The first one opened is on the corner of Whites and Westnedge. The one we usually go to is on 9th Street just south of N Avenue in Texas Township. The restaurant is part of a small shopping plaza right next to the Speedway before you get to I-94. The Dunkin’ takes up the first spot in the building as you come in to the parking next to the Speedway. It’s a pretty narrow space that includes a small outdoor dining area and a drive thru around on the backside past the Jimmy Johns.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 