The Little Store
6586 122nd AvenueI don’t think it’s much of a secret I find a lot of new restaurants on Facebook. I feel like a lot of people do that.
I’m in a lot of different community groups in Southwest Michigan so I see a lot of posts for places that aren’t easily accessible to me but places I really want to try.
I had to make a run out to Saugatuck last Thursday for work and it gave me a chance to find a pizza place along the way that I’ve been really wanting to get to.
The Little Store is more than just a pizza place. It’s a whole grocery store with a really great kitchen.
The shop is on the corner of 122nd Avenue and 66th Street in Ganges Township southwest of Fennville. This is really one of those you’ll never know it’s there if you’re not looking for it kind of places. It’s about a mile of M-89 and unless you’re heading to the Ganges Baptist Church, there’s really nothing else in the area that would bring you to the store.
Read more…Kelvin & Co Urban BBQ
UPDATE 7/29/24: This restaurant contacted me on Facebook and said there were some errors in this post but haven’t told me what exactly is wrong so I can’t fix it. I’m leaving the post up as is for now and if they contact me (swmichdining@gmail.com) with what I got wrong, I will fix and make sure to note where the corrections are made. I had originally given them a Charter.net email address I just found out I no longer have access so they may have emailed that address over the weekend. Hopefully they’ll see this or the updated Facebook comment to get the right email.
8340 Portage RoadThey’re back! They’re back!
I can not tell you how much I’ve missed Kelvin & Co Urban BBQ. One of my family’s favorite dinners used to be brisket (for me), pulled pork (for J) and mac & cheese (for L) from Kelvin & Co when they were on West Main Street. It was great because I could also walk next door and get fries from Five Guys for me and then next to that get a sandwich from Jimmy Johns for B. It was the best dinner ever. Everyone got what they wanted and everyone was happy.
Then Kelvin & Co closed. Again.
They’ve had four different locations in Kalamazoo (and one in Grand Rapids) and I’ve been disappointed every single time they’ve had to close. First it was the original location downtown. Then the Portage location by Sams Club. Then there was a walk up window on the Kalamazoo Mall. And of course my beloved Oshtemo Township location.
But they’re back with a new Portage location and I can get that amazing brisket again.
The new Kelvin & Co Urban BBQ location is actually one I’m quite familiar with. It’s on Portage Road just north of Zylman Avenue. It’s the building next to Erbelli’s that was Via Gelato then Roll Up Ice Cream and Tea. It sits back off the road a bit and shares a parking lot with Erbelli’s.
Read more…Wax Wings Brewing Company
3480 Gull RoadYou know how the other day in a blog post for Harvey’s on the Mall I mentioned I’ve been writing this blog/journal for a really long time?
Well, sometimes I forgot which places I’ve actually blogged about.
This is one of those times. I’m going to get in to my story about why I went to Wax Wings Brewing last weekend but preface by saying, I totally forgot I wrote a blog about it in 2019. That seems so long ago.
We went to Wax Wings so many times during the pandemic to pick up beer that I totally forgot I actually did go sit in the tap room once before the pandemic.
I took pictures and pretty much had figured out what I was going to write before I realized it so I’m gonna go ahead and write a new blog post. There have been some changes since 2019 so maybe it’s time for a new one anyway.
I actually made a special trip to the brewery because of a Facebook post I saw. One of their brewers is a discus throwers and will be representing the United States in Paris coming up in the next couple of weeks. He brewed a beer for the occasion and I wanted to get a couple of cans.
Wax Wings Brewing Company is on Gull Road just to the west of Nazareth Road on Kalamazoo’s east side. The brewery shares a building with a few other businesses including Mi Pueblo a few doors down. The tap room part of the brewery was one of those predatory cash lender places before Wax Wings moved in and transformed the place in to what it is today.
Read more…Little Caesars (Schoolcraft)
13218 US-131As much as I like to be at every thing my kids do, there’s just no way. I don’t have enough time off and I don’t have a job that I can work remotely. I have to pick and choose which events I’m able to be at.
L had her final ice dance qualifying competition last week in Detroit. It was just a one day thing in Bloomfield Hills so J and L went over Tuesday night to get ready for an early Wednesday morning competition.
We don’t have any care for B right now because J gets the the entire month of July off work so she’s home every day. She wasn’t going to take B with her to Detroit so he went to her parents house.
I got off work Wednesday evening before J and L got back to Kalamazoo so I offered to go pick B up. J’s parents offered to meet me at the McDonalds in Schoolcraft so I took them up on that instead of driving all the way down to Centreville.
I hadn’t eaten dinner yet and I didn’t want McDonalds. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money either so my best bet was the Little Caesars across the street.
Little Caesars in Schoolcraft is right on US-131 on the north side of town. The small carry out restaurant is in a shopping center with a Dollar General right off the southbound lanes before you get to Lyons Street.
Read more…Harvey’s on the Mall
416 S. Burdick StreetI’ve been writing this blog a long time. 15 years. My kids get so annoyed when I take pictures at restaurants but I keep doing it because, as I’ve said all along, this blog is pretty much a journal. I don’t care if anyone reads. I don’t make any money off it. But I do go back and read posts all the time. Even though I’m somewhat vague with my stories, they all jog a memory for me.
One of the first restaurants we went to in Kalamazoo when we moved here in 2009 was Harvey’s on the Mall. J had got invited to a going away party for one of her new colleagues and we decided to go. It was a chance to hang out with people in a new city.
That night was mostly drinking and maybe a few appetizers so we went back about six months later and actually had dinner.
I think we went back maybe one other time after that. Not because there was anything wrong with the place, there are just so many options for dining out in Kalamazoo and we don’t really eat at the same places very often.
J and L were heading to a figure skating competition in Bloomfield Hills one day last week. It was a Wednesday competition and I’m running out of days off so they went without me. B went to J’s parents house for the night because we didn’t have any daycare for him. That left me alone Tuesday night to grab dinner.
I figured 14 years between blog posts was way too long. I keep seeing Harvey’s post Tuesday night burger specials and it was a Tuesday night.
Harvey’s on the Mall has been a staple right off The Kalamazoo Mall in downtown Kalamazoo for years. The restaurant is right next the The State Theatre on Burdick Street just south of Lovell Street. The building is kind of hard to get a read on from the street as large outdoor patios have been built in front of the original building. It sits among some old buildings on this section of Burdick Street but it’s hard to tell exactly what this building looks like from the street.
Read more…Panera Bread (Portage)
6278 S. Westnedge AvenueWe travel a lot for figure skating.
When we travel, there’s me, who likes to find the local place. Then there’s my daughter, who wants to go to the same three restaurants everywhere.
One of those restaurants is pretty much always Panera Bread. I try to resist or I’ll go to Panera and grab her something then go somewhere else to get myself something. My family lovingly calls me “Dad Dash” at these events because I end up going to five different restaurants over the course of two days.
I tell you all of this just to say, I don’t eat at Panera very often.
There was an opportunity one day last week to do one of those fundraiser nights for my kids’ synchronized skating team and the restaurant was Panera. I figured I could get myself to eat there one night. I had to eat anyway and at least some of the money would go to the kids.
The fundraiser was only happening at the Portage Panera Bread location. This store is on Westnedge Avenue south of Southland Drive in the Southland Shopping Center. The last time I blogged about Panera Bread in Portage, the shop was further north on Westenedge on the corner with Milham Avenue. That building is now the McAlister’s Deli and the new Panera is it’s own standalone shop big enough to have a drive thru.
Basement Burger Bar (Canton)
42452 Ford RoadHow about we do something different?
We spend all of our time indoors at ice rinks. My kids tried Little League and they’ve tried AYSO but figure skating is what stuck.
My nieces are huge softball players though. They’re both on travel teams and play pretty much year round around their school sport schedules.
My youngest niece was in Canton last weekend for the USSA Fastpitch Great Lakes National Championship. The team is from the Kankakee area in East-Central Illinois but came up to the Detroit area for a weekend of softball.
We had a free Saturday for once and I haven’t seen her play that much. I figured Canton was close enough so we went over for a steamy afternoon of softball at Heritage Park in Canton.
A lot like figure skating competitions, these weekend long softball tournaments are taxing on the kids. My niece was pretty spent after her second game of the day and she was pretty bummed with the outcome. My brother apologized that they wouldn’t join us for lunch but I get it….I deal with a lot of the same emotions when a skate doesn’t go all that great.
The game was over just before 2:00 and J suggested we find a place to eat before getting back on the highway. I found a restaurant that sounded really good to me and I took a chance that everyone would find something they would like as well.
Basement Burger Bar in Canton is on Ford Road at the intersection with Lilley Road in a shopping plaza with a very tight parking lot and is very hard to cross traffic to get in to. This location is one of the three for the small Metro Detroit chain of burger restaurants. The other two are in Farmington and Downtown Detroit.
Taqueria El Texano
104 US-131I always look forward to Friday’s in the summer. It means Lunchtime Live at Bronson Park.
And almost every Friday in the summer, I get pulled out of town for work.
I really thought I was going to make it to 11:30 this past Friday. I was already eyeing a few trucks that I had seen pull in to the parking spots on South Street next to the park.
I didn’t make it however. About 11:00, I had to hop in the car and drive to a job site down in Three Rivers.
Nothing to worry about though. There’s a taco food truck turned restaurant I’ve been wanting to get to…so I did.
Taqueria El Texano is on US-131 near the intersection with Michigan Avenue. The taco joint is on the west side of the road and accessible from the Southbound lanes. It shares a building and a parking lot with Confluence Cannabis. There’s a little bit of parking in front of the building right off US-131 but there is a much bigger parking lot in the back with access to the restaurant if you’re dining in or the parking is full.
Read more…The Parlor
62160 M-66Saturday night was fireworks night at my in-laws lake near Sturgis. It was just us this year. The last few years we’ve had friends join us but we kept it low-key this time.
The weather was alright. The kids got a little swimming in. We cooked dinner on the grill then everyone kind of went to relax until fireworks time.
J and I wanted ice cream though so we called the kids back up from their screens and asked if they wanted to go get some.
We went to The Parlor on M-66 just south of Findley Road in Sherman Township north of Sturgis. The small ice cream shop is kind of on an island. All of the surrounding properties are farm houses and fields with the exception of M-66 Grocery just to the south. The small ice cream shop was built on the family’s old dairy farm to have a “fresh, farmhouse feel.”
Read more…My Freakin’ Pizza
1015 W. Chicago RoadThe Friday after the 4th was a pretty long day….for me anyway.
I volunteered to work an overnight shift in Grand Rapid so I could be off by noon and at the lake by 2:00. My mother-in-law had set out some meat to grill dinner but I was too tired to really too tired to deal with and the meat wasn’t thawed completely anyway.
We decided to just wait to grill Saturday night and order pizza for Friday’s dinner.
J’s parents have a Sturgis address but they’re closer to Centreville. The Local was always our go-to pizza place when we were at the lake but they closed…then reopened with a new owner…then closed again….all since last summer.
We’re all kind of pizza snobs. Chicago tavern thin-crust is the only way a pizza should be made according to all of us so finding a good pizza place that we all agree on is a little tricky.
J’s mom has been wanting to try My Freakin’ Pizza in Sturgis. No one had any objections to that idea.
My Freakin’ Pizza is on Chicago Street in downtown Sturgis near the intersection with Nottawa Street right next to Wings Etc. The pizza joint, owned by the same people who own Freakin’ Sweets just down the street, had to go through some renovations to transform it from what has been an empty store front for the better part of the last decade to the hottest new pizza place in town.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 