Chicago Wingz Around the World
108 E. 47th Street We’ve all noticed how bad the Chicago White Sox are this year, haven’t we?
If you’re not a baseball fan, they’re historically bad.
As a fan of that team, it’s hard to even want to go to a game, but every year, my dad, my brother, and my best friend from elementary school get together to go to a game.
Finding a time was hard this year. We all have kids in sports and things going on in our own life. We had planned for a day in May but something came up for one of us. Then we got in to travel softball season and figure skating competitions. August starts football season for my friend so that limits days.
We finally found a Saturday in that all four of us were able to go and the Sox were at home.
Our tradition has been to grab wings somewhere and tailgate in the parking lot. Chicago has such an awesome tailgate culture that even during bad years, people sit out in the parking lot along the Dan Ryan Expressway drinking, grilling, and having a good time.
When I got married in 2009, my bachelor party was a White Sox game. I found a wing place on the south side of Chicago that had really good reviews. We got 100 wings and had a blast in the parking lot before the game.
That original wing place closed and a new one popped up a few years later. Eventually that one closed to so we had to find other places to get wings from. We’ve had a few hits and a few misses but we all missed the original place.
I was looking for a new place this year and a familiar name popped up in my search. The name was the same. The menu was the same. It was just in a different spot a little closer to Guaranteed Rate Field.
Chicago Wingz Around the world is a small, carry out only wing joint on East 47th Street near Michigan Avenue in the Grand Boulevard Neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. The restaurant is a one story brick building that spans half the block. It looks like the space was a taco joint before my wing place came back sometime in 2022 and a Harold’s Chicken Shack (well known in Chicago) before that. Parking is limited to street spots in the area. My brother was driving and it took him a while to swing around and pull in to a spot right in front of the restaurant.
Read more…Kalako Street Cuisine
FOOD TRUCKSummer is almost over and with that, Lunchtime Live will be ending soon. I want to make sure I’ve taken advantage of the great lunch options all the way up until they pack up shop for the summer.
For the third week in a row, I was in my office in downtown Kalamazoo on Friday. I had an assignment I had to run out to around 11:30 but I was back in my leather office chair by a little before 1:00.
I stopped what I was doing and made my way towards Bronson Park. There was still about 45 minutes left before everyone would move on to their next gig and I noticed another truck that I haven’t eaten from yet.
That truck is Kalako Street Cuisine & Events based in the Greater Kalamazoo area. The small black pull behind trailer was parked right across the street from City Hall. I did my usual walk up and down South Street to make sure I wasn’t missing anything but I pretty much knew what I was getting before I even got to the park.
Read more…Chipotle Mexican Grill (Portage)
5964 S. Westnedge AvenueI have written many, many blog posts about my love for tacos. Like, actual tacos. Not the stuff you get at fast casual chain restaurants.
This is also going to be a blog about tacos. The stuff you get from fast casual chain restaurants. Not the authentic tacos.
It was time for another fundraiser for my kids’ synchronized skating team. We’ve done Blaze Pizza and Panera already this season. This month it was Chipotle.
There are two Chipotle Mexican Grill’s in the Kalamazoo area. One of them is near my house and near Wings West in Oshtemo Township. The other is in Portage. That was the one we had to order from to get the money for skating.
The Portage location of Chipotle Mexican Grill is on South Westnedge Avenue just north of Milham. The restaurant takes up northern most spot in the building that also houses the McAlister’s Deli in front of the old Bed Bath & Beyond store. The restaurant has been there since 2017 when it took the place of Complete Nutrition.
Read more…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…
SW Michigan Dining 