Jose’s Cuban Sandwich & Deli (Lansing)
401 S. Pennsylvania AvenueI feel like I’ve been on the road constantly lately. Someone at worked asked me late last week how I’m not exhausted. Trust me, I am.
I was in Lansing for an assignment the week I got back from Los Angeles. I was meeting a co-worker from Grand Rapids then heading back to Kalamazoo so I figured I would have a little bit of time to grab a sandwich or something before heading home.
Our task was done just before noon. We figured out a plan for finishing our respective parts of the job in our own offices so neither of us had to drive anymore than we needed to.
When we separated for the day, I headed to grab something to eat before hoping on 496 to head back to Kalamazoo.
I found Jose’s Cuban Sandwich & Deli on S. Pennyslvania Avenue and East Kalamazoo Street. The small deli is inside the Marathon Station on the corner just north of I-494. This is one of two locations in Mid-Michigan. The other is in Williamston on Grand River Drive and is a standalone restaurant instead of taking up counter space in a gas station as this one does.
Ski’s Sub Shop
96 Monroe Center NW #105I did not waste anytime going back to work after my trip to Los Angeles. My boss offered to let me take a few days off but I didn’t want to lose the overtime. I did, however, want Friday off. My daughter had some things during the day I wanted to go to and since I would have the hours, that was the day I wanted off. It felt weird to take Wednesday off, work Thursday, take Friday off.
I headed up to the main office in Grand Rapids Wednesday morning because my usual co-worker in Kalamazoo was still on his two week vacation to California. We had a meeting with the new boss that I was interested in and they needed me up there anyway.
I got some free time around lunch time and I was really hungry. I didn’t want to eat a vending machine sandwich so I clocked out for my break and headed to get gas so I didn’t have to do it on my way home.
Just before Christmas I saw an article in Mlive about a sub shop in downtown Grand Rapids. I knew it was there..I had just never been there. Mlive featured it in their Michigan’s Best Local Eats series. I figured that was my sign to go to this shop I have walked by for 13 years and never stopped at.
Ski’s Sub Shop is in the Founders Building in downtown Grand Rapids on Monroe Center NW just to the east side of Ottawa Avenue. The shop has been downtown since the late 1970’s, in it’s current spot since 1986 and claims to have the “Best Lunch Deal in Downtown Grand Rapids.”
Shake Shack (DFW Airport, Terminal C)
2400 Aviation DriveI’m a such a dad when it comes to flying.
After an eight day trip to Los Angeles, it was time to fly home. Our flight out of LAX was scheduled for a little after 9:00.
We had to return a rental car and I have a lot of extra bags I have to take for work so I wanted to get to the airport early. I always have such mixed experiences when flying for work and I stress out a little bit.
We checked out of our hotel in downtown Los Angeles around 4:45 AM. I picked up the car from the valet and we headed to the rental car lot. There was no traffic and checking the car back in took about 10 minutes. There was a shuttle waiting for us so we hoped on and took it to the American Airlines terminal.
We got inside and I went to the ticket counter to check my extra bags. There was no line. Got it done in less than 10 minutes.
Headed up the escalator for the TSA Checkpoint…there were four people in front of me. Got through in less than ten minutes.
It wasn’t even 6:00 AM yet….so yeah, we had some time to kill. That went way too smoothly for checking in a LAX.
I walked around the terminal, got a drink, and picked up some souvenirs for the kids. I looked at a few places to eat but didn’t really want breakfast. I figured I’d get something to eat when we got to our layover.
Our connection back to Grand Rapids was Dallas-Fort Worth. We had about an hour and a half layover and we were in early. We had to go from Terminal B to Terminal C so we found the Skylink and got to our gate.
Neither one of us knew what we wanted so we started walking. We got all the way back to the beginning of Concourse C and knew we had to make a decision at that point.
We passed a Shake Shack near Gate 6 so we headed back there.
The Shake Shack at DFW opened in early 2019 making it the 6th location in the Dallas area. The restaurant is part of a little food court that also has a Dickey’s BBQ Pit and an Einstein Bros. Bagels. It looks a lot like a mall food court as you just walk up to the order counter that is built in to the wall. It’s not like some of the other restaurants at DFW that have entrances that take you in to the restaurant.
J’s Mexican Grill
FOOD TRUCKAlright…here it is. The last blog from California on this trip. It was a fun, long eight days and I was ready to get home.
Our last full day in Los Angeles was our longest. It started at 4:30 AM and we got back to the hotel around 9:00 PM. We were able to sort of graze throughout the day at the job site but neither of us had really eaten. I desperately wanted to take a shower while co-worker went looking for food.
We passed food trucks parked on the corner of 7th and Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles pretty much every day. It wasn’t the same food truck but there was usually a taco truck of some kind parked there open well into the late night hours.
I took my shower then contemplated not getting food. I also love tacos and that ended up winning out. I got dressed then headed across the street to see what this food truck has to offer.
J’s Mexican Grill is a pretty large food truck with a pretty large menu for a food truck. The all black truck with green lettering was parked on the north side of 7th Street across from The Bloc. According to their Instagram page, it looks like there are three places they regularly park in and around Los Angeles.
Read more…Joey DTLA
700 W. 7th StreetIf you’ve noticed over the last few blogs, we hadn’t really eaten out at a decent sit down type of restaurants since our first night in LA. We didn’t have time or energy to put that kind of effort in to dinner most nights.
Our slowest work day was New Year’s Eve. We had a mid afternoon assignment just down the road from our hotel at USC then we came back to the hotel to finish up what we had to do for the evening.
I was hungry when we got back from USC though. We had plenty of time so I asked co-worker if he wanted to grab a really early New Year’s Eve dinner. I figured most places would have reservations seeing as it was the holiday so I wanted to go early.
We were just going to go to the restaurant in our hotel but when we got to the floor it was on, the doors were shut. I don’t know if they were closed for the holiday or we were too early and they weren’t open yet.
Co-Worker suggested we just go out to street level at our hotel. There’s a restaurant there and it didn’t look super busy when we drove in.
Joey DTLA is one of 30+ Joey Restaurants in the US and Canada. The chain is described as a “Western Canadian premium casual” group with headquarters in Vancouver. The US restaurants are in the Los Angeles area, Seattle, Miami, New York and Houston. This location in downtown Los Angeles is on the corner of 7th and Hope Street in The Bloc commercial complex.
Read more…Portillo’s (Buena Park)
8390 La Palma AvenueWhat happens when you send two guys from Illinois to California?
They find the Portillo’s.
We had a pretty large gap in our day where we didn’t need to be on the road around Los Angeles. We hung in the hotel for a while working on some things but then needed to go out to Glendale for an assignment.
That wrapped up around 3:30. Our next task was back in Anaheim so we headed across town to deal with that.
As we were sitting in the car waiting on something, I started looking for some place nearby to eat. I was shocked when a Chicago staple popped up not too far away.
Portillo’s of Buena Park is on La Palma Avenue near Dale Street in a very busy shopping center in the city of Buena Park. This is one of two Portillo’s locations in California. The other is about an hour away in Moreno Valley.
Read more…Joe’s Pizza (Downtown LA)
613 S. Spring StreetDay five in Los Angeles started to ease up on us a little bit.
We started Saturday morning with a trip out to Pasadena for an assignment then we had a pretty large gap in our day. We headed back to our hotel in Downtown Los Angeles to work on some stuff there in the comfort of a hotel room instead of trying to do all of our work in the car.
My co-worker had some things to do before I could do what I needed to do so I decided to take a walk. It was a nice day and I hadn’t really explored much of downtown LA to see what was around us.
I kind of started walking aimlessly but also kind of walking towards pizza.
I ended up about 3/4 mile from our hotel on Spring Street. There’s a pizza by the slice place and it was kind of lunch time, so I decided to stop in.
Joe’s Pizza is on a fairly busy part of Spring Street near 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles. The small downtown storefront is one of seven of the New York Style slice places in the Greater Los Angeles area. Are they related to the Joe’s Pizza in Greenwich Village and the Joe’s Pizza in Ann Arbor? Good question. There’s a lot of similarities but not really...I mean kinda, because it’s some family…er, ex-family drama…but no, they’re not part of the same group of restaurants.
Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles (Pasadena)
830 N. Lake AvenueYou see me write a lot about the long days and lack of meal breaks when I travel for work. This trip was pretty much that way too.
We left our hotel around 9 AM and we were pretty lucky if we got a meal break before 8:00 PM.
Our fourth day in Los Angeles we actually got a somewhat proper dinner break. We had a gap between about 3:30 and 6:30 where we didn’t have much going on. We were in Carson for an assignment then we had to be back in Pasadena around 6:30. I suggested we head back to Pasadena and find something to eat.
I was posting pictures from my trip on Facebook and one of my friends who lived in LA for a while jumped in and said there was a restaurant we had to try. There was a location in Pasadena which worked out even better for us.
Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles is a Los Angeles soul food institution. The original location is in Long Beach and the most famous location is in Hollywood, but there are seven locations in the metro area. The chain of restaurants got it’s start in the 1970’s
The location we chose was the Pasadena store on North Lake Avenue just north of Boylston Street in the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood. The building gives me old school Pizza Hut vibes but this place has been a Roscoe’s for well over a decade. The funny thing about this spot to me is that Roscoe’s sits right next to a KFC so you have to make a choice if you want really good chicken or KFC.
Read more…Lucky Boy (Arroyo Parkway)
640 S. Arroyo ParkwayOur second full day in Los Angeles was a long one.
We started the day at about 7:30 AM and didn’t get done until 8:30 PM. There was no time for stopping between there either. We were go, go, go all day. I was fortunate that I found a few minutes to stop at a gas station and grab some water. Stopping for food was pretty much out of the question all day.
When our shift ended right around 8:30, the first priority for both of us was dinner. We were in Pasadena so I did a quick search to see if there was anything around us that would be quick but still tasty.
The first hit I got was for a Greek sandwich shop about a mile from where we were. My co-worker didn’t care where we ate as long as we ate.
Lucky Boy is on the corner of Arroyo Parkway (which is Historic Route 66) and Pico Street. The restaurant was a small chain of burger restaurants started in the 1960’s. There are only two left now. This one and one nearby on Walnut Street. The business is a walk up joint with both inside and outside seating. Their claim to fame is a breakfast burrito suggested by a customer that they now serve thousands of every week.
Read more…Jollibee (Downtown Los Angeles)
729 7th Street When I travel for work, they are long work days.
Our first full day in Los Angeles saw us driving to Anaheim for an assignment. We stopped at In-N-Out Burger for “lunch” then headed back to our hotel in downtown Los Angeles to finish up our work for the day.
We got done around 8:00 and I was hungry again. I didn’t want to go somewhere for a sit down meal but there was a fast food place right across from the hotel that we don’t have many of in Michigan. I figured it would be a quick, easy, cheap meal, so I put shoe on and headed out the door.
Jollibee is a chain of fast food chicken restaurant based out of the Philippines. They have about 1500 locations worldwide with about 70 in the United States. Most of those locations are on the west coast but there are some spread about the country including one in Michigan in Sterling Heights.
The downtown Los Angeles Jollibee location is on 7th Street to the southeast of the intersection with Flower Street in the Financial District. The restaurant is a stand alone store in a street level space of the Roosevelt Lofts
SW Michigan Dining 