Tacos Yanga
1338 Division Avenue SouthMy love for Mexican street tacos started in Grand Rapids.
I was working nights and weekends at the Grand Rapids office which meant I regularly worked Friday night. I had a co-worker who would buy me dinner on Friday nights as long as I would go get it. This went on for quite a while then one night (not a Friday night), I walked in with tacos and sat down next to him to talk about something. He couldn’t get over the smell of them and asked where I got them. I told him and the next Friday night, he sent me there to pick up dinner. It became our Friday night meal until I moved to the Kalamazoo office several years later.
That taco spot was Taqueria San Jose. I loved that little taco place and would go there every time I was back in Grand Rapids.
Unfortunately, it closed at the end of 2021. I was pretty bummed. My co-worker passed away a few years prior to that but I would still go get tacos. It made me think of him every single time.
I was unexepectedly in Grand Rapids last Monday. We weren’t scheduled to work out of that office but something came up so my Kalamazoo colleague and I headed north. We finished our assignment in the field then headed back to the GR office to finish up our day. I was hungry but didn’t know what I wanted so I just started driving. I figured I’d find something along Division…or 28th Street…something…I didn’t know what or where.
I got just south of downtown on Division Street when I saw my old taco place…but it was open….as a new taco place. I found my place to eat.
Tacos Yanga is on Division Avenue and LaBelle Street south of downtown Grand Rapids. The taco joint is easy to find. It’s an old A & W Drive-In. There is no car hop service anymore but the awning is still there. so it’s easy to spot. The restaurant has actually been open about a year and a half now but I get to Grand Rapids so little anymore, I’d never really noticed it.
Read more…Pizza Katerina
635 N. 9th StreetStop me if you’ve heard this one before.
It was Friday night. And I was hungry for pizza.
I was actually alone on this Friday night. My weekly overtime has come to an end and this should have been the first week we were all home on Friday night.
Except the kids had a synchronized skating competition..that we host…and J is on the organizing committee for. She and L spend almost the entire weekend at Wings Event Center starting Friday night.
B was at my in-laws because I couldn’t get out of work in time to get him from daycare and J had to be at the arena pretty early in the afternoon. That meant, I was on my own for dinner.
I knew I was going to get pizza but I had kinda settled on just going cheap with Dominos…then I got an e-mail with a coupon for a place I really like and don’t eat at nearly enough.
That place is Pizza Katerina on 9th Street in Oshtemo. If you’re thinking, you’ve already blogged about that place (twice), you’re right, but they’ve moved, so new blog.
The new location is actually just two doors down from the old location in the Sunset Plaza strip mall in front of Walmart on 9th Street just south of West Main. They’ve moved down to the corner of the building that used to be part of Oshtemo Pharmacy. The new location gives them more room to share with another business…but I’ll get to that.
Read more…Winner Winner
3216 Bay City RoadWhen I got our kids’ schedules for Skate Midland, I was pretty excited we were going to be done fairly early. B’s last event was just before 2:00 which means we should have been able to get out of there around 2:30 and make it home before it got dark.
But, NOPE.
L wanted to stay and watch her friends skate and their events ran almost until 5:00 PM.
We did have a little bit of a gap though between when B finished his last event and when the other girls from our club were going to skate so J suggested we go get something to eat. No one had really eaten since breakfast and the concession stand at the Midland Civic Arena didn’t have a lot of “real food.”
There’s really not a lot around the Midland Civic Arena. The one place that is close I noticed last year but didn’t have time to stop. It looked like a counter service restaurant and it looked like it would have something we’d all eat.
Winner Winner is on the corner of Bay City Road and Waldo Avenue on the southeast side of Midland. The small restaurant opened a couple of years ago and also has a coffee food truck that operates out of the parking lot. The name should give away what’s you’re going to get inside….right? “Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner.” As for the building’s history…I’ve actually been there before. I’ve only been to Midland three times since we moved to Michigan 15 years ago. Twice for figure skating, but one time, we actually drove from Lansing to Midland just to eat at the BBQ place that was in this spot before….well that and see the butterflies at Dow Gardens…but mostly because I wanted to eat at Bone Daddy’s BBQ.
Midland Civic Arena
405 Fast Ice DriveThe thing I get asked the most from people who aren’t involved in figure skating is, “When does the season end?”
Complicated question. It doesn’t end. At least not for us.
The individual season runs from about March until November. Then our kids go in to Synchro which overlaps running from about August until February.
There is no off season.
L has advanced pretty quickly and is competing in the National Solo Dance series. She qualified for the National Finals which took place in Glenview, IL back in September. That’s the focus from about March to September for her. She does some free skate when it works with our schedules, but Solo Dance is really what she’s in to.
For skaters not at that level yet, there’s the Michigan Basic Skills Series. The series is there to introduce young skaters to competition and way for every one to go home with a medal.
We only skated in one Basic Skills competition this year. The one our club hosted back in July at Wings West. The final competition of the year was last weekend in Midland. L was going to debut a new free skate and compete in a new dance level for the first time. B was looking forward to competing for just the second time.
The competition was held at the Midland Civic Arena on Fast Ice Drive and Bay City Road on the southeast side of Midland. The arena, opened in 2005 has two ice sheets and a third that has been covered with turf. There’s not really anything else around it so there are large parking lots on two sides of the arena which were needed for what turned out to be a pretty big competition.
Read more…Pizza Sam’s
102 W. Main StreetOne more individual figure skating competition this year. It’s almost synchro season, but first, Midland.
It’s not my favorite competition to go to. Midland is kind of a pain to get to. There’s no freeway that goes there and when we leave at 5:30, it’s dark by the time we get off I-69 and start the trek north on two lane roads.
My plan all along was to keep my Friday night pizza thing going. I knew my family wouldn’t be able to eat until we got to the hotel around 8:30, but I didn’t want fast food.
We stopped at Wendy’s in Charlotte for everyone else. It took a lot longer that we were hoping it would but we got back on the road toward Midland just as it was getting dark out.
When we got about 40 minutes out of town, I decided to put in an order for pizza. I needed a little help from J to do it while driving, but the plan was to get to Midland, pick up my pizza, then head towards the hotel.
I got recommendations for pizza places last year when we came for this competition but we didn’t stay in town Friday night last year. We didn’t have to be at the rink as early as we did this year so we did it all in one day.
I never let a good recommendation go to waste so I still had them for this year.
I picked Pizza Sam’s in downtown Midland on the corner of Main Street and Ashman Street. The building has been in downtown Midland for many years but it looks like it went through a make over in 2018. The pizza place kind of blends in to the atmosphere of downtown. There’s a seating area outside that has a fireplace. My kids actually considered getting out of the car and having me eat my pizza there just so they could sit in front of the fire.
Read more…Little Caesars (Park Street)
507 N. Park StreetLate night and early mornings.
I worked in Detroit last Monday night and it was a late night. I walked in to the house at about 4:00 AM and went right to sleep. My Tuesday morning alarm went off at 7:30 AM. I had to get the boy to school.
I worked about a 16 hour day on Monday so I probably could have asked for the day off, but I like overtime and I had to get up with the kid anyway, so I took a shower and went in to work for my 9:30 AM shift.
It was a long day. My shift was pretty easy on Tuesday but I was pretty tired and was just trying to get through the day.
I didn’t eat a whole lot on Monday so when I woke up Tuesday, I was hungry. I didn’t have the energy to make breakfast or pack myself a lunch so I was just going to find something to eat.
I was kind of in the mood for pizza but there’s not a lot of pizza places near downtown open for lunch on a Tuesday. I figured it would be easier if I just ordered from one of the chains.
I picked Little Caesars because there’s a location close to downtown.
Little Caesars has a store on Park Street on the corner with North Street in Kalamazoo’s Northside neighborhood. The shop is a standalone building on the west side of the street across from Park Street Market. The building is hard to mistake for anything other than a Little Caesars. There’s an orange stripe running through the middle of the white brick that makes it obvious. Because of it’s location close to downtown, that’s the store I put my order in to.
Read more…Woodland Party Store
8064 Grand River AvenueI wasn’t planning on going to Detroit last Monday night but about a week prior, I got a phone call asking if I could work in Detroit that night. I never turn down trips and knowing there would be quite a bit of overtime associated with it, I of course jumped at opportunity.
It wasn’t as simple as just going to Detroit for the night. I actually had to go pretty early and make a stop in Troy first then I had to come back to Brighton to pick up a co-worker before heading in to the city for the night.
The plan was to meet my co-worker in Brighton at a Park and Ride lot right off I-96 at about 2:30. I made my trip to Troy to get what I needed then got back to Brighton at about 1:45. I needed to find a restroom and get gas so I headed in to Brighton to find that.
While I was sitting at the gas station, I started looking for some place to quickly grab a sandwich. What I found was a party store on the edge of town that brags about their sandwiches. That was enough to sell me.
Woodland Party Store is on Grand River Avenue north of Brighton proper and north of I-96 in Brighton Township across from Woodland Lake. The party store looks like most party stores. It’s nothing fancy and has a red awning letting you know where you’re at. That awning also brags about “The Best” sandwiches….so I knew I was in the right place.
Read more…Kazoopy’s Pizza & Grinders (Gull Road)
5030 Gull RoadDoing something a little bit different for my typical Friday night pizza.
I still had my overtime shift on Friday night but I was staying close to Kalamazoo. I actually had a pretty relaxed day at work and decided to just order my pizza dinner for lunch instead then take the leftovers with me for an after my shift meal.
I thought about some of my usual haunts for Kalamazoo pizza and actually decided on one of my favorite places…but at a new location on the east side of town.
Kazoopy’s Pizza & Grinders has opened their third Kalamazoo location on Gull Road near Rockingham Avenue in Kalamazoo Township. They’re now the pizza place inside Frosty Boy. This space was a Cottage Inn the first time we ate there although we didn’t get pizza…we just got ice cream. After Cottage Inn moved out, Frosty Boy did their own pizza thing. It became a Kazoopy’s location last fall.
Read more…Berries Famous Pancake House (Downtown)
234 W. Michigan AvenueTheo & Stacy’s was always my go-to downtown for lunch when I was in the mood for a great diner burger.
Sadly, Theo & Stacy’s closed at the beginning of the year. The building didn’t sit empty though. There was a plan to take over right away.
Berries Famous Pancake House was up and running in the same spot about six months after Theo & Stacy’s closed. They do a lot of the same things Theo & Stacy’s did and even kept a lot of the Greek favorites. It took me a while but I finally got back over there last week.
Berries Famous Pancake House is on Michigan Avenue just to the west of Rose Street in downtown Kalamazoo. This is their second location as they also took over another Theo & Stacy’s location on South Westnedge in summer of 2022. The downtown location, as mentioned above, has been a diner in downtown for several decades. Berries just took over the spot and added their own twist.
Miller Auditorium
1341 Theatre Drive- Kalamazoo, MI 49008
- (269) 387-2300
- Website
I love that my family loves the theater.
I’ve mentioned it several times before, but J was involved in theater in high school and she’s passed that love on to the kids….who love performing.
I always enjoyed the theater but I grew up in a small town where sports dominated. I never had the courage to be that jock that tried out for the school play. I wasn’t cool enough to pull it off.
I always went to watch the plays at my high school though. I loved watching my friends so something I didn’t have the guts to do.
We’ve been going to a show about every three months lately. We’ve been to DeVos Performance Hall (Six), The Detroit Opera House (Beetlejuice), and Wharton Center (Wicked) since January.
J and I have gone to several shows at Miller Auditorium in the years we’ve been in Kalamazoo. The first time was way back in 2009. I won tickets somehow to see The Wedding Singer…a show we likely wouldn’t have gone to on our own…but they were free so we went. That was also the first, and only time I’ve written a blog about Miller Auditorium. My writing style has changed a bit and so has the theater….so here we are.
The James W. Miller Auditorium is on the campus of Western Michigan University on Theatre Drive just off Ring Road on the southwest side of campus. If you’re going out to city roads, it’s near the intersection of Howard and Stadium at the edge of campus. There are several parking lots and most people try to come in to the theater from Howard Street, but if you’re local and you know your way around, it’s best to come in from Michigan Avenue and take Ring Road to the back of the parking ramp connected to the theater.
SW Michigan Dining 