Tortilleria y Restaurante La Guadalupana
1627 Division Avenue SouthWorking a holiday is never fun but we have to do it a couple of times a year.
I picked Labor Day as my holiday to work. I picked the easier shift just because I loathe it so much. I was able to spend the morning at the lake with my family near Centreville then drive to Grand Rapids in the afternoon for my shift. We were able to take the kids out on the boat and do some tubing before I grabbed lunch and headed north.
I got a dinner break around 7:00. There’s not a lot open on holiday’s and every place I checked had Facebook posts about taking the day off.
I tried to order from a slider restaurant on South Division but their online ordering wasn’t working. I assumed that was because they were closed but I decided just drive down there and see for myself. If they were, I’d find something along the way.
They were closed….and luckily, I found something even better along the way.
I ended up at Tortilleria y Restaurante La Guadalupana. The small restaurant is on Division Street just to the north of Corrine Street south of downtown Grand Rapids. The brightly painted building has been some kind of Mexican restaurant for as long as I can remember, but it looks like this particular restaurant opened sometime last year.
Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders (Battle Creek)
5424 Beckley Road, Suite DFriday night is pizza night. You know that. I’ve written that many, many times.
Friday nights in the fall are overtime nights for me. It’s hard to turn down the extra hours every week for about 13 weeks so I take all that I can get.
Last Friday, I was on my way to Battle Creek. I’m running out of pizza restaurants I haven’t been to yet in Battle Creek.
There is one I kept forgetting about though. It’s not too far off I-94 and I could easily order online before leaving Kalamazoo.
Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders is on on Beckley Road at Riverside Drive in the Minges Creek Plaza shopping center. The pizzeria takes up a space near the back corner near La Cocina Mexicana. The restaurant is one of (I believe) three. Their website lists a Hillsdale location and there is a place with the same logo and name in Three Rivers. They’re all related to the Mancino’s family. Cavoni’s is the maiden name of the Mancino family matriarch.
Read more…The Backyard of Kalamazoo
10441 Stadium DriveWeekends are nuts. Is that just us or is that everyone?
We haven’t had many free weekends this summer. There’s been a lot of skating with some weddings and other family obligations sprinkled in. When we looked at our schedule at the beginning of summer, we knew there were only going to be one or two weekends where we had nothing planned before school started.
The weekend before Labor Day was pretty free. We didn’t have much to do. We caught up on the usual stuff. Laundry, groceries, yard work, but we had the afternoon free.
It was a decent day out. The sun was out. It was hot, but not too hot. We started talking about going somewhere for dinner. We haven’t dragged the kids out of the house in a while so we decided it was time.
We talked about the usual suspects when looking for someplace with outdoor dining…then J brought up someplace new. We had kind of written this place off early because of the cost but there were some deals that weekend and we thought we’d like to give it a shot.
The Backyard of Kalamazoo is unlike any other restaurant in the area. The large property sits on the corner of Stadium Drive and 1st Street in the very west end of Kalamazoo County’s Texas Township. The restaurant aims to be a gathering place. While there is a traditional full service restaurant, the main attraction is the yard.
Read more…Papa’s Pizzeria
69045 M-62 #12It’s that time of year that I start working double shifts on Friday nights. I know it sounds weird to enjoy working a double on Friday but the second half of the shift, I’m doing something I really like doing. The rest of the day, I just have to do my usual day job which I don’t really like all that much.
The Friday night shifts take me all around Southwest Michigan. Some weeks, I’ll stay close to Kalamazoo. Others, I’ll almost be in Indiana.
Last Friday was one of those “Almost be in Indiana” nights.
I had to go to Edwardsburg which is quite a ways from Kalamazoo with no real easy way to get there. I’ve only made this trek a handful of times over the years and I don’t usually have time for dinner.
I’ve tried in the past to put in a pizza order on the way down but the town’s only pizzeria is pretty slammed on Friday nights. I’ve made the mistake in the past of waiting until I was 20 minutes out thinking that would be enough time to cook a pizza. The wait has always been over an hour.
This time, I got a little smarter. I ordered the pizza when I was about an hour away…and it worked out perfectly
Papa’s Pizzeria is M-62 just north of Elkhart Road kind of in the center in Edwardsburg. The small shop in the Village Commons strip mall is the small town’s only pizzeria.
Read more…Chicken Frenzy (Portage)
7025 S. Sprinkle Road- Portage, MI 49002
- (269) 329-1270
- No Known Website
- Menu
You know me and gas station chicken.
There’s kind of a theme going here. I wasn’t planning on stopping for lunch, but…..
We were in South Portage and I needed something to drink. I stopped in to a gas station and the smell of chicken was overwhelming. I grabbed my Pepsi and sauntered by the chicken. It was too much to pass up.
Chicken Frenzy is in the Sprinkle Road Citgo on the corner of Sprinkle Road and Romence Road/Bishop Avenue in Portage. The gas station has been there for as long as I can remember but the chicken is pretty new. Chicken Frenzy also seems to be pretty new. I assumed it was one of those chains like Chester Fried but there is absolutely nothing online about it that I could find.
Read more…Fiesta Burrito
3774 W. Centre AvenueThis was another one of those days I didn’t really know what my plan was. I got off work around 7:00. B was with my in-laws because we didn’t have childcare for the last week of summer and L was at the rink skating. J was also at the rink but she had a meeting. I didn’t really know what to do for dinner.
I thought I needed to go pick L up and while I love Burdick’s, it can get kind of expensive so I decided to grab something before heading to Wings West.
I ended up going a little out of the way. I wanted to stop at the Crossroads Mall to check on something but they close at 7 so that wasn’t an option. I was in Portage already so I started trying to think of something I hadn’t eaten at yet in Portage. I came up with tacos.
I chose Fiesta Burrito because they had online ordering which makes my life so much easier.
Fiesta Burrito is on Centre Avenue in Portage near US-131. The restaurant is in the Woodbridge Shopping Village near Moorsbridge Road. The shopping center has undergone some extension renovations in the last couple of years. I had been to this shop before when it was The Big Burrito and The Real Deal: Classic Burgers and Shakes. If you look at the pictures from those blog posts, you’ll see almost an entirely different exterior from what is there now.
Read more…Smokin’ 8s
FOOD TRUCK- Augusta, MI 49012
- (269) 352-9272
- Website
- Sample Menu
My co-worker gets me somedays.
We were in Decatur for an assignment and needed to just hang out for a while and kill some time. We ended up parking near downtown at the Village Market.
I wasn’t really hungry and had no intentions of buying lunch when I stopped. My co-worker looked across the street and saw a food truck. He looked at me and said, “You’re going to get lunch from that food truck, aren’t you?”
I said no. I wasn’t really hungry and I wasn’t planning on buying lunch that day.
He ran in to the grocery store to use the restroom. When he came out, I drove the car across the street and bought lunch from the food truck.
The food truck was Smokin’ 8s. A veteran owned truck that specializes in BBQ but also brings some smash burgers, brats, and hot dogs depending on the day. The truck is based out of Augusta, but on this day, it was parked at the Citgo Station on Delaware Street (M-51) near Phelps Street.
Read more…WP Diner @ Washington Square
1324 Portage StreetWorking Sunday usually means I get the following Friday off. I trade a one day weekend for a three day weekend. While the one day weekend is annoying, the payoff of a three day weekend is sometimes worth it.
I had a lot to do on my Friday off. B had a day camp in Portage that I had to drop him off at, L had figure skating at Wings West that I had to drop her off at, and I needed to run some errands so I could work on some home improvement projects in the afternoon.
But first, breakfast.
I dropped L off at Wings West a little after 8:30 and didn’t have to pick her up until after 11:00. I needed to run to Lowes and Pearle Vision on West Main at some point but I wanted to get breakfast first. I had some time so I decided to go out of my way a little bit to a place I haven’t been to yet.
WP Diner @ Washington Square is part of KPEP’s (Kalamazoo Probation Enhancement Program) Hospitality Program. The diner is in Kalamazoo’s Washington Square Neighborhood near the corner of Portage Street and Washington Avenue. The building underwent a pretty major rehab after the building was purchased in 2018. It was last home to Kalamazoo Color Lab.
Read more…Fuego Verde
1070 Arcadia LoopSo, Western Michigan University’s new student center finally opened.
It took a while with some construction delays but the student center opened just a few weeks ago in time for the fall semester.
I don’t spend a lot of time at WMU but I am there occasionally. I would always try to make my way to the basement of the Bernhard Center when a new restaurant opened there. There were some interesting places that came in and out of there almost every year. Nothing seemed to stick around.
The new student center seems to be going for longevity. They have a few dining options that are kind of copycats of pretty well established brands. I was in the area last week and went a little out of my way to check the first one off my list.
Fuego Verde is the Mexican restaurant set up in the new student center. Like it’s predecessor, the restaurants are on the bottom floor but in this case, it’s not has hard to get to. There’s an entrance that’s easily accessible as you’re coming from the Library back to the Sangren Mall. Unlike the Bronco Mall entrance, this is one students will walk past daily and it’s also where the book store is located.
Taco John’s (Caledonia)
6722 Broadmoor Avenue SEJ and L got home early Sunday morning from their trip to Wisconsin for figures skating camp….then I left mid-afternoon Sunday to go to work.
I don’t have a lot of weekends free so when shift coverage comes up, I try to volunteer on the days I don’t have anything planned so I don’t get forced in to working the days that I do. I didn’t have anything planned for this Sunday so I took the shift hoping that would defer from a future forced overtime scenario.
When I work weekends, I have to work out of the Grand Rapids office. I left Kalamazoo a little early because I was hungry and Grand Rapids has a chain restaurant we dont’ have in Kalamazoo. Taco John’s.
There are now three Taco John’s locations in the Grand Rapids area and none of them are near US-131. There’s one on 28th Street in Wyoming, one in Hudsonville, and one in Caledonia. I’m a little extra and wanted to write a new blog post so I picked the one in Caledonia despite it being a little out of my way.
The Taco John’s in Caledonia is on Broadmoor a couple of miles south of the interchange with US-6. The small taco joint sits on the corner of Broadmoor and 68th Street surrounded by gas stations. Like most fast food chains, Taco Johns aesthetics have modernized a lot in the last couple of decades. Gone are the yellow and red signs and in is a more clean almost antiseptic look of greys and whites with pops of red.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 