Two Fellas Grill (Gull Road)
5585 Gull Road #106I’ve mentioned it a lot recently but I work a lot of Friday nights in the fall. It always amazes me how hard it is to find something to eat when I get off work around 10:00 on this Friday nights.
I know it was 25 years ago, but when I was in high school, we’d always go out for pizza after football games. I’m working the same time as high school football games right now and it’s nuts to me that almost every pizza place closes at or before 9:00 on Friday nights.
A lot of times, I try to get my pizza before the overtime shift starts. I wasn’t able to do that a couple of weeks ago. B was starting AYSO soccer and J also had to work a rare Friday night shift. I got out of work a little early on the regular part of my shift then headed to the AYSO fields to watch B. J’s parents were getting him there and taking him home until J could get back home, but I wanted one of us to be there for at least part of the game and help him get to the right field and find his coach.
That means, I couldn’t eat before my overtime shift.
My shift ended around 10:00 that night, just like it usually does. I was near Richland to finish things up so I knew I’d be heading back towards Kalamazoo on Gull Road. I was curious to see what was open along that stretch and found a familiar late night stop in a new location.
Two Fellas Grill on Gull Road is an additional location of the popular late night eatery with it’s main location near WMU’s campus. The Gull Road location is in a strip mall on the northside of Gull Road near Lake Crest Drive. This space was previously Szechuan Oriental Cuisine.
Read more…The Wing Hut (Portage)
6650 S. Westnedge AvenueLife is crazy right now. Both kids are still doing figure skating and they’ve each added another sport. B is playing soccer. L is playing volleyball. It’s a lot of running for J after work.
One night last week, we also through a middle school open house in to the mix….on a night that I had to work a double shift.
We made plans for J’s parents to help us out. J would grab L from the rink and head to the open house. J’s parents would pick B up from his after school program and get him to the rink. I would try to sneak out of work for a little bit to grab B from the rink, take him to L’s middle school, then go back and work my evening shift. It was quite the juggling act.
I knew I wasn’t going to have time for dinner during all this so I made sure to grab lunch later in the day so I could skip dinner until I got home around 10:00.
I was in Portage for a job assignment and that was going to work to my advantage. There are ton of great places to eat along Westnedge.
I ended up heading to Crossroads Mall. I had heard there were some new options at the food court. I haven’t been to the mall in forever so I didn’t know what was actually still there. I passed up my usual spots on Westnedge to take a quick walk through the mall.
The Wing Hut opened it’s second location inside the Crossroads Mall a few months ago. They’ve had a pretty good run at their store on Howard Street near WMU and that store remains open. This new location is in the food court at the mall. It’s one of the first places you see if you come in through the food court. They moved in to the spot that used to be Paulie’s Cheesesteak.
Read more…Panderia y Antojitos Guatemaltecos
2500 Nazareth RoadI ended up on the east side of town a couple of weeks ago just kind of driving aimlessly. I don’t get out to the Gull Road side of Kalamazoo very often and I’m always kind of surprised when I do. I end up stumbling on something new. I’m pretty in tune with new restaurants on the west side or in downtown Kalamazoo…and even in Portage…but when new places open on the east side, it takes me a little longer to find them.
I needed gas so I stopped at the Speedway at the corner of Gull Road and Nazareth. There’s a restaurant right behind this Speedway that I have stopped at a few times. It was a Chicken Coop for a while then it became Taste of Soul by Dips. I was surprised to see it has now become something else.
Panderia y Antojitos Guatemaltecos is in the old Chicken Coop building on Nazareth Road just south of the intersection with Gull Road. The building is now a shade of light blue which makes it pop from Gull Road. It’s hard to miss that building while you’re sitting at the light and not wonder what it is.
Read more…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…
SW Michigan Dining 