Burger Mania
274 W. 40th StreetSo I wasn’t only going to eat pizza while I was in New York. I could have though. There were enough pizza places around that I could have eaten pizza for every meal and never went to the same place twice.
Our first day in town was a little hectic. We had an assignment about 5 blocks from our hotel in the morning. Then we had to get my car out of the parking garage and drive to Queens for an after assignment. Then we were back in Midtown for an evening assignment before calling it a day.
We were really worried going from Midtown to Queens and back was going to eat up a lot of our day but we actually got back to the hotel with about three hours to spare. I put the car back into the (very expensive) parking ramp then we both went back to our rooms to relax for a little bit before the evening assignment.
It was around 2:30 and I was getting pretty hungry. The great thing about where we were staying was that it took longer to get an elevator at the hotel than it did to walk some place to get something to eat.
I was planning on pizza for dinner again so I looked at Google maps to see if there was anything else in the area. I saw a burger place about a block away and thought burgers sounded good so I headed that way.
Burger Mania is on 40th Street east of 8th Avenue in Manhattan. The small burger joint between a pizza place and an eyebrow threading spot looks to have went in to this spot just off the corner sometime in 2021. Before that, it was a small cafe.
Read more…Upside Pizza (Garment District)
598 8th AvenueI love it when I get to travel to work. I’ve gotten to take some pretty cool trips over the years. Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, DC…but when I got asked to make the trip to New York, that took the top spot as coolest trip.
I decided to drive. I know…that’s a long drive. The company offered to fly me, but I have a lot of gear that needs to go with me. If that drive is within about 12 hours, I usually opt to roll down my windows, find a couple of podcasts, and take a nice, relaxing road trip.
I left Kalamazoo around 10 AM. I was able to get there with only three stops. One for lunch at a Sbarro on the Ohio Turnpike. One for gas at a Sheetz (I didn’t get food here, but no worries, I stopped at a different Sheetz on the way home and will get to that blog later) near Youngstown. Finally a stop to pee at a rest area near Snow Shoe, PA. I hit the Lincoln Tunnel around 8 PM and got settled in my hotel near the corner of 39th Street and 8th Avenue by 8:30.
I hadn’t eaten since that Sbarro stop around 1 PM. I wasn’t worried though. I was heading to New York…and I knew there would be a thousand places to choose from well in to the night.
It seriously isn’t hard to find a pizza place in Manhattan. I walked out of my hotel and there were at least six of them that I could see and I’m sure more just around the corner. I walked straight to 8th Avenue from 39th Street and there was a place on either corner across the very busy street. I ended up picking the one southeast corner this night but I’d get to the other one later in the week.
Upside Pizza has four locations in New York City. Three are in Manhattan, the fourth is in Brooklyn. The location in the Garment District is the one that’s open really late..until at least midnight five days a week with a closing time of 3 AM Friday and Saturday. The small corner pizza shop moved in sometime in 2019 where it took over for a fried chicken joint that had been there at least a decade.
Read more…Sbarro (Commodore Perry Travel Plaza)
888 N. County Road 260Buckle up. You’re about to inundated with pizza blogs.
I got sent to New York City for work last week. When the trip was first brought up, my bosses told me to get with my travel partner and work out flight details. I have a lot of gear when I travel and I hate flying with it. I have done it several times in the past and it’s a ton of stress.
So I asked if I could drive.
Yes, I would rather make an 11 drive by myself than fly with what I need for work. I told them to let the co-worker I was traveling with fly and I would meet her there.
I had a doctor’s appointment at 9 AM the day I was scheduled to leave and I didn’t really want to cancel. That took about an hour then I got on the road around 10 AM and started heading east.
I didn’t want to stop more than I needed to so I pushed back lunch for a while knowing I would hit some travel plazas on the Ohio Turnpike. I got to about halfway between Toledo and Cleveland before I couldn’t push it off anymore and I needed to get something to eat.
I chose the Sbarro at the Commodore Perry Travel Plaza outside of Clyde, Ohio on the Ohio Turnpike. This is the service area on I-80 at mile marker 100 in Sandusky County. I love these turnpike travel plazas. They’re so much better than the non-toll road rest areas. There is always a gas station, bathrooms, vending machines, some kind of convenience store and of course, a food court.
Read more…Bruegger’s Bagels (East Lansing)
505 E. Grand River AvenueAaaand, we’re back. It’s competition season for figure skating again. L is starting her second season by moving up a level and competing in the National Solo Dance Series. By this time next year, we will likely have a second kid competing. The boy is just itching to get out there. His time is coming soon.
The first competition of the year for L’s coach was the Van Camp Invitational in East Lansing. We did this one last year but L was still in the basic skills categories. We only had to go on Saturday. This year, she’s moved up to Excel series in free skate and she’s competing in NSD.
The dance portion of these competitions is usually during the week. In this case, L would be competing in four events on Friday and one on Saturday.
I took the day off because I was excited to see her skating in Solo Dance. When I said I was taking the day off, my parents decided to drive up from Illinois. They would be able to see her skate in three of the four events and they would also get to see her do the dance competition for the first time.
L’s day was pretty packed between practices and events. There was about an hour around lunch time that I could leave the rink and go get food. I watched her skate in her first of two Solo Dance events then took my parents to go pick up lunch for all of us.
L is kind of a picky eater. When she’s nervous, she carb loads. A bagel with cream cheese is about the best thing I could get for her so I went to a bagel place.
Bruegger’s Bagels is a chain of about 200 restaurants founded in Troy, NY in the early 80’s. There are six locations in Michigan with the East Lansing spot the closest to Southwest Michigan.
The restaurant is near the corner of East Grand River Avenue and Division Street in downtown East Lansing. We were kind of in a hurry and hoping to find a close parking spot but East Lansing was nuts that weekend. It was St. Patrick’s Day and the kids were already out day drinking. We had to settle for the ramp on Division Street and walk back to the restaurant.
Read more…TNT – Lil’ Brother’s BBQ
1622 Bloomfield AvenueI’ve picking up some overtime shifts recently. We don’t always get the opportunity and I could really use the extra work right now so I’ve been volunteering when the opportunity comes up.
The shifts usually work where I work my regular 9-5 with my co-worker then I take on an extra 3-4 hours doing something by myself. I wrap things up with my co-worker then try to grab a quick dinner and start the extra hours.
I was heading to the southside of Kalamazoo one day last week and had a little over an hour before I needed to be where I was going. There’s a familiar BBQ that opened up not too far from my job site so I headed straight to get some tips.
TNT – Lil’ Brother’s BBQ should be a familiar name if you’ve been around Kalamazoo. They’ve had several locations over the years. The first time I visited them, they were on North Westnedge. Then they were at Burdick Hair and Beauty Supply before that building was shut down. They moved over to the Eastside at the corner of Riverview and Bridge Street. Now, they’re in a small shop in the Milwood Neighborhood on Bloomfield Avenue near Portage Street. It’s in the same building as the Milwood Quick Stop and Rocket Comics but it’s around the corner on the Bloomfield Avenue side. This part of the building used to be Lyman’s Lighting & Accessories.
Read more…The Chill Bean Coffee House
140 W. Main StreetWe have spent a lot of time in St. Joseph County the last several years because J’s parents moved from the Chicago suburbs to a lake near Centreville. We have our favorite pizza place (The Local) and they have their standard rotation of bars and restaurants.
We don’t venture outside that too often. Occasionally, I’ll go in to Sturgis to go grocery shopping and stop some place but we do a lot of grilling when we can and pizza when we can’t.
We also don’t take M-86 to get to Centreville. We have this weird way we weave through the country and go through Mendon to get to where we’re going. So when new restaurants do pop up in Three Rivers or Centreville, we don’t always notice them.
I ended up in Centreville last week for work. We had a couple of things to do then head back to Kalamazoo.
I noticed a coffee shop in town that I had never seen before. I quickly looked them up while I was pumping gas and saw they had sandwiches. When we got down with our tasks for the day, I asked my co-worker if it was alright if we stopped and grabbed something really quick.
The Chill Bean Coffee House is on Main Street (M-86) near the corner with N. Clark Street across from the St. Joseph County Courthouse. The building has been a coffee shop for quite a while. It was Kirby & Lehman’s Courtyard and The Centre Hub after that. I had never stopped at either of those. The Chill Bean opened up in this space late last year.
Subway (Central Business District)
125 E. Michigan Avenue- Kalamazoo, MI 49007
- (269) 443-2189
- Website
I’ve been writing this blog a long time. If you include Mid-Michigan Dining (which I do), it’s been almost 15 years since I started blogging about our dining adventures after we moved to Michigan from Peoria, IL.
It was pretty common for me to write blog posts about the typical fast food place. I still thought I was going to be a content creator and posting a blog every day or two with links back to my work was something I needed to do to drive up traffic. I mentioned places like McDonalds and Arbys a lot in my blogs so I needed links back to them.
I stopped doing that because you can only write so much about the same Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese or large Roast Beef sandwich so many times. Also, I realized no one actually cared about my ramblings and this blog was more for my own entertainment.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to start over with a city wide tour of McDonalds but occasionally, I may throw a fast food blog in the mix if I actually try something new or there is something unique about the particular store I went to.
I can honestly say, I’m not really a Subway person. I still have pretty vivid memories of my aunt being really excited to take us to this new sandwich place near where she worked. You could customize the sandwich any way you wanted and they were the best sandwiches.
That was a long time ago. Probably close to 30 years ago. But I remember being super excited about Subway because there was nothing else like it then.
I will still occasionally grab a Subway sandwich for lunch. I don’t love them but there are a couple of sandwiches I will admit to really liking.
I was sitting in my office in downtown Kalamazoo last week and I was hungry. My go to used to be Theo & Stacy’s on days like that. They had online ordering and their food was still fairly cheap so when I was hungry and not wanting to go far, it was always Theo & Stacy’s.
Theo & Stacy’s is gone now so I kind of wander aimlessly. A lot of times I’ll walk over to City Centre Market to grab a Pepsi and end up with a bag of kettle chips too. I like kettle chips but eating a whole bag for lunch isn’t great for me.
I was considering just putting in an order at Jimmy John’s. That would be easy enough. I almost did but then decided I hadn’t had Subway in a while so why not.
I drive by it all the time but never remember there is a Subway in downtown Kalamazoo. It’s on Michigan Avenue just to the west of Portage Street. The restaurant shares the ground floor of a multi story building with what used to be Market on Michigan Avenue.
Country Market Pork Store & More
228 E. Michigan AvenueI never pass up a place claiming to do “Chicago-Style” food. I’m usually disappointed but it’s something I’m always going to try.
I had been seeing Facebook posts from a place in downtown Paw Paw doing Italian beefs and Chicago pizza. I was confused because it looked like the place was a butcher shop but the lure of an Italian beef was too much.
I was in Paw Paw last week for work and had a little bit of time. I had forgotten about this shop I wanted to check out until I drove by. The pig on the side of the building and the neon Vienna Beef sign in the window reminded me I needed to get lunch.
Country Market Pork Store & More is on Michigan Avenue in downtown Paw Paw near Niles Street. The small, one story yellow storefront is part of a larger wooden building that looks out of place amongst the century old brick buildings surrounding it. This space was last used by Captured Memories, a photography services store that closed a couple of years ago.
Curly’s Bar & Restaurant
108 E. State StreetThat ice storm was something, eh.
We spent most of the weekend at J’s parents house in St. Joseph County. We lost power Wednesday night, stayed at a hotel Thursday night, then headed south for the weekend.
We had to make a couple of trips back to Kalamazoo on Saturday. L had ice skating really early in the morning at Lawson Ice Arena. Once she was done, I asked J to check on the house before heading back south. It was a really good thing I told her to check the basement.
We didn’t have pipes burst, but I made a really stupid mistake. I ran water so the pipes wouldn’t freeze…but one of the ones I turned on drained in to the basement sump pump…which needs electricity to pump out…which we didn’t have. By the time J got home, there was about two inches of water in the utility room.
I didn’t want to leave that water on the floor so I headed back to Kalamazoo to clean it up. It’s not easy to pick up that much water without a shop vac but I figured it out with mops and dust pans. I got it all up then headed back to the warmness of my in-laws place.
Getting up early to skate and cleaning up water made us all tired. We had talked about going to South Bend to ice skate but everyone was pretty exhausted.
We needed dinner though. J’s parents are in Florida so there is no food in the house and we didn’t want to mess up the kitchen and dirty dishes.
I suggested a place we haven’t been to yet in nearby Colon. J was on board so we got the kids together and went to an early dinner.
Curly’s Bar & Restaurant is a staple in downtown Colon. The restaurant sits right on the corner of State Street (M-86) and Blackstone. The restaurant has been around for several decades but was rebuilt in 2013 after a fire destroyed Curly’s and Papa Mancino’s pizza. The new restaurant actually expanded with the purchase of another building next to the two destroyed by the fire.
Main Street Smokehouse
225 W. Main StreetWe have lived in our house on the westside of Kalamazoo for almost 13 years and have never had an extended power outage.
We can’t say that anymore.
We were one of the unlucky ones who lost power last Wednesday evening as the ice storm was rolling through. We were able to tough it out Wednesday night. Thursday night we found a hotel room. Friday night, we were looking for a hotel for the weekend but really were not wanting to pay that much money.
Fortunately, my in-laws said we could use their house for the weekend. They live on a lake near Centreville so they didn’t get the ice that we got. They’re in Florida for the winter so we just had to open the house back up for a few days with hopes our power would return before Monday.
J was going to wait for me to get off work on Friday so we wouldn’t have to take two cars. I told her that was not a great idea. They’d have to sit in our cold, dark house until 6:30. I told her to just go where it was warm. I’d check on the house again after work before driving down there.
There’s obviously no food at my in-laws since they’re not home and we didn’t want to bring a lot in with us or make a mess of the kitchen. I suggested we meet in Mendon for dinner once I got off work. There’s a place there we’ve both been wanting to try.
Main Street Smokehouse is on Main Street in Mendon just to the east of Burr Oak Street. The building was home to Viva until they moved to Portage last year. It’s an odd building sandwiched between Main Street and the St. Joseph River. There is no parking right in front of the building because the road is literally a few steps from the front door. There is parking across the street at the Mendon Farmers’ Market so you don’t have to walk too far.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 