Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders (Battle Creek)
2171 W. Columbia AvenueI’ve been working a lot of extra hours recently. I don’t mind to much because I do like the paycheck but I hate the time spent away from the family and making J do the sports practices all by herself.
A couple of weeks ago, I had to pick up some extra hours after my shift was over in Battle Creek. It was an easy assignment. It was just going to take a little while and I would miss dinner by doing so.
I got done around 7:30 on the west side of Battle Creek. I was hungry and I thought ahead. I knew I had to go back to Columbia Avenue to get to the highway so I quickly looked at what was in the area.
I saw Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders was open, but only until 8:00. Good thing I started looking for dinner while I was still working. I was able to put in an order about 7:10 that would be ready when I could get there by 7:45.
The Battle Creek location of Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders is near the corner of Helmer Road and Columbia Avenue right in front of the Meijer. The building is a standalone restaurant alongside a few other quick service restaurants near this very busy intersection.
Read more…Garcia’s Mexican Kitchen
10445 Shaver RoadIt’s not very often I come across a restaurant I didn’t know existed in the Kalamazoo Metro area. I get around town a lot so I see the signs for new places pop up all the time.
I was in Portage last week just kind of driving aimlessly. I headed south down Shaver Road because I realized I haven’t been to Barret’s Smokehouse in quite a while. I stopped at the gas station across the street to grab a Pepsi and looked at my maps just to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
Turns out, I was missing something.
Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant is on the very south end of Portage on Shaver Road at the intersection with Osterhout Avenue. This small restaurant was a breakfast/lunch joint called Red’s Grill. J and I ate there way back in 2010 after I saw a “best burgers” list in the Kalamazoo Shopper. That restaurant closed a few years ago and last December, the building became a Mexican restaurant.
City Barbeque (Portage)
6395 S. Westnedge AvenueWhen I first moved to Kalamazoo twelve years ago, I complained a lot about the lack of good BBQ in the area. That has certainly changed in the last decade or so.
There are a number of great local places that have popped up and you can almost always find a BBQ food truck whenever there are big food truck rallies. There have even been a couple of pretty decent national chains come in over the years.
More BBQ was added to the dining scene a few weeks ago when Ohio based City Barbeque opened up a location in Portage.
City Barbeque’s Portage location is on South Westnedge at Gladys Street right in front of Dick’s Sporting Goods. The restaurant is in a new build shopping center known as Union Commons. Before this building went up, the space was a bank. That building is long gone and replaced by delicious BBQ among other things.
Read more…A1 Wings & Crab
589 W. Columbia Avenue, Suite CI feel like I’ve spent a lot of time in Battle Creek lately.
I was there again one day last week by myself. I had a fairly easy day at work. I didn’t have a co-worker with me, so I completed my assignment then had a big gap in my day so I decided to seek out lunch.
The list of quick takeout places in Battle Creek I haven’t been to is dwindling but I still have a few. I decided to go search out a wing place I’ve seen ads for.
A1 Wings and Crab is on Columbia Avenue at Ferndale Court. It’s right across the street from Taqueria San Francisco. The restaurant is part of a small, three store building. A1 is in the big corner space. It was a Papa Murphy’s for a long time before they closed an A1 moved in.
Read more…Foundry Bakehouse & Deli
400 S. Superior StreetWe don’t get to Albion often. It’s close enough to Jackson that I always forget it’s actually in Calhoun County.
My co-worker and I had to run out to a jobsite just outside of Albion last week. I have a couple restaurants in Albion I could hit up for lunch but I decided to look anyway to see if there was anything new.
We got to rural Calhoun County pretty early in the day so we were done and heading back to Kalamazoo right around 11:00. Our travels took us through downtown Albion and on our way through town, I noticed a deli I hadn’t seen before. I checked the menu before we headed back and in to town and realized this place was right up my alley.
Foundry Bakehouse & Deli is right on the corner of Superior Street and Erie Street on the southern end of downtown Albion. The last picture of this place on Google Maps shows it was an appliance story but that was almost a decade ago. There was some major renovation done to the building in 2018 and the deli opened in Spring of 2019.
Read more…2nd Hand Smoke
24901 Red Arrow HighwayFriday nights in the fall are my favorite. I pick up a little extra OT every week with an additional assignment and it’s work I actually enjoy.
I work my normal 9-5 shift then head out without a co-worker to tackle the additional duties. There’s usually a little bit of traveling away from Kalamazoo involved and since I’m alone, I always look for opportunities to find new places to eat.
I was heading to the Paw Paw area a few Friday’s ago and I had plenty of time to plan out a detour for dinner. There’s a BBQ place outside of Mattawan I’ve been meaning to go to so I took the long way to Paw Paw and headed down Red Arrow Highway.
2nd Hand Smoke is on Red Arrow Highway just past the intersection with Main Street/24th Street outside of Mattawan. The building was previously the first iteration of Skinny Kenny’s. Like Skinny Kenny’s, 2nd Hand Smoke got their start as a catering company and food truck before moving in to this place. To make it their own, they put a bright red coat of paint on the building so it’s easy to spot as you’re heading west on Red Arrow.
Skillet
4023 Douglas AvenueMy parents always try to come to town to watch the kids play sports. My mom is a waitress at a truck stop so getting weekends off can be tricky. We plan out several weeks in advance what weekend she is going to take off and when they’re going to make the trip north.
B is playing fall baseball at West Portage Little League through Next Level Performance. We had originally signed him up at Westwood since that’s where we play Little League but they didn’t have enough kids in his age group. If he had played at Westwood, games would have been on Saturday but at West Portage, the games are on Sunday.
My mom worked her breakfast shift on Saturday then she and my dad packed up and headed to Kalamazoo. The like coming here because they’re casino people. They got her Saturday evening, hung with us for a while. When it was time for the kids to go to bed, they headed over to Firekeepers.
They were back at our house a little before 10:00 Sunday morning. B’s game wasn’t until 3:00 so we had time. J asked if we wanted to go to breakfast. The kids are always up for breakfast and while my parents had eaten hotel breakfast, they were ok with going out for actual breakfast.
It was later in the morning and church was starting to get out so I didn’t want to go to the bigger breakfast joints. I knew of a place out on Douglas Avenue that opened within the last year that we hadn’t been to yet so we all piled in to my parents mini-van and headed that way.
Skillet is on Douglas Avenue near Goodrich Road in Kalamazoo Township. The building used to be a dive bar called Harvest Moon Bar & Grill. The people that own Skillet did A LOT of work to turn this in from a dank pub to a bright, cheery breakfast joint.
Read more…La Cocina Mexicana (Beckley Road)
5424 Beckley RoadI spent a lot of time in Battle Creek a few weeks ago. Earlier in the week, I wanted to stop by the new Ex-Wife’s Famous Chicken to pick up dinner on my way home. While I was in the Minges Creek Shopping Plaza, I noticed a few other restaurants that I had no idea were there.
I spent all day on a Friday in Battle Creek. I was downtown for most of the day but the evening would bring me back out to the Emmett Township area. I had some time between my assignments and headed back towards Beckley Road to pick up dinner.
I picked La Cocina Mexicana because I was in the mood for tacos. And they have online ordering through GrubHub.
La Cocina Mexican has two locations in Battle Creek. One is on Beckley Road in the Minges Creek Shopping Plaza near the Lakeview Square Mall. The other is on West Columbia Avenue near 20th Street. I picked the Beckley location because it was closer to where I was going. This location is part of the a large shopping plaza. The restaurant is near the back tucked in between Plato’s Closet and Big Lots.
Read more…Ex-Wife’s Famous Chicken (Battle Creek)
5420 Beckley RoadThe thing I really miss about COVID was always riding solo at work. We typically ride two to a car because it makes economical sense but during COVID, there were several times the company put in a one to a car rule just to keep people separated.
I’m not a social butterfly. I like being alone.
I always went more out of my way to find restaurants when I was driving alone because I didn’t have to worry about someone else’s opinion or food tastes. I like to find new places, out of the way places, or little hole in the walls.
My usual co-worker was off a couple weeks ago so they sent someone from Grand Rapids. I was already in Battle Creek when they assigned someone to work with me so he just drove himself to Battle Creek.
When the shift was over, he headed back towards Grand Rapids and I was heading to the ice rink to pick up the boy so he didn’t have to sit through his sister’s skating practice.
First…dinner.
I had a couple of ideas but I saw a Facebook post about a new chicken place that had just opened. I was fairly close to it so I decided to check it out.
Ex-Wife’s Famous Chicken is just to the west of Lakeview Square Mall on Beckley Road on the southeast side of Battle Creek. The restaurant is near Beckley Road in the Minges Creek Plaza. The corner location used to be Beckley Cleaners before becoming this chicken sandwich joint.
Read more…Lake Burger Tavern
6800 S. Westnedge Avenue, Suite FSaturday’s have become days to “just get out of the house.” We’ve gotten a little lazy as summer comes to an end and we get in to a fall routine.
That was the case a couple of weeks ago. We all laid around the house until the middle of the afternoon. No one ate lunch. I had plans to go to the WMU football game later that night so J said we should go somewhere for what would probably become our one meal that day.
There are a lot of new places opening up so we got some work to do to get to all of them.
We chose Lake Burger Tavern.
Lake Burger Tavern is a partner restaurant to Lake Burger on West Main Street. The tavern is on South Westnedge in Portage in front of the Crossroads Mall. It’s in the little shopping plaza with Qdoba and Penn Station Subs just south of JL Hudson Drive which is one of the mall entrances. There’s not much of a sign up right now but it’s right next to the Cold Stone Creamery.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 