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…Scotts Country Store and Deli
8374 36th Street SouthScotts is on the way to Vicksburg from Kalamazoo….right?
I had an assignment in Vicksburg last Friday night but I also had some time when I was done in Kalamazoo and when I needed to get to Vicksburg. I’ve pretty much tapped out all of the restaurants in Vicksburg that would be open at that time so I widened the search looking for a place to eat that I haven’t been to yet.
My widened search got a hit at one of the places I drive by and say “I really need to make time to get back there one day.” Well, today was the day.
Scotts Country Store and Deli is, first and foremost, a grocery store for the small town of Scotts in the eastern part of Kalamazoo County. The store sits on the corner of 36th Street and Norscott Street just as you enter the village from the north. 36th Street is as close as Scotts gets to a “downtown” with the street also home to Scotts Corner Cafe and Scooters Malt Shoppe.
Read more…Zoo City Beastro
5222 Portage RoadWe’ve been really lazy on weekends lately. We’ve spent a big part of our summer not doing anything on Saturday’s because L has wanted to go to open skate at Wings West. The Saturday night open skate is $8 for two hours and during the summer, there’s hardly anyone there.
Open skate is getting busier though so L won’t be able to practice the things she wants to practice with more people on the ice. We kind of let her have the last couple of weeks before hockey started then we need to take our weekends back.
Sitting around the house is really kind of demoralizing though. I try to motivate myself to get chores done but it only turns in to a couple of things then me sitting on the couch watching The Simpsons all day.
At some point in the day, over the objections of the kids, one of us usually declares “we need to get out of the house.” To do that, we force the kids to go out to eat. For some reason, they think that is a form of torture.
I picked the restaurant on this particular Saturday afternoon because there are several places that I want to try.
My pick this day was Zoo City Beastro in Portage.
Zoo City Beastro is on Portage Road and Fairfield Road just south of the I-94 Interchange. The building has been a restaurant for a while. It was last Lindbergh’s Landing and Fat Tony’s Grill and Sports Bar prior to that. Portage Road is a little (no, a lot) tore up right now but you can still get to the restaurant from Fairfield Road.
Read more…The Harvey House
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125 Water StreetFall is my favorite time of year. I pick up a lot of overtime at work doing something I really like doing. Most of that overtime comes on Friday nights. I work my normal shift then usually go on a short road trip somewhere to pick up a few extra hours.
Last week, I ended up in Constantine. I had a little bit of time before my overtime assignment actually began so I decided I needed dinner.
There’s a new brewery in town and a pretty good pizza place right in downtown but there’s another place I’ve wanted to go for a long time….just because I always thought it looked cool from the road.
The Harvey House has quite a history in downtown Constantine. The building dating back to the 1845 sits on the corner of Water Street and Washington Street (BL-131) right along the St. Joseph River. The building was owned by John Stuart Barry who was twice the Governor of Michigan. The building was originally a warehouse but it was moved in 1862. The building was then used as a store. The Barry family kept the building long after his death before selling it in 1904 where it became a The Hotel Harvey. Over the next 100 years, several business called the hotel home. In the early 2000’s, the hotel was bought and the Harvey House restaurant became the main focus of the building. The building was sold again in 2018 and again in 2022. That’s the iteration of the Harvey House we have today. (Source for all that history)
Read more…Round About Caffe
6040 S. 12th Street I’m famously not a coffee drinker. My caffeine addiction is Pepsi. I’ll occasionally drink a coffee and I’ll pretty much always drink a coffee beer, but I don’t have to get up every morning and hit the Starbucks drive through on my way to work.
I’m always a little bummed that I’m not a coffee drinker. There are so many great cafe’s around town and I’m always hesitant to go in. A lot of them advertise light lunch fare but it always feels weird to me to go to a cafe and only get a sandwich.
I was in Portage last week for a doctor’s appointment. I had told work I was taking a half sick day and I’d be in around noon. My appointment was over pretty quickly and I still had a little time so I decided I should probably grab lunch before heading in.
It was kind of out of the way but I noticed a new cafe on the roundabout at 12th Street in Portage. We don’t go that way very often by the boy is playing in a fall baseball league at West Portage Little League. I was curious about the location and what they offered…so I kind of double backed from the doctor’s office to see what they’re all about.
Round About Caffe is located on the southwest corner of the roundabout at 12th Street, Texas Drive, and Milham Avenue. The building used to be a State Farm office before becoming the cafe earlier this year. You can access the parking lot either from 12th Street or Texas Drive.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 