Burton Village BBQ Company
803 Burton Street SE- Grand Rapids, MI 49507
- (616) 202-7240
- No Known Website
- Menu
It’s employee review time. Typically, my immediate supervisor has done my year end review. He’s pretty casual about it. If I’m in Grand Rapids, he’ll just pull me in to the conference room and go over the review then we both get back to work
We have a new big boss this year. The way he’s getting to know people is through the reviews. Instead of handing off the responsibility to department heads, he’s doing them all.
With so many reviews to do, time is limited. Since I work in Kalamazoo, my review kept getting pushed back until it got to the point that we had to get it done as the corporate deadline was fast approaching. That’s not really a big deal but, like I said, his time was limited.
The only way he could fit me in was at 2:00 on a Friday afternoon. Essentially, I’d have to start my shift in Kalamazoo, drive to Grand Rapids for my review then come back to Kalamazoo to finish what we had started in the morning. Not ideal but it needed to be done.
My Kalamazoo colleague and I got a good chunk of our work done before noon. He was at a point that I could leave him for a couple of hours to do what he needed to do then I’d come back and pick up the assignment from him to finish.
I had a little bit of breathing room so I decided to leave for Grand Rapids a little early and grab something to eat.
I didn’t really have a plan on what I was going to eat. BBQ sounded good and I know there’s always new BBQ shops popping up around town so I started searching Google Maps until I found one I hadn’t been to.
I picked Burton Village BBQ Company on the corner of Burton Street and Eastern Avenue on the Southesast Side of Grand Rapids. The small carry-out business is on a very odd shaped lot right on the corner. It kind of sits on an angle stretching from Burton to Eastern with a triangle shaped parking lot in front of it. The building has been a couple of different restaurants over the last few years. The last time I was in there it was Wing Avenue. Before that, it was one of many Wing Heaven restaurants that only seem to last a couple of years.
Read more…Ruby’s Sandwich Shoppe
110 E. Michigan AvenueI don’t love working by myself. Typically, it’s me and another guy working out of our Kalamazoo office but occasionally, he gets pulled up to Grand Rapids or he just has a day off and I end up working alone.
The days I’m alone are typically easier days. There are things he does that I don’t do so I’m limited in what I can actually do. I can still have a productive day but it’s not usually as labor intensive.
The last time I worked alone was a week ago Monday. My assignment for the evening was in Hartford so I headed west and took my time.
I don’t like working alone but I do like driving alone. I like putting on a podcast, rolling down the windows, and taking the back roads to places. Best of all, I like finding a place to stop for lunch without having to worry about anyone else’s dining opinions.
This particular night I decided to take Red Arrow Highway to Hartford. I had plenty of time and I figured I’d look for dinner along the way.
I pretty much knew what I was going to do. There’s a sandwich shop in Paw Paw I’ve driven by a few times and wondered why I’ve never actually stopped in for a sandwich.
Ruby’s Sandwich Shoppe is in downtown Paw Paw on Michigan Avenue near the intersection with Gremps Street. The very small shop is painted a bright red so it’s easy to spot as you drive through town. The building has a non restaurant history. It was a jewelry store about a decade ago then it became a trophy shop before this quaint little sandwich shop moved in.
Read more…Pizza House (East Lansing)
4790 S. Hagadorn Road, Suites 114-116I talked pretty in detail in my last post about L’s introduction to ice skating and the competitions that are going to be taking up a good part of our summer so I won’t rehash that totally here.
I’ll just say we were in East Lansing for the VanCamp Invitational at Suburban Ice East Lansing.
It was a long day. We got to the rink around 10:30. L’s first event was at 1:20 then she had a little over a four hour break until her second event.
Everyone was getting hungry. The arena didn’t have concessions and we had been running on vending machine candy and sweets from B and my’s trip to Mitten Raised. We needed some real food.
J and I lived in Lansing for a couple years back in the late aughts. We are kind of familiar with dining in East Lansing as far as the long time staples go. J suggested we leave the rink for a few hours and go grab lunch at Crunchy’s.
Crunchy’s was packed at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon…but to be fair, it was during the first weekend of March Madness. Michigan State wasn’t playing but that didn’t seem to matter. The pub still had a 20 minute wait.
We weren’t going to wait and I had actually been wanting to go back to another of my favorites from our days in East Lansing. One that was actually right next to the ice rink.
Pizza House’s East Lansing location is on Hagadorn Road and Hannah Boulevard in the Hannah Plaza. This shopping center has several dining options across several different cuisines. We are pizza people and I remember Pizza House as being one of my favorite pizza places in the Lansing area…even if J disagreed with me at the time which is probably why she didn’t remember ever eating there when we lived in Lansing.
Read more…Mitten Raised
1331 E. Grand River AvenueWe’ve gotten in to the travel sports phase of life. I always assumed it would be something like softball or soccer, but L went a different direction. She found ice skating and has fell in love with it.
We’ve done Learn to Skate at Wings West off and on for about four years now. She always liked it and really wanted to learn how to skate but as she got in to the higher levels and started learning more advanced moves, it really became something.
As we were walking out of a Learn to Skate lesson last fall, we were handed a sign up for for the Greater Kalamazoo Skating Association’s Holiday Ice Review. We figured, “what the heck.” They had a group for her Learn to Skate class and it would be fun for her to get to perform.
“What the heck” turned in to “this is the thing we’re going to do.” L fell in love with ice skating from that experience and started begging us to get more involved with the club. We went through another level of Learn to Skate then finally realized it was time to join the club and get a private coach.
We started private lessons just before competition season started a few weeks ago. L and her coach were able to get a program together for the first tournament of the season in Mt. Pleasant the first week in March. It was a learning experience. It didn’t go as well as she had hoped but we knew what to expect from ice skating competitions now since none of us knew anything about the sport two months ago.
We figured since we entered her in one, it was probably best to enter her right away in a second one just to keep the momentum going. The next one on the calendar was the VanCamp Invitational in East Lansing.
Ice skating competitions are long days. L’s practice was at 11:40. Her first event was at 1:20 and her second event was at 6:05. That’s a long day just for her but we also drug B along so we had to find ways to keep him entertained for the 8+ hours we were going to be in East Lansing.
We got L to Suburban Ice East Lansing and I stuck around to make sure her skates were tight and everything was good during her practice. We let B bring his tablet and his Switch to keep him entertained while his sister wasn’t skating.
He and I kind of hung out in the lobby. He was playing Minecraft and I was scrolling through my phone. Once L was done with her practice, I asked B if he wanted to go get some treats. He assumed I meant the vending machine but I had a better idea.
We headed back towards Grand River Avenue to a bakery called Mitten Raised. The shop is in the Brookfield Plaza on the corner of Grand River Avenue and Hagadorn Road in East Lansing near the Michigan State University campus.
Read more…Marco’s Pizza (Battle Creek)
2550 Capital Avenue SW, Suite 140I keep seeing ads for Marco’s Pizza and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. I know there are a couple in the Grand Rapids area but it seemed weird I was getting targeted ads for them in the Kalamazoo area.
The ads were working though. I kinda wanted a Marco’s Pizza. It has been years since I’ve seen a Marco’s. There are a couple in Grand Rapids but the last time I actually ate at a Marco’s was in 2009 in Lansing.
Turns out, I was seeing those ads because one was recently opened in Battle Creek.
I took an overtime shift in Battle Creek one night last week. I had worked my full shift during the day but then had to go to Battle Creek for a few hours after that. I hadn’t eaten much and I wanted to pick up something quick and easy. Pizza it is.
Marco’s Pizza in Battle Creek is right off I-94 on Capital Avenue Southwest. It’s part of the Capital Shoppes shopping plaza.
Read more…Skyline Chili (Indianapolis East)
9715 Washington Street“Well we flew through Cincinnati. And we all got really happy. Grabbed a bowl of that Skyline Chili along the way.”
I had never heard of Skyline Chili prior to Big & Rich putting it into an incredibly popular Country song from 2005 and now I can’t get that one line out of my head.
I was in Indianapolis for work a couple of weeks ago and had some time to kill. My co-worker and I drove to Indianapolis separately because she had to stay a day longer than I did. She had some friends in town from a previous job so she was meeting up with them which left me on my own for lunch.
I checked out of my hotel around 11:30 but didn’t really need to get to the jobsite until about 4:00. I could have eaten anywhere in Indianapolis that I wanted but I kept passing signs for Skyline Chili…and I kept singing that damn song.
The Skyline Chili closest to my hotel was on Washington Street in the Cherry Tree Plaza on the east side of Indianapolis. The Cincinnati based chain has three stores in the Indianapolis area all sort of on the outskirts of town near one of the major highways.
Aunt Polly’s Pizza
5339 English AvenueOur first day in Indianapolis was a long one. I left Kalamazoo at 4:30 AM and got to my hotel on the northeast side of town right around 10:30. We had spent the majority of our day at Gaingridge Fieldhouse downtown for the Big Ten Basketball Tournament.
My co-worker was actually staying at a different hotel than I was but they were close to each other. I dropped her off and started looking for late night food options. There was some fast food in the area but I found a pizza place open until after midnight that had good reviews and wasn’t too far away. Guess what I chose to eat?
Aunt Polly’s Pizza is on English Avenue near Brookville Road in Indianapolis’ Glenroy Village Neighborhood. The small pizza joint is part of an old row of brick buildings near the odd intersection. There was no place to park on English Avenue that I could see so I went past, turned around, and parking on nearby Irvington Avenue.
Gainbridge Fieldhouse
125 S. Pennsylvania Avenue- Indianapolis, IN 46204
- (317) 917-2500
- Website
I grew up during a pretty great time to be an NBA fan in Chicago. Michael Jordan was leading the Bulls to championship after championship.
The unfortunate results of all those championships was Bulls tickets were hard to get. My dad got tickets with a group of friends for a game during the final year at Chicago Stadium but they were standing room only tickets and he was going with his buddies.
A week after they got the tickets, Jordan retired. Half the group didn’t want to go anymore so my dad asked if he could bring me and my brother. The remaining guys didn’t care as long as he paid for the tickets.
I tell this story just to show how hard tickets were to get during those days. When the Bulls moved to the United Center, nothing really changed.
A lot of people from Chicago that couldn’t get tickets for Bulls games in Chicago would get tickets for road games in Milwaukee and Indianapolis. We always talked about doing the same but never pulled the trigger.
The arena in Indianapolis in this days was Market Square Arena. Like Chicago Stadium, Market Square Arena is long gone and replaced by a new, modern facility with all the luxury suites needed for basketball games nowadays.
I was in Indianapolis last week during the Big Ten Tournament and spent quite a bit of time at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The home of the Indiana Pacers since 1999.
Gainbridge Fieldhouse is in downtown Indianapolis on Pennsylvania Street near Maryland Street in the Warehouse District. The urban arena is surrounded buildings and parking ramps on all sides. It’s a vibrant area with hotels and restaurants. If you’re in town for a game, you can make a whole experience out of the area.
Waffle House (Lawrence, IN)
7290 Pendleton PikeBy now, you know what happens when I travel south. I find a Waffle House.
I went to Indianapolis last week for a couple days of work. My co-worker had to stay a day longer than me so we drove separate cars and planned to meet at her hotel to drop off her car. We were heading downtown for our assignment and didn’t see the need to pay for parking twice.
The plan was to meet about 9:00 on the northeast side of Indy. I always get paranoid I’m going to be late and left earlier than I needed to. I got to town around 8:15.
I asked my phone if there were any Waffle Houses nearby when I was stuck in traffic on I-465. Of course, Google quickly found one just a few miles away. I still had 45 minutes and I was ten minutes from our meet up point so I snuck in time for a little breakfast.
Waffle House in Lawrence, Indiana is on Pendleton Pike just off I-465. The restaurant is on the north side of the road which puts it in Lawrence. The other side of the street is Indianapolis proper. I would describe the building but if you’ve seen one Waffle House, you’ve pretty much seen them all.
Read more…One Nation Tap & Table
544 W. Columbia AvenueI never would have thought that the sport one of my kids got passionate about was ice skating. We started Learn To Skate a few years ago because L had shown some interest in hockey. That changed when I told her she’d have to wear hockey skates to play hockey. She hates hockey skates..so her passion quickly changed to figure skating.
She’s leveled out of Learn to Skate so we started private lessons to keep her skating. With private lessons, she’s starting some competitions.
She wants to practice pretty much every night but we’re still not comfortable with her on “club ice.” She’s still pretty much a figure skating beginner and she’d be out there with girls who are way more advanced. Our concern is about her not paying attention and getting hit with an errant skate from someone doing a spin or something.
Public skates are really hard to find around here. The Wings West hours really suck. They have open skates every day during the noon hour….when she’s in school. On weekends, those open skates are late Saturday evening and during her lessons on Sunday….plus Wings West is always packed. We used to really like Lawson’s open skates but they haven’t done those since the pandemic started two years ago.
L had her first competition coming up and she really wanted more time to practice. I started looking around the area to see who had ice time. The Rink in Battle Creek actually had a couple of hours in the middle of the afternoon.
L and I went skating but J and B came with us. They sat in the stands and watched while L practiced her routine several times over the course of an hour and a half. When the horn went off signaling the end of skating, we packed up and headed out for lunch…because we center everything around finding new restaurants.
I have a whole list of sit down places in Battle Creek that I’d like to get to soon but the one at the top of the list this Saturday afternoon was One Nation Tap and Table on West Columbia Avenue near Beckman Avenue. If you’re familiar with Battle Creek restaurants, this is the old Moonraker West location.
SW Michigan Dining 