Twine Urban Winery
1319 Portage StreetI’ve lived in Michigan for almost 15 years and I still don’t understand why Spring Break is such a huge deal here. Growing up in East Central Illinois, we didn’t even get a Spring Break. We got Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off and that was it. The whole, “we have to go to Florida at the same time everyone else is going to Florida which makes prices insanely high” just seems stupid to me.
Our kids are one of the unlucky few who don’t get to bask in the sunshine at the beach. They joined some of those other unlucky kids for a a theater camp at The Civic instead. Both of our kids are little performers. L has done this camp a few times in the past but it was a first for B and oh, boy did he love it.
Theater camp ends with a performance on Friday afternoon. In the past, this performance was at 5:30 but this year, they decided to make it at 4:00. There’s absolutely no way I can be off work by 4:00 so I took the day off.
J’s got a little bit more flexibility at work but her birthday was on Thursday so she decided to take Thursday and Friday off. That means, we were both home without the kids.
We went to a late lunch at Bird Dog in Mattawan. We didn’t want to go back home after lunch but we still had about an hour and a half until doors opened at The Civic. I suggested Bell’s, but J had a different idea.
She had been wanting to try Twine Urban Winery on Portage Street for quite some time. We had the time so we decided to stop in to check the place out.
Twine Urban Winery is in on Portage Street near Washington Avenue in a spot of time known as Washington Square in Kalamazoo Edison Neighborhood. The tasting room for the Roche Collection wines is on the south side of this multi unit building. The last time I was in this space it was a Jersey Giant Subs.
Read more…Bird Dog
57649 Murray StreetWe don’t do spring break. I’ve never understood why everyone in Michigan travels at the same time to the same destinations. Prices are clearly higher and I just don’t get why it’s such a thing.
J and I both work during spring break. L has been going to a spring break camp at The Civic Theater for a few years (minus the last two COVID years) and has loved it. B’s been wanting to do theater too so we sent him for the first time this year too.
The camp is pretty great. It’s an intense week. They learn a whole show in just five days. The kids are divided in to two groups..a younger group and an older group. Each group does like five songs.
The hard works is shown off at a performance on Friday. For some reason, that performance time was 4:00. Do people who work normal jobs actually get off work by 4:00? I sure as hell don’t and neither does J. We both ended up taking the day off so we wouldn’t miss the kids perform. “
Having time to go to restaurants without kids is rare for us. We both have so many restaurants we want to go to without kids…but most of them seem to open at 4:00 so that doesn’t work for lunch.
We did have one option for a place J has been wanting to take me to after she went with friends a few years ago.
Bird Dog is a “modern American restaurant” on Murray Street in Mattawan in what can be considered “downtown.” The building is right around the corner from the park on Front Street. The last time I was in this small building was 10 years ago when it was Farran’s Broaster Chicken. This building has undergone an extension remodel from counter service chicken joint to a kinda fancy sit down dining experience.
Read more…Valhalla
3408 Miller RoadWhen it’s J’s birthday, we do what J wants.
J wanted to go to a meadery she heard about a while ago. They don’t have food, which is usually a turn off for us because we need something to keep the kids busy, but she really wanted to go so we found a way.
Valhalla is the tasting room for Norse Nectar Meadery. It’s a on Miller Road near Milcork Street but it can be a little hard to find if you’re not looking for it. The meadery is in the back part of the building that has Alliance Home Health Services and Acclaim Home Care near the front. There is a large yellow banner hanging out by the road to grab your attention, but the entrance is actually near the garage doors on the green metal part of the building in the back of the parking lot.
Read more…The Victorian Bakery
512 N. Park Street #BAs a husband who’s really bad at presents, the first half of the year hits me hard. There’s about a two month gap between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, then about another month and half to J’s birthday, then about another month and a half to Mother’s Day.
J is the kind of person who just buys what she wants when she wants it so I really just have to ask, “What do you want? Send me a link.” Yeah…super romantic.
We do always try to find some kind of sweet treat for any of our birthday’s though in addition to presents. We’ve done cakes from Boonzaaijer Bakery, Bert’s Bakery, and cupcakes from a number of places including The Cupcake Zoo when they were open several years ago and last year at Holland Cakery ‘n Sweets last year when we took a spring break trip to Saugatuck for J’s birthday.
Somehow, in all these years, we have never been to The Victorian Bakery.
I was trying to figure out where I was going to grab a cake from while I was sitting at work yesterday. I was about ready to drive down to Boonzaaijer when I realized I was pretty close to Victorian Bakery. I had actually picked up some of their cupcakes from Midtown Fresh one time for one of our special occasions and figured I should just go straight to the source.
The Victorian Bakery is on the northside of Kalamazoo on Park Street just north of the railroad tracks. It sits in the same building as Park Street Market and shares a parking lot with them. It actually takes up three store fronts in the building
Read more…Kickin’ Kurbz
Food TruckIt’s getting to be food truck season again.
I don’t typically sit down and eat a meal while I’m on the clock unless we’re traveling out of town. I typically don’t have the time to sit and eat even though I’m supposed to have an hour lunch.
I always look for take out options when we’re outside of Kalamazoo. Sandwich shops are my usual go-to but come summer time, seeing a food truck in a parking lot somewhere is like striking gold.
My co-worker and I were on the west side of Battle Creek last week for an assignment. When we got done, I knew there were a couple of food trucks that usually park on 20th Street. I’ve been wanting to try both of them so we headed that way.
We found Kickin’ Kurbz open in the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet parking lot on 20th Street just north of Columbia Avenue. This small food is more of a trailer. It’s usually parked in this lot when they’re not doing catering jobs or other food truck events.
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…
SW Michigan Dining 