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.
The Sugar Bowl Bar & Grille
904 Washington AvenueI’ve been writing this blog for about 13 years now and there are still some long time places in Kalamazoo I haven’t been to yet.
I’ve had a list of dive bars for quite a while but those are usually places I go by myself. I don’t eat out much on my own anymore so those places keep getting pushed to the back burner.
J was out of town for a conference last week and I had to take a couple days off of work so I’d be home in time to get the kids from their afterschool program. My plan was to get some tasks around the house done since it’d be quiet but things don’t always go as planned.
I wasn’t sleeping well for some reason last week so after I got the kids to school in the morning, I went back to bed.
Thursday I woke back up just before noon. I sat on the couch for a while debating on whether I should leave for lunch and run a few errands or just be lazy and put on Netflix.
I finally convinced myself this was a good chance to get to some place I’ve been wanting to go by myself.
I got in my truck and headed to the east side of Kalamazoo. The Sugar Bowl Bar & Grill on Washington Avenue just past Portage Street was my destination. The small dive bar has been a neighborhood staple in the Edison Neighborhood for decades. The building isn’t much to look at. It’s a windowless brick building with an 80’s style sign hanging from a metal pole off the side of the roof.
Read more…Wally’s Subs
6477 Stadium DriveGot a couple days off work and the house to myself. J went to a conference in Port Huron and there’s no way I can work my normal shift then get to the kids’ daycare in time to pick them up after school. Working a half day isn’t really possible either since most of the work I do is in the second half of the day. I’ve tried asking to get off early in the past and even though I’ve been told that wasn’t a problem, it turned out to be. It was easier and less stressful for me to just burn a couple of vacation days.
I had a couple of projects I needed to get done since I was going to be home anyway. I decided to go to Menards instead of Lowes like I usually do just for a change a scenery. I got what I needed then started back home.
I realized I was hungry as I was driving but didn’t really know what I wanted. I came up to the corner of 9th and Stadium and caught a glimpse of Wally’s Subs. I haven’t eaten there in years and a sandwich sounded good.
Wally’s Subs has been a staple on the corner of 9th and Stadium in Oshtemo Township for years. The small restaurant has been there since 1983 serving up quality subs. The property is a little trick to get in and out of because it’s on such a busy corner but there are entrances on both the 9th Street side and the Stadium Drive side.
Read more…Wingstop (Wyoming)
1633 28th Street SW, Suite AI volunteered to cover for a co-worker in Grand Rapids on a Saturday night. I don’t do that often. My weekends are usually pretty busy. I didn’t have anything going on that particular Saturday night so I said I’d take this shift knowing that it’s going to be a while before I’d be able to fill in on a weekend shift again.
I didn’t really comprehend what my colleague for that night was telling me. He made an appointment in Kalamazoo and was planning on meeting me here. I missed the Kalamazoo part and showed up in Grand Rapids about an hour before our scheduled appointment. We had plenty of time to make it back but it kind of threw off my night.
We did what we had to do in Kalamazoo then headed back to Grand Rapids. I was getting hungry but I felt like we were running behind and didn’t want to stop to find food.
I spent the rest of my shift trying to supress my hunger with Pepsi from the vending machine. It sort of worked but I was still pretty hungry.
I tried to find something that would be open late. My shift ended at 11 and finding something for a quick grab and go at that time of night wasn’t easy.
My parents were in town and they were actually at Gun Lake Casino for the evening since I was at work. I texted them to see if they wanted to meet there and eat the restaurant there but they said it was a two hour wait and the restaurant closed at midnight. They couldn’t get a table.
I was getting a little desperate and had resigned myself to the realization I was probably going to be eating McDonalds for dinner…then I thought of something that wasn’t coming up in Google searches.
Wingstop is on the corner of 28th Street and Burlingame Avenue in Wyoming’s business core. The business is part of a strip mall on the northwest corner. It’s not very big but it’s open until midnight and they have online ordering.
Lawson Ice Arena
2009 Howard Street- Kalamazoo, MI 49008
- (269) 387-3050
- Website
Growing up in Illinois in the 80’s and 90’s, hockey wasn’t really a thing anyone cared about. I was the odd kid. I liked hockey. Watching Blackhawks games at the time was a challenge…to say the least. The Wirtz family refused to air home games on Chicago television so half the year, I had to listen to the radio broadcast on my walkman while I was supposed to be in bed.
I had never seen a college hockey game before moving to Michigan. I didn’t really know it existed. All I knew of was the University of Illinois and I knew that it wasn’t a varsity sport.
The first college hockey game I went to was at Michigan State when we lived in Lansing. I got hired to work at game at Munn Arena and that was really the first time I had been to a hockey game in an atmosphere outside of a pro league.
Moving to Kalamazoo introduced me to Western Michigan University hockey. I’ve worked several games at Lawson Ice Arena and we’ve gone skating there many times before the pandemic. Lawson is easily one of the best places I’ve ever watched a hockey game.
Lawson Ice Arena is on the west end of Western Michigan University’s campus. The arena is on Lawson Drive (or Recreation Drive) but the physical address is a Howard Street address. The arena is a little hard to get to if you’re not familiar with it. If you’re coming from the south, you need to go on to campus like you’re going to Miller Auditorium then go over the bridge to get to the parking lots that surround the arena.
Read more…Quarantino’s
1444 Lake Drive SEThe days I work in Grand Rapids I end up getting home pretty late and after everyone has eaten dinner. J will usually do fast food from somewhere knowing I will likely grab something in Grand Rapids or along the way for myself.
There’s a pizza place in Grand Rapids I’ve really been wanting to try. Friday is typically pizza night in our house but I decided to bring pizza home on Wednesday night and throw every one off. I’d share if I had to but I was really hoping to keep this one all to myself.
Quarantino’s was started out of necessity. The small carry-out restaurant on the corner of Lake Drive and Atlas Avenue SE got it’s start during the height of the 2020 quarantine. The owners of That Early Bird and The Little Bird restaurants needed to pivot due to the changing landscape of dining out during the summer/fall of 2020. What they hit on was a delicious Detroit Style pizza carry-out joint.
SW Michigan Dining 