Jersey Giants Subs (Plainwell)
1265 M-89I don’t know if I’ve ever related to a TV character as much as I relate to Joey Tribbiani when he says his favorite food is sandwiches. Sandwiches are so good.
I ate at the new Jersey Mike’s Subs a few weeks ago and it reminded me….I haven’t been to Jersey Giant in a while…and that’s a travesty.
I was in Otsego last week for work and I was hungry. I passed the Jersey Giant in Plainwell on my way to Otsego and the idea of, “I really need to get to Jersey Giant” popped in to my head. As I made my way back to the highway to head back to Kalamazoo, I made a slight detour to grab a sub.
Jersey Giant Subs in Plainwell is on M-89/Allegan Street in Otsego Township near the Home Depot. The small building in front of Southwicks has been a few things over the years. Most recently it was an AT&T store then a vape shop. Last spring, Jersey Giant Subs remodeled the building an opened up the sub shop.
Read more…Slap N Chicken
3942 S. Westnedge AvenueIt’s been a while since I’ve eaten out. I just haven’t felt inspired really recently and while there are new places opening up in Kalamazoo, not a lot has really grabbed my attention to the point that I needed to be there right after they opened.
There is one exception to that though. I love chicken places and I’ve always been pretty disappointed in Kalamazoo’s chicken offerings. A place on South Westnedge is trying to change that though.
Slap N Chicken opened up recently in the South Westnedge neighborhood on Westnedge Avenue near Denway Drive. If you’re coming from downtown, the restaurant really sneaks up on you. It’s in the old Papa Murphy’s location which got infinitely harder to find when TNT Pawn Brokers expanded their building and blocked view of the sign coming from the north.
Read more…Happy Poochie Eatery
325 W. Main StreetI always have a hard time finding places to eat in Benton Harbor. I’m looking a little harder when I go that way but it just seems easier to cross the river over in to St. Joseph.
I hate that way of thinking though. If I’m in Benton Harbor, I want to find as many delicious options as I can.
The hard part about finding places in Benton Harbor is that there isn’t really a city center that’s built up. Over the years, I’ve seem dramatic improvement along Main Street with those improvements have come some new restaurants in some cool old buildings.
A co-worker and I were in Benton Harbor a few weeks ago on an assignment. I was hungry and wanted to grab something quick. I got a couple restaurant recommendations from some people but those will have to wait. I was in a sandwich mood and I found a sandwich place.
Happy Poochie Eatery is right on West Main Street near 10th Street just to the west of downtown Benton Harbor. This building has been so many different restaurants over the years. A Mexican place, a hot dog place, a breakfast joint, fried fish shop. This stretch of road is how many people get from I-94 to Silver Beach. We’ve been driving it for years and every time we drive by, it seems to be something new.
Read more…Pennfield Ice Cream and Coffee
956 Capital Avenue NEIt has been a while since we took a trip to the zoo.
We’ve been members at Binder Park Zoo for several years. We usually do a few trips to the zoo in Newton Township and take advantage of the reciprocal membership by doing one big zoo trip every summer.
COVID stopped both of those. We didn’t go to Binder Park at all last year nor did we do a big zoo trip.
This past summer, the only zoo trip we did was Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago….which is free, so we didn’t need our membership.
We still hadn’t been to Binder Park Zoo since 2019 and I kind of missed it. The hours are not great right now. They close at 4:00 so that makes it a little harder to get over there after soccer gets over around 12:30.
We decided to just go. It doesn’t cost us anything so even if we only get to spend 2 1/2 hours there, it will be nice to get out of the house and walk around the zoo.
We pushed it right up to the 4:00 closing time. We had to get over to the Bears and the Snow Leopard and it was 3:55. We got our last two animals in then headed for the exit a little stressed from trying to get everything in such a short amount of time but ultimately glad we made the trip over.
The kids were….eh…ok. Not great. Still, we limited the whining by offering ice cream. They could have whined less but they whined less enough we took them for ice cream.
There aren’t a lot of ice cream places still open right now. Most closed after Labor Day. My search kept bringing back to one place that still has a month or so left in their season.
Pennfield Ice Cream & Coffee is on Capital Avenue Northeast south of Montford Street in Calhoun County’s Pennfield Township. The shop is a standalone restaurant right off the very busy Capital Avenue. The building was Fogg Motors in a former life but was converted in to an ice cream and coffee shop just before COVID hit last year.
Read more…Jersey Mike’s Subs (Kalamazoo Township)
4315 W. Main StreetI had never had a Jersey style sub before I moved to Lansing in 2008. One of the first quick food recommendations I got was for Jersey Giant Subs. I guess they were pretty popular at Michigan State University at the time. I eventually tried the one near my apartment and it was pretty easy to see why people liked these subs.
I figured Jersey Giant was something unique because, again, I had never seen subs like that before. I had no idea there are others out there and that this is a legit style of sub sandwich.
One of the big name Jersey sub shop chains opened their first Kalamazoo location a few weeks ago.
Jersey’ Mike’s Subs is on West Main Street in Kalamazoo Township near Sage Street in the strip mall on the south side of the road. Jersey Mike’s takes over for China Kitchen which had been in that location for several years.
Read more…Lefty’s Cheesesteak (Portage)
6156 S. Westnedge AvenueWhat’s a cheesesteak? Oh, there are opinions on what a true cheesesteak is. That’s a conversation I don’t weigh in to because honestly, I don’t know.
You wanna talk Chicago pizza? Or Italian beefs (seriously, don’t get me started)? Those are topics I will argue as passionately as people from Philadelphia argue about cheesesteaks.
Lucky for us, a couple of cheesesteak places just opened in the Kalamazoo area so we can start forming our own opinions.
Lefty’s Cheesesteak has opened two locations in the Kalamazoo area. One of them took over the former Moe’s Southwest Grill on Stadium Drive (don’t worry, I’ll get there soon). The other opened in the Southland Mall in Portage. This location opened first and took over an old Jimmy Johns shop sandwiched between Blaze Pizza and Noodles & Co.
Clyde’s Place
6337 Paradise TrailOne more night in Mackinaw City. We had another 14 hour day scheduled for Saturday but Friday was going to be my last night. I wanted to get home and see my family so I chose to drive the 4 1/2 hours once we got back to Mackinaw City around 9:00 Saturday night.
Friday night, we got back to the City around 7:30. I was in the mood for wings. My co-worker was in the mood for pizza so we went our separate ways again.
My plan was to finally go to the Keyhole Bar in downtown Mackinaw City but there was a pretty long wait and in a small crowded building I didn’t really want to be in. So, I looked for some place else.
That some place else took me about ten minutes south of Mackinaw City to Carp Lake.
I was really just looking for wings when I stumbled on a Google listing for Clyde’s Place.
The small bar is calls themselves “The Sportsman’s Choice.” It’s located on Paradise Trail south of Gill Road on Lake Paradise in Carp Lake Township. It’s really dark at night in the part of Michigan so it’s actually pretty easy to drive by if you’re not paying attention. An unlit sign near the road is your indication that you’ve found the right place.
Read more…Mackinac Island Brewhouse
312 S. Huron Avenue- Mackinaw City, MI 49701
- (231) 436-5940
- No Known Website
- No Online Menu
Thursday was kind of our short day while working a full week on Mackinac Island. I say short because it was only 7 hours instead of the 12-14 we had been working.
We got over to the Island on the first ferry which leaves Mackinaw City at 7:30. We did what we had to do then rushed back down to the docks for the 10:30 AM ferry just as it was starting to rain.
I still had a few hours of work to do but I could do that back in my hotel. We really wanted to beat the rain since we had to walk from the Grand Hotel to the ferry then from the ferry to our hotel in Mackinaw City.
I had plans that day. I was going to drive over to St. Ignance just to look around. I did that and got lunch at Clyde’s Drive-In. Then I was going to get fudge and some souveniers. I did that at Mackinac Island Fudge Company. I also thought I would go see a movie. I haven’t seen Shang-Chi yet and there’s apparently a small movie theater in Mackinaw City. I slept through that though. There was only one showing at 6:30 and I fell asleep watching King of the Hill around 4:00
By the time I woke up, I would have been pushing it to make it to the theater in time. I said screw it and thought I’d go check out the brewery across the street instead.
Mackinac Island Brewhouse is on Huron Street across from Conkling Heritage Park. The brewhouse is part of the larger Mackinaw Bay Trading Company complex. The building is pretty large and going by old Google maps, this part of the building used to be a Harley Davidson apparel store.
Read more…Devon’s Mackinac Island Fudge Company (Huron Street)
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502 S. Huron StreetYou have to get fudge when going to Mackianc Island….right?
I was spending a week working on Mackinac Island but staying in Mackinaw City. We really didn’t have any time at all to be tourists while on the Island. Our schedule was pretty tight taking the earliest ferry could to get there and the latest we could to get back. There really wasn’t any time to do any shopping on the Island.
Fortunately, there was a fudge shop right across the street from my hotel. There are actually several fudge shops in Mackinaw City but after trying pretty much every store on Mackinac Island, I’ve never noticed enough of a difference to find a place that is “must have.”
I ate lunch in St. Ignace on Thursday and kind of thought about just buying fudge at a place over there. I could have and actually passed a couple but I headed back to my hotel to walk across the street to the place I passed every morning on the way to the ferry.
Devon’s Mackinac Island Company fudge has a couple of locations in Mackinaw City as well as production facility across the bridge in St. Ignace. I stopped at the downtown location last time I was in Mackinaw City so this time, I went to the bigger one on Huron Street in Mackinaw Bay Trading Company.
Read more…Clyde’s Drive-In
178 US-2I’ve been coming up to Mackinaw City for work every so often for several years now. In all that time, I’ve never really stopped in St. Ignace. I drove around St. Ignace a couple of times but I’ve never stopped at any place other than a gas station or even went to check out what the downtown had to offer.
I got off work pretty early on Day 4 of our trip to Mackinac Island. We caught the first ferry over to the Island at 7:30 then caught the 10:30 back. I still had some work to finish up but I did so in my hotel room. I clocked out for the day at about 2:00 giving me the rest of the afternoon to explore and nap.
It was a rainy crappy day so I didn’t get to do any of the things I actually wanted to do. I was determined to cross the Mackinac Bridge for lunch though and at least drive around St. Ignace to see what I’m missing out on.
I chose Clyde’s Drive-In for lunch. It’s not in downtown St. Ignace but it looked interesting.
Clyde’s Drive in is on US-2 just west of the I-75 interchange just west of the city limits. The drive-in is pretty standard drive in from a bygone era. There is a large canopy in front of a small building. Almost all of the stalls were full when I pulled in right around 2:30 on a Thursday afternoon.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 