Big Lick Ice Cream
230 Adams StreetNo adventure can end without ice cream…..right?
We took a little road trip last weekend to check out The Dragon Trail on Hardy Pond in Newaygo County. We’ve really taken a liking to hiking during this pandemic and we’re starting to explore and seek out new trails the way we used to do that with breweries.
We did about two hour hike before heading in to Newaygo for lunch. We picked up our meal and some drinks from Newaygo Brewing Company then headed out to Riverside Park to eat. The kids know playgrounds are still off limits for us and have just come to accept that. They did so well between a long, hot hike and lunch, we decided ice cream was in store before we headed back towards Grand Rapids.
There are a couple of ice cream shops in Newaygo but I headed towards the one on the south side of town since that’s the way we would be heading.
Big Lick Ice Cream is on Adams Street…which is also M-37…near Jefferson Street. This building was put up several years ago in what used to be an empty parking lot next to a Dairy Queen. That old Dairy Queen building is now a Little Caesars.
Newaygo Brewing Company
19 State RoadThe COVID-19 Pandemic has really changed how we do things. One of the really great things that has come out of this for us is we’re getting outside a lot more. We started going on hikes back in March because we needed to get out of the house and that was one of the few things still allowed.
J has really ran with the hike thing. Once restrictions lifted, she started meeting some friends at the trails so the kids could see some other kids. Hikes became much more regular and J was going almost every night.
Things slowed down when temperatures got in to the 90’s but it was much cooler and nicer last weekend. J had seen a news story for a hiking trail that just opened in Newaygo County and thought it looked like a good place to take a road trip.
The Dragon Trail is a 47 mile hiking and biking trail that wraps around Hardy Pond in Big Prairie Township near Newaygo. There’s only a few sections open right now accessible from Sandy Beach County Park. There are several miles open so J really wanted to do a long hike.
We did a couple of hours, took a lot of pictures, and even dipped our feet in the water at the beach. It was a little before 2:00 when we finished and none of us had eaten since we stopped at McDonalds for breakfast on the way up.
I checked Newaygo Brewing’s website to see if they were open. Not only were they open, they had online ordering so I picked what I wanted, handed my phone to J, then we headed in to Newaygo to pick up our food.
Newaygo Brewing Company is right in downtown Newaygo on State Road. The main entrance seems to be on backside of the building where there’s a parking lot. That’s where the GPS takes you anyway. I decided to stay on State Road and see if I could find parallel parking in front. Newaygo Brewing did quite a bit of work to this building when they moved in several years ago. Just from the outside, they cleaned up the facade, opened up the upstairs window, and put a new coat of paint. It really brought this old building back to life.
Sparks BBQ (Grand Rapids)
15 Ionia Avenue SW, #140There are days I miss exploring the Grand Rapids Metro area for new restaurants. Not very often…but there are days when I hear co-workers talking about the great new place they ate at last night.
I still have days in Grand Rapids and there are actually times every couple of months that I volunteer to work a shift or two in Kent County just for a change of scenery. I got a couple of those days last week.
There aren’t a lot of places I’m itching to go right now due to the shut down but I’m good with places that really have carry-out down. BBQ is an easy carry-out and there just happened to be a BBQ place downtown that I have been wanting to try for quite some time now.
Sparks BBQ opened their Grand Rapids location on Ionia Avenue earlier this year. They’re in the very heavily trafficked section of Ionia just south of Fulton Street. They’re in the building that was previously Lucky Luciano’s Pizza and Georgio’s Pizza next to Hopcat. This is actually Sparks BBQ’s second location after starting as a food truck in the Traverse City area. They opened a brick and mortar store there in 2016.
Papa Mineo’s Pizza
165 W. Superior StreetThere are actually some times I miss working in Grand Rapids. Those days are never in the winter but in the summer time, I do miss rolling the windows down, cranking the air conditioning and listening to a podcast on my way up and down US-131.
There are still times I volunteer for shifts in Grand Rapids just for a change of pace. There are also times I think I’m working out of the office in Kalamazoo and they call me in the middle of the afternoon to say I’m needed to fill in for someone up there. Last Tuesday was one of the latter.
I did actually volunteer to work a couple of shifts in Grand Rapids last week (and we’ll get to those in an additional blog) but Tuesday was not one of those days. I got a call about 12:30 asking if I could drive up to GR to finish my shift.
I don’t love hanging J out to dry with dinner without notice but she was fine. She had a haircut appointment with B so they weren’t going to be home around dinnertime anyway. She said she’d just order out for her and the kids. I could have got what they go but I decided to just stop on my way home.
I was in the mood for pizza and there’s a pizza place in Dorr I wanted to try. They had an hour wait though and I didn’t want to wait that long so I checked to see if there were any pizza places in Wayland I didn’t know about.
What do you know? There was!
I used slicelife.com and put in an order at Papa Mineo’s. I had never heard of this place but they were in a familiar location. I kept things simple with 16″ thin crust pepperoni and sausage pizza. I paid the $14 tab online then made the 20 minute drive to Wayland where my pizza was just coming out of the oven.
Papa Mineo’s is on Superior Street in what could be considered downtown Wayland. It’s just to the west of Main Street. There’s a building there with a large parking lot that also houses an ice cream shop and a party store. I’ve been in this building more than once. It was a Wing Kingz and Stefano’s Pizzeria.
El Ranchero
4315 Portage StreetSo…ya’ll know I like tacos right. I think I’ve made that pretty clear.
Co-worker and I needed to make a trip to Vicksburg from downtown Kalamazoo late last week. The quickest way was to just drive down Portage Road. I really wasn’t hungry on the way down there but we pass El Ranchero on the way there and I really needed a particular spice I can only seem to find at Mexican grocery stores. We had a little bit of time to spare on the way back so I told co-worker I needed something and whipped in to the lot.
El Ranchero sits on the corner of Portage Road and Kilgore right near the I-94 interchange in Kalamazoo’s Milwood neighborhood. The store is quite large because it was Vermulen’s furniture store for many many years. The grocery store came in late last year after moving from a spot further down Portage Road. This location tripled the size of their business.
Kelvin & Co. Urban BBQ (Portage)
7083 S. Westnedge AvenueI’ve mentioned how much I love BBQ…right? Yeah..I’m sure I’ve mentioned it once or twice.
There always seems to only be a couple good options for BBQ at any one time in Kalamazoo. I’m not complaining about that. When I moved here ten years ago, I don’t think there were any good options. Between food trucks and a couple fabulous brick and mortar restaurants, there’s always good BBQ somewhere in town.
One of the constants when it has come to BBQ the last few years has been Kelvin & Company. Yeah, they’ve had issues with locations in downtown Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids’ Eastown but it’s never been a product issue. It was building issues in both of those locations.
Not long before the original Downtown Kalamazoo location was shut down, they opened restaurant not too far from my house in Oshtemo. It’s worked out great during the pandemic as we have ordered either for carry-out or UberEats delivery from them several times.
In the Before Times, Kelvin & Company opened another location. This time in Portage on South Westnedge. The restaurant is a little hard to find if you’re not looking for it. It’s near the intersection with Romence Road behind the Texas Roadhouse. You have to turn in to the Sam’s Club access drive from Westnedge to find it in a small strip shopping center facing the Sam’s parking lot.
Small Town Sandwich Shop
909 W. Savidge StreetI had no idea my colleague was going to be off this past Friday. I went in to work expecting a normal day when I got a call from the home office in Grand Rapids. The guy I usually work with in Kalamazoo had taken a vacation day and I was needed to work with a colleague out of the GR office.
The day started simple enough, I met him in Dorr for our first task. I thought we’d just head in to Grand Rapids after that but we got rerouted to the lakeshore for task number two.
We ended up in Grand Haven around 1:30. I was really tempted to take the long way home and pick up BBQ from American Char in Drenthe, but I figured I shouldn’t go out of my way so I went the normal way back to Grand Rapids using M-104 back to I-96.
I had originally planned to just stop at the Wesco and get popcorn for lunch because, honestly, who doesn’t love Wesco popcorn? That was the plan at least until I crossed the bridge in to Spring Lake and something else caught my attention.
Small Town Sandwich Shop is just that. It’s a small town sandwich shop right on the western edge of Spring Lake just before you hit US-31. The address is actually on Savidge Street which actually is kind of a weird street in that area. Somehow, Savidge Street runs on both sides of the small building and is connected to each other with Savidge Court. Whatever the weird map logistics are, it’s easy to see from M-104.
The Big Dipper
104 E. Eliza StreetLeaving Nana and Grandpa’s house is hard.
J has been working from home since March and since working from home could really be done from anywhere, she took the kids down to her parents in St. Joseph County for a long weekend. It was hot so the kids could swim in Nana and Grandpa during the day while J hung out in the basement doing what she needed to do for work.
I, of course, still had to go in to my job everyday so they went without me. J decided to stay until Saturday night and told me to just come down when I got off work on Friday. Her dad had something he needed to do on Sunday without the kids around so we swam all day Saturday then headed home around dinner time.
We weren’t really hungry for dinner and the kids were sad about leaving the lake. J suggested ice cream and wouldn’t ya know it? There’s an ice cream place on our way home.
The Bigger Dipper is on the corner of Eliza and Grand Streets in downtown Schoolcraft. It’s easy to spot at the last light out of town if you’re heading south on US-131 towards the state line. It’s a small white building with very little signage but one of those big tow behind message boards sits out front letting you know it’s open.
Grub ‘N Stuff
701 Riverview DriveIt used to be you couldn’t tell me much about a restaurant because chances are, I had already been there before you. That was in the before times. In COVID times, a fantastic Facebook group popped up to help people find new food and places that were open for take out during the shutdown.
The Kalamazoo Menu Facebook group has really opened us up to places we either hadn’t been or hadn’t been to in a while.
One of the places I started seeing a lot about was Grub ‘N Stuff. I had seen this place open up on Riverview Drive before the shutdown but hadn’t gotten there yet. They stayed open and did carry-out and the pictures people were posting were pretty fantastic looking.
Grub ‘N Stuff is the newest business on the corner of Riverview Drive and Hotop Avenue. This small, well used building has been a number of business over the years but they always seem to have one thing in common. It’s typically a soul food or BBQ joint. This newest iteration keeps that tradition alive serving smoked BBQ, fried fish, chicken, and a handful of sandwiches. Read more…
Load A Spud Potato Bar (Kalamazoo)
2624 W. Michigan AvenueWe’re slowly venturing out…but still….not really. We still want to try new places…but only if they offer take-out.
We met my family near Three Oaks for a hike at Warren Woods State Park a few weeks ago. We did pizza for lunch and let the kids hang out with their cousins for the first time since February. By the time we got home, it was getting close to dinner time and neither of us really wanted to put much effort into getting everyone fed.
We had both heard about Load A Spud Potato Bar in the Campus Pointe Shopping Mall. They had just done a soft opening but word spread pretty quickly about this new baked potato bar.
Load A Spud is on the south side of the Campus Pointe Mall on the Michigan Avenue side. They didn’t have a sign up yet so it was a little tough to find but it’s in the space that used to be USA Nails. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 