Mario’s Pizza
16170 Red Arrow HighwayYeah…the Safer At Home order has been lifted. Yeah…restaurants are open for dine-in service. No…we’re not ready to do a lot of the things we enjoyed in the before time yet.
My brother called me about a week ago asking if we’d like to meet somewhere for a hike with his family and my parents. We’re always up for hikes now so I started looking for something in Berrien County that would be easy for my family to find.
I found Warren Woods State Park somewhere between Three Oaks and Union Pier. We hiked for a little under an hour and a half then found our way back to the parking lot. I had planned on ordering pizza then just eating in the parking lot at Warren Woods but there were a lot of mosquitos hanging around the parking area so we all loaded up and went in to Union Pier to find a place to sit and eat.
I stuck with the pizza plan and put in an order to Mario’s Pizza back in Union Pier. I assumed we could find a park or someplace to sit and eat in town but that was a pretty bad assumption.
Mario’s Pizza is on Red Arrow Highway in the main business area of the small unincorporated community of Union Pier. The restaurant is in a small strip mall a few other business south of the intersection with Townline Road and that is VERY important information right now. Red Arrow Highway and Townline Road are both tore up with construction right now and moving from I-94 to the beach is impossible. The detour is very poorly marked and there are really no local roads nearby that that can get you from one side of the construction to the other. The data on my phone wasn’t working so I was having a hard time with maps so I parked on the west side of downtown figuring it was in the business area but that’s not the case. It’s a little further south of what I guess you could call “downtown” so we had to get in the car and drive out of Union Pier to find a road that would get us back to Red Arrow Highway..;.all the while dodging people who were literally walking in the middle of the road with no regard for the traffic back up behind them.
Scott’s Pig Roast
Food TruckOh man. Lunchtime Live is back in downtown Kalamazoo. I hadn’t seen anything advertising that it was coming back but I came in to work a little bit later on Friday morning and the food trucks were lined up on the north side of South Street.
I dropped my stuff off at the office then walked over to the park to see what new trucks joined the party this year. At first glance, it appeared there were more new ones than returning ones so I’m going to have a lot to try this year.
I picked Scott’s Pig Roast for my lunch on this particular Friday.
Scott’s Pig Roast is a bright yellow truck based out of Marcellus. It’s not too hard to figure out what kind of food they’re cooking up in this truck. There’s a pig in a smoker right in the logo.
Scooter’s Malt Shoppe
8399 36th StreetIce cream and hikes. If you could sum up our “quarantine” it’s been ice cream and hikes.
I put in a lot of hours a couple of weeks ago and desperately needed a few days off. On top of the long hours, I had been on my feet a lot. Both of my heels were blistered and bloody from the long hours.
J has been doing hikes with the kids almost every day. I sat out Saturday’s walk but started feeling guilty about sitting out another one. I started looking for some place easy and some place short. Bonus points if was near an ice cream spot.
I picked Scotts Mill County Park. I had never been there and had no idea what the actual trails were like. It didn’t look very big and most importantly, there was ice cream nearby.
The Village of Scotts is only couple miles from the park and even though it’s pretty tiny, they have an ice cream shop….but not just a regular boring ice cream shop. They have a throwback soda fountain in Scooters Malt Shop. Read more…
Moo Moo’s Ice Cream Joint
57810 Murray Street #8807Things are slowly getting back to normal. I hate the phrase “new normal” so I won’t use it but slowly, cautiously, we’re starting to do more things again.
A couple of weeks ago, my mom asked if we could meet somewhere in southwest Michigan for a hike. J and the kids have been doing hikes almost everyday around Kalamazoo and my parents thought that looked kind of fun. We hadn’t seen each other since the middle of February and my parents really wanted to see the kids.
We met at Galien River County Park just outside of New Buffalo. We hiked the trails there then ran in to town to pick up carry-out from The Stray Dog. We found a place to eat at the Township Hall across the street from the park then went back to the park and hiked some more.
My parents were really happy they finally got to see the kids again and the kids were just as happy to see Grandma and Papa.
It was a pretty exhausting day so I promised the kids we’d stop for ice cream on the way home. B fell asleep for a little while in his car seat so I took my promise all the way back to Mattawan before waking him up for a treat.
We picked Moo Moo’s Ice Cream Joint in downtown Mattawan. The small ice cream shop is in kind of a weird commercial building right next to the Mattawan Memorial Park. The red facade and black awning among the dull tan siding surround it makes this place super easy to spot
Lakeshore Market
9119 S. Sprinkle RoadA Facebook page was started when the Safer at Home order went in to place as a for people looking for restaurants to support knew who was open. Man, I wish I had had this idea because the Kalamazoo Menu Facebook pagehas exploded.
I’m not gonna lie, there has been more than one occasion where J and I have seen something on that page and decided where we were going to order dinner that night. Sometimes it comes from customers..sometimes it comes from the restaurant or the restaurant staff.
One of the few places that I’ve found because of that group is Lakeshore Market. I’ve always known about the small convenience store on the south side of Portage but thanks to this group, I just found out about some delicious food that has recently started being served out of a small kitchen in the back.
Lakeshore Market is on South Sprinkle Road where the road runs between Long Lake and Austin Lake on the far south side of Portage. The market itself has been there for quite a while. I’ve passed it several times on my travels but I never knew there was a deli inside.
Chicken House
12443 East D AvenueHi! I’m still here. I’m still eating out… a lot. It just feels weird writing blogs for places that I can’t get the whole experience for.
There are still some places that are operating somewhat normal. Places that are strictly carry-out haven’t changed much. We’ve eaten at a few of those.
A couple of weekends ago, J saw a Facebook post about a greenhouse in Comstock Township doing a big sale of hanging baskets that a wholesale buyer ended up not buying due to the pandemic. They were pretty cheap so she suggested we go grab a couple for us and a couple for her mom.
We all piled in the car and J asked if there was someplace east of Kalamazoo we could pick up lunch. It was a little out of the way but we had been hearing about a chicken place on Gull Lake that we finally had an excuse to try.
Chicken House is on East D Avenue just to the west of Gull Lake Drive on the very southern tip of Gull Lake just outside of Richland. The building is tiny. It was an ice cream place for several years before the people that brought you Kitchen House in Richland opened a chicken sandwich shop just as this pandemic was going global.
So…it’s been a while
The Stay Home, Stay Safe really changed things really quickly. The first few weeks, we didn’t think it was going to last long but now it’s looking like this is going to be around for quite a while.
We’ve still been eating out. J and I are fortunate that we both are still working. I’m considered an essential worker. I leave the house every day for my job. J manages her department for a company that is considered essential so she spends most of her day on Zoom and phone calls working from home.
We’ve had daycare expenses cut to zero and that’s a huge chunk of money. We’ve taken that extra money and tried to spread it around to as many restaurants as we can.
We’ve been eating out at least 6 meals awake. Some weeks it’s been 7 or 8.
We’re finding a lot of places that we had forgotten about. There are several places we haven’t eaten at in 10 years that we order from and the question each other about why we’ve never been back there. We’re making a list of places that we need to go get a meal at once this over and write some new, updated blog posts.
Last week, J said I should have been blogging this whole time about our “quarantine meals” (yes, I know this isn’t actually a quarantine) and damn, I wish she would have thought of that sooner.
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and it will probably be a little while longer before I blog again. Hopefully this fall we can get back to somewhat normal and all eat at our favorite restaurants again.
Until then, keep doing carry-out. Keep ordering. Keep these favorites alive. And, of course, be safe and be well.
The Butler
40 Butler StreetI’m still going to work every day. Not much has changed for me. J, on the other hand, is working mostly from home. She goes in to the office occasionally if she has a big print job or needs to get things signed by her boss but for the most part, she’s riding this pandemic out at home with the kids.
By Saturday, J really wants to get out of the house. We’re really limited in what we can do. I’m doing all the grocery shopping since I’m out every day anyway so that’s not even a way to get her out of the house.
We got a new car right before all of this started and for the first time, we have WiFi and a DVD system in the vehicle. J figured just taking a drive was better than sitting at home and the kids would be entertained.
We just started driving west with no particular place to go. I was sort of heading towards Saugatuck because I knew it would be a pretty good drive. I figured we could call in a carry-out to someplace there and then sit at the beach for a little bit if it wasn’t crowded.
We got to town and headed to a gas station to fill up. I noticed The Butler was still open so I had J call in an order while I filled up and got candy for the kids.
The Butler has been in downtown Saugatuck since the 1960’s. It’s one of those quintessential tourist town on the lake restaurants. They have outdoor patios that look over Lake Kalamazoo and the boardwalk and a large dining room for those busy summer nights when downtown Saugatuck is bustling.
Rollup Ice Cream & Tea
3262 Stadium DriveGetting out and getting exercise is one of the few things we can still do while we’re under this Stay At Home, Stay Safe Executive order. We’ve taken a few walks in our neighborhood and yelled conversations at the neighbors from across the street but we really wanted to get out of the house.
We got the kids up and headed out to Asylum Lake. We figured if we went in the morning, there would be even less people there and we were right.
The kids loved exploring the Preserve. They had to climb every downed tree we came across and both of them were muddy five minutes into our walk.
We promised the kids a treat after we got done with our hike and used it as a bribe to get back in the car. There’s an ice cream place that just opened and they’re still doing carry-out.
Rollup Ice Cream & Tea is on Stadium Drive in the Stadium Shoppes strip mall. Their location is kind of hidden by the Air Force recruiting center and the building near the road the houses Biggby Coffee. The location has been pizza places in the past. At one time it was a Gumby’s Pizza and after that, a Jasper’s. Most recently, it was a vape shop.
Gala-T-Inn
65108 Red Arrow HighwayThe next few blog posts are going to be a little weird. If you’re reading this as I post them, you know what we’re living under with the Stay-At-Home order. If you find this in the future, remember that time when everything was shut down? This is when we found the Gala-T-Inn.
J is working from home but my job still requires me to go in for at least part of the day. As many of you are learning, working from home with children is not easy and, in fact, pretty stressful.
The end of the first week of staying at home was getting to J. We had just gotten a new car and we needed to take a drive to make sure everything was alright with it. J noticed on Facebook Journeyman Distillery was holding fundraiser for their employees. We decided to take the long way to Three Oaks so the kids could watch a movie in the car…we finally got car with a built in DVD player and everyone is super excited.
We grabbed a couple of bottles of whiskey from their curb side service. We then started heading home with a new movie in the DVD player.
I asked J if pizza was OK for dinner again. There’s a place in Hartford I’ve really been wanting to go to and it was on the way home. The pizza always looks so good on their Facebook page.
Gala-T-Inn is just outside of the Hartford village limits on the west side of town. The small restaurant is on Red Arrow Highway near 65th Street in Hartford Township. It’s really easy to spot. There’s a giant chef with a pizza in his hand right in the front of the building. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 