Cops and Doughnuts – Headquarters
521 N. McEwan StreetI had to make the trip to Mackinac Island for work again this past weekend but I wasn’t in a super big hurry to get there.
I worked part of the morning in Kalamazoo before I left. My colleague was working on something that I helped him out with then I left for Mackinaw City around 11:30.
I get bored taking the same route all the time so this time, I decided to go up US-127. It’s only a few minutes longer and it would give me a change of scenery.
I realized I was going to be driving right past Clare on this trip. I’ve seen the signs for years and even stopped at the Mt. Pleasant Cops and Doughnuts location but this time, I’d actually get a chance to stop at the original.
Cops and Doughnuts Headquarters is in downtown Clare on McEwan Street south of 5th Street. The Clare City Bakery actually takes up three storefronts on the west side of the road. The original bakery had been in operation since the late 1800’s. When they were about to close in 2009, the entire Clare Police Department banded together to save the bakery and Cops and Doughnuts was born. Since that time, the bakery has expanded with locations in Mt. Pleasant, Gaylord, and Bay City plus some “substations” which sell the donuts at various retail stores and restaurants throughout northern Michigan.
Whitehouse Restaurant
613 N. McEwan StreetIt’s that time of the year again. I have to go to Mackinac Island for a few days for work.
This isn’t like the spring trip though. Instead of four days, I’m only gone two.
I left work Thursday morning a little before noon. I did some work with my office mate then left him to finish things up while I made the drive.
I’ve made this drive so many times over the last several years that I tend to get bored with it. I’ve been changing it up some and not always going through Grand Rapids and Cadillac.
This trip, I decided to take I-94 to US-127 to I-75.
I didn’t really have a reason for doing this but it did give me a chance to explore some more restaurant options.
I knew I wanted to stop in Clare either on the way there or on the way home to pick up donuts from Cops and Doughnuts. I figured I should probably look around Clare to see what the restaurant options were since I was pulling off the highway anyway.
I ended up finding this amazing diner that was nowhere near my radar. I’ve never heard of this place. Never seen it on any best of lists in Michigan. That’s really surprising to me.
I stopped at the Whitehouse Restaurant on McEwan Street north of Fifth Street in downtown Clare. The restaurant is a tiny white restaurant that looks out of place on the street. It’s been there since 1935 with the neon sign out front that just says “Open Hamburgers.”
Read more…American Char
6394 Adams StreetSkating competition days can be long. B had four events at Skate the Lakeshore at Griff’s IceHouse West in Holland this past Saturday.
The first event was until 12:30 so we didn’t have to get up too early. We left Kalamazoo around 9:00 AM and stopped at Dunkin’ along the way to get breakfast.
The first three events were all pretty close together. He had a break from about 2:30 PM to 5:45 PM though which isn’t totally unusual at these competitions.
B didn’t want to leave the rink. He was hanging out with friends so I ran to Jimmy Johns down the street to get him lunch. I screwed up though because I got distracted as I was ordering and forgot to leave the mayo off the sandwich. He powered through most of it and didn’t ask for anything the rest of the day.
On the way home, he asked if he could get something else to eat. I asked what and he said he didn’t care. McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell. Whatever.
I told him I wanted to stop for BBQ along the way and then we could hit the Taco Bell in Wayland for him.
I headed west from Holland going back towards US-131 but I didn’t take the most direct route. There’s a BBQ place in Zeeland Township that I have been wanting to stop at for a really long time but it seems like every time I drive by, it’s closed.
That BBQ restaurant is American Char. It’s on the corner of Adams Street and 6th Avenue in the unincorporated area of Zeeland Township known as Drenthe. The building looks a little out of place until you realize this was once a home with an ice cream parlor attached to it. The add on looks very added on but less so now that the BBQ place has done some renovation making it look more like the Southern BBQ restaurants that you’re accustomed to.
Griff’s IceHouse West
4444 Holland AvenueThere’s only been one instance where I’ve had to take a kid to a figure skating competition by myself. That was L’s first year skating. J was pretty sick and couldn’t make the trip up to Traverse City so I took L.
We figured most of it out. I did her hair which is kind of amazing. The only hiccup was once she put on one of her dresses, it didn’t look right. Neither of us realized she put it on backwards. She didn’t go on the ice like that. She just changed into a different dress but we both felt pretty silly afterwards when we figured it out.
J and L were in Salt Lake City this past weekend for the National Solo Dance finals at the Salt Lake City Sports Complex. B is in his first year of Solo Dance and only competed a handful of competitions. He didn’t qualify.
He was pretty bummed about not getting to go to Salt Lake. I noticed there was a Michigan Basic Skills competition in Holland the same weekend. His coaches were taking a group of skaters so I signed him up for that.
Skate the Lakeshore was hosted by the Lake Effect Figure Skating Club at Griff’s IceHouse West outside of Holland. The rink is on Holland Avenue and Ransom Road north of the City of Holland in Holland Township. The building sits kind of on the edge of an industrial complex east of US-31.
Read more…Dunkin’ (Otsego)
1314 M-89J and L were in Salt Lake City for the US Figure Skating National Solo Dance Finals. B and I were at home in Kalamazoo.
B did a few Solo Dance competitions this year but he was nowhere near the top let alone in a position to qualify for Nationals. It was kind of a testing the waters year for him to see if he was interested in pursuing solo dance or not.
At least that was our perspective. He doesn’t look at anything that way though. He thought he was going to qualify.
He didn’t. He had a really good season but he was kind of learning as he goes. Next year will be his year.
He wanted to skate this past weekend though and there was a competition in Holland that our coaches were going to. I asked if he wanted to do that instead. Of course, he said yes.
We got up around 9:00 to make the drive over to Holland. His first event was at 12:20, but I wanted to get him there to watch some of his friends skate earlier.
We can’t go to a competition without getting breakfast though. L usually wants Starbucks on her way to the rink. B, on the other hand, is more of a Dunkin’ guy.
Of course, he asked for Dunkin’ before we left the house. It was kind of backtracking to go to the 9th Street Dunkin’ and it was still a little out of the way to go to the new Main Street one. I figured we’d just go cross country to Holland and stop in Otsego.
The Dunkin’ in Otsego is M-89 near 12th Street Otsego. The building is a new build in front of the Walmart. This was the talk of the town…or at least the Facebook pages… when it opened back in February of this year.
Read more…Krispy Krunchy Chicken (Douglas Ave)
1114 Douglas AvenueMy trip to Salt Lake City was super quick. I was in town just about 20 hours before I had to head back to Michigan.
I got back to Grand Rapids a little after midnight Friday morning. I made a stop at Speedway in Wayland for something to eat and got to bed around 1:30 AM back in Kalamazoo.
My alarm went off at 7:30 AM as it usually does on weekdays. I still had to get B up and on the bus then I had a 12 hour work day ahead of me.
I was dragging quite a bit throughout the day. My colleague and I had an assignment out in the northwest part of the city in the afternoon. When we got done, I desperately needed to find something to eat. My plan was just to come back down Douglas Avenue to Main Street then hit downtown Shell station to pick up some chicken.
My plans changed as I was driving down Douglas and saw a new but familiar sign.
The Marathon gas station on the corner of Douglas Avenue and Alamo had a sign for a Krispy Krunchy Chicken. You know how much I like gas station chicken and I’ve been seeing these Krispy Krunchy Chicken’s pop up all over Southwest Michigan. This is the first one I’ve seen in Kalamazoo though but I’ve heard there is a second one on Lake Street.
Read more…In-N-Out Burger (South Salt Lake)
28 E. 2100 SouthI didn’t have much time in Utah.
I was in Salt Lake City for the US Figure Skating National Solo Dance finals at the Salt Lake City Sports Complex.
I was only going to be in town for about 20 hours. I flew in Wednesday night, my daughter competed Thursday morning, and I was back on a plane Thursday evening heading towards Grand Rapids.
When J picked me up from the airport Wednesday night, she already had an In-N-Out Burger in her GPS. I asked if we could hold off on that until Thursday because I wanted to hit a Crown Burgers in downtown on our way back to the hotel.
Thursday, L competed at 8:00 AM and 10 AM. Her event was over around 11:00 and she got her medal for second in the nation around 11:30.
I didn’t have to be back to the airport until later in the afternoon so at that point, I asked J if I could go to In-N-Out Burger. She wanted to get L something to eat anyway so the two of us left the rink for a while to go pick up lunch.
We headed towards the In-N-Out Burger on 2100 South east of Main Street in South Salt Lake. This location is fairly new having been built in the last couple of years. This whole area has actually been rebuilt and commercialized in the last ten years. The area is anchored by a WinCo Foods store. After that was built, several national chains moved in to the spaces surrounding it. This In-N-Out Burger is on the northside of the building on a parcel of land that used to be a two story office building.
Salt Lake City Sports Complex
645 S. Guardsman WayThursday was competition day.
L qualified for the US Figure Skating National Solo Dance Finals for the third straight year. This year, the competition was the West Coast Regions turn to host and the event was award to the Intermountain Interclub Association in Salt Lake City, UT
We got really lucky the first year because the competition was in Chicago and we could drive. Last year, it was in Tampa. I wasn’t able to go because I didn’t have enough time off work. This year, I got lucky and found a way I could spend about 20 hours in Salt Lake City, only use two vacation days, and still get back to Kalamazoo for my long shift on Friday.
I flew out of Grand Rapids around 2:30 on Wednesday. Got to Salt Lake around 7:30, stopped at Crown Burgers for dinner then hit the hotel to get some sleep. We were up around 5:30 on Thursday morning. L competed at 8:00 AM and I was back on a flight to Grand Rapids at 5:30.
It was a really long week but totally worth it. L finished on the podium for the first time placing 2nd and bringing home the national silver medal.
The competition was held at the Salt Lake City Sports Complex near the campus of the University of Utah. The complex is on Guardsman Way north of East Sunnyside Avenue. The facility is multipurpose with two Olympic size ice sheets, two Olympic sized pools, and a fitness center. The Complex is run by Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation and was the official training site for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Read more…Crown Burgers (City Center)
118 North 300 WestI hate flying. I hate not being in control.
My flight from Grand Rapids to Salt Lake, with a connection in Dallas, was actually pretty uneventful and on time.
I got to Salt Lake right on time around 7:30. J was still awake and not doing anything so she said she’d come pick me up instead of me having to pay for an Uber.
It took me about a half hour to get off the plane and make my way from the Terminal B to the passenger pick up lane. I walked outside just as J was pulling up to the curb.
She had put in an address for an In-N-Out Burger on the way back to the hotel. I told her that was a good idea but let’s do In-N-Out tomorrow. I had an idea for dinner that night. We put in the address for a Salt Lake City fast food chain instead.
Crown Burgers is a small chain of eight restaurants in and around Salt Lake. We chose the one in the City Centre on the corner of North 300 W (John Stockton Drive) and North Temple. The chain has been around since the late 70’s after being started by two Greek immigrant brothers. This location, on a busy corner in the downtown area, has it’s own parking and a pretty unique design for a fast food restaurant.
Read more…Bell’s Tap and Table
5500 44th Street SE, Terminal BI’m sure you’ve followed along all year as we’ve traveled all over the Midwest for figure skating.
We travel….a lot.
The season is wrapping up now and L qualified for the National Solo Dance Finals in Salt Lake City, UT. She would compete on Thursday morning and Sunday morning.
J and L flew out of Kalamazoo Tuesday morning and will come home Sunday night. I don’t have that many days off plus we still have B at home. He didn’t qualify this year and we weren’t going to pull him out of school for four days since he wasn’t competing.
I really wanted to get out to Utah because she had a really, really good shot at finishing on the podium at Nationals for the first time (spoiler alert, she finished 2nd!!).
The way I could make that work was by flying out of Grand Rapids Wednesday afternoon, watch her skate Thursday morning, then get back on plane Thursday evening so I could get back to work.
I opted not to take the 6 AM flight because, again, B was at home. I needed to get him to school. My parents were coming to stay with him but they couldn’t get there until later in the day on Wednesday.
I took a 2:30 PM flight out of Grand Rapids and as anyone who has traveled with me will tell you, I’m one of those airport dads. The thought of showing up at the last minute fills me with anxiety.
I knew I didn’t have to be there super early, but I was sitting at home falling asleep on the couch watching TV. I decided just to head to Grand Rapids and get through security then find something to eat.
Gerald R. Ford International Airport actually has some really good food options. I was heading to Terminal A which has a Uccello’s, a Freddy’s Frozen Custard, and a bar called Aletitude. They also have a Founder’s Brewing restaurant right past TSA.
All of those would have been fine but I went with something a little more familiar to me.
I headed over to Terminal B, again, just because I had enough time to do so to find Bell’s Tap and Table.
Bell’s Tap and Table is located in Terminal B near Gate B inside the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids. The restaurant is managed by HMSHost, which is normal at airports, and serves up Bell’s beer alongside a small menu of fairly quick bites. It opened back in January of this year.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 