Bates Burgers (Livonia)
33406 Five Mile RoadThree days in a row I had to drive to the Detroit area for work.
I was a little surprised when I got in to work on Thursday and was told we were heading to Wayne County. I was going with my co-worker from Kalamazoo this time so I didn’t have to meet anyone in Lansing like I had the previous two nights.
I, of course, was tired after a couple of long days of work knowing that this one was also going to be a long day.
I wasn’t planning on buying lunch but sometimes you pass a building and it just strikes you. You have to eat there. That happened to me as we were driving through Livonia.
We came to the intersection of Five Mile and Farmington Roads and right across from me I saw a little white building on the corner. I knew I had to stop.
Bates Burgers has been on that corner of Five Mile and Farmington in Livonia since the late 1950’s. It kind of looks like a White Castle and serves a similar menu of sliders. Everything in the building is original and it’s still owned by the Bates family. I have actually heard of this place before but had never sought it out. The fact that it was right in front of me as I was driving through Livonia was a happy accident.
Read more…IHOP (Grand Ledge)
7800 W. Grand River Highway Wednesday was a long day in the middle of a long week. I had to go to Detroit three times for work last week which all but guarantees me at least a 10 hour work day.
We got a little bit of a later start on Wednesday. I didn’t meet my co-worker in Lansing until 11:30. That gave my time to stop at Horrocks for a couple of slices of pizza.
I didn’t eat the rest of the day. We were so busy from the time we left Lansing until the time we got back, I didn’t have time to stop to get anything to eat.
I was planning on just grabbing a Pepsi from a gas station and eating when I got home but then I realized, we didn’t really have anything at home either.
If I was going to eat, I was going to have to grab something.
I meet co-workers from Lansing at the Carpool lot on Grand River Highway right off I-96. That area is technically Grand Ledge and there are couple of truck stops there. It was after 9:00 by the time we got back so I figured my best options would be something from one of those truck stops.
I chose the IHOP at the Flying J Truck Stop on Grand River Highway west of the interchange with I-96. The restaurant is part of the trucks stop but you can really only see it from the east side of the building. I had to get gas and when I pulled up to the pumps, I actually didn’t even see it. I knew it was there because of the signage. I just assumed it was totally inside but once I drove around the building, I saw the entrance on the side of the building.
Horrocks Farm Market (Lansing)
7420 Saginaw HighwayJ and I first moved to Michigan in 2008. J had gotten a job in Lansing and I was disgruntled enough at my job that I decided to move with her. We had only been dating a few months but I think we saw where this was going.
I didn’t work for quite a while after moving to Lansing. I was able to pick up freelance work and made enough money to cover bills and have a little extra for spending.
Saturday’s were our shopping days. J worked second shift so most days were us sleeping in late, lounging around until lunch time then she’d head off to work in the afternoon. I’d do some small runs to the nearby Meijer but our big shopping trips were always on Saturday’s.
We lived on the Lansing/Holt border but we liked to do our shopping in Delta Township. We’d first go to Horrocks then whatever we couldn’t get there, we’d go to Walmart and finish up.
We moved to Kalamazoo about a year and a half later and our shopping habits changed. There was no Horrocks in Kalamazoo. There was one in Battle Creek but it was too far for a weekly shopping trip. We just started shopping at Meijer.
Needless to say, we really missed Horrocks.
We don’t get back to Delta Township anymore so it has been years since I’ve been there. When I meet colleagues for work trips to Detroit, we always meet at the carpool lot on Grand River Avenue in Grand Ledge so I drive by this Horrocks quite a bit.
I had to go to Detroit two days earlier this week and had to meet a colleague at that carpool lot both days.
Wednesday morning, we didn’t have to meet until 11:30 AM. I had to get up to get B to school and the longer I laid around the house, the more I wanted to go back to sleep. I couldn’t do that so I decided to just get up and head to Lansing with the idea of getting lunch before I met my colleague.
I didn’t know what I was going to eat until I got to Saginaw Highway. I figured I’d go check out Horrocks. If it’s anything like the new Battle Creek location, there would be something for me to grab.
Horrocks Farm Market in Delta Township is the OG Horrocks. It’s on the corner of Saginaw Highway and Canal Road just to the east of the I-96 interchange. The business has a long history in Lansing first getting started at the Lansing Farmer’s Market in the late 1960’s then moving to this spot out in Delta Township. The building is kind of landlocked but it’s undergone quite a bit of expansion over the years and quite a bit since I was last there 15 years ago.
Read more…Mark’s Diner
677 Romence RoadLast Friday was one of them early days. I had to be to work at 4 AM.
Usually when I do those really early morning shifts, I have to go to Grand Rapids. This time, I just had to go to Portage.
I met my co-workers down here and we had about three hours of work to do before the sun came up.
We wrapped up around 7:30 AM and then the plan was to finish my shift with my usual Kalamazoo colleague. We’d work on things until noon and then I’d clock out and he’d finish the day by himself.
I had a couple of hours until he came in though. I texted J to see if she wanted me to come home for a while and get B to school. When I work early in the morning, she starts her day working from home to get him to school. She said she was good and I didn’t need to come home.
I figured I might as well just go to breakfast then.
I was still in Portage near the mall. There’s a breakfast spot over there that I haven’t been to yet and since I had the time, now was the time to knock that place off the list.
Mark’s Diner is on Romence Road and Village Shoppes Boulevard in Portage. It’s a stand alone building in the Shoppes at Romence Village across the street from the entrance to the Crossroads Mall. The restaurant is one of the old EMA Enterprises restaurants that operated under the Michelle’s name. Like all the other former EMA restaurants (Butler’s, Roxies, etc.) the restaurant was sold to a former employee and rebranded.
The OCB
5581 S. 9th StreetI know it’s not Friday but I was hungry and there’s a new pizza place I really wanted to try.
I texted J as I was about to leave work last Thursday to see if she had any dinner plans. She said no so I asked if it would be ok if I brought home pizza on a Thursday night.
I get a little excited when new pizza places open in Kalamazoo. There really isn’t a place that I love and that we order from every week. We have places that we like but there just isn’t anything like our favorite Chicago pizza place.
This new place that opened is The OCB on 9th Street and Cracker Barrel Drive in Texas Township. The restaurant location is already known to most people in the area. It’s the old Cracker Barrel Restaurant right off the I-94 interchange. The address is 9th Street but you have to turn on to Cracker Barrel Drive and go past the two hotels to get to it. Obviously, there has been a lot that has happened at this site. After that night in 2016, Cracker Barrel tried to forge on but a salmonella issue shut them down for good in 2018. The site has sat pretty vacant since then briefly becoming a storage facility until The OCB opened up a couple of months ago.
Read more…The Southern Cafe (St. Charles)
1590 E. Main StreetJ and I don’t get a lot of times to ourselves. Our lives pretty much running from ice rink to ice rink right now and all of our vacation time goes to traveling for competitions.
A co-worker of mine got married this past weekend in St. Charles, IL. We were invited to the wedding and we decided to go as it would be something good for just the two of us.
The reception was the Hotel Baker in downtown St. Charles. The price of a night at that boutique hotel was well out of our price range so we stayed at the Quality Inn a mile or so down the road.
We wanted to get up Sunday and morning and get back on the road home. With the time change, it made it about a four drive.
But first, we needed breakfast.
Right across the street from our hotel was The Southern Cafe. This kind of upscale brunch spot is in a shopping plaza on the corner of East Main Street and Tyler Road. There was clearly some kind of major overhaul to this plaza in 2020. In a previous life, this space was a Geno’s East and it looked nothing like The Southern Cafe does today.
Read more…Beef Shack (St. Charles)
2015 W. Main StreetSeptember has been rough. I’ve had something going on literally every weekend.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel though..albiet a small one as I only have the first weekend in October totally free too.
The final weekend in September was a wedding weekend. A colleague of mine was getting married in the Chicago area. It was also J and I’s anniversary weekend. We didn’t really do much for our anniversary because we knew we were going to be traveling for this wedding.
We dropped the kids of at J’s parents in St. Joseph County around 11:00 AM on Saturday then J and I headed for Illinois. It was about a three hour trip to St. Charles, IL where the wedding was going to be.
The wedding was at the gorgeous Hotel Baker right along the Fox River in downtown St. Charles. We looked in to just staying there but the $500/night room was well out of our price range. We stayed at the Quality Inn about a mile up the road for a lot less.
J and I are not ceremony people. It is really rare for us to go to an actual wedding ceremony. We’re not church people anyway and we always feel that the ceremony is for a more intimate crowd. As friends of the couple, we join the celebration at the reception.
We got to St. Charles around 2:00 PM. We got checked in to our hotel then decided to go out for lunch. Wedding food doesn’t really do much for either of us. We’ll eat it but it’s not usually enough…especially if we want to have a few drinks. We’re old now. Gotta make sure we’re not drinking on an empty stomach.
J asked if there was a Portillo’s close. There was one not too far away but closer by, there was another place that would serve the same purpose.
We headed through downtown St. Charles to find the Beef Shack on the corner of West Main Street and South Randall Street. We had a pretty rough time trying to get in to the business at the very busy, high traffic intersection. Coming from the or the north, there’s no way to get in to the business on the corner due to concrete separators in the traffic lanes. You have to do a U-Turn at some point. I went through the light and did a U-Turn at the next light to get to where we were going.
Read more…Buffalo Wild Wings (Battle Creek)
5775 Beckley Road #655I know. Friday night is pizza night. J and the kids still got Little Caesars but I was in Battle Creek working an overtime shift.
I didn’t have any time between my normal shift and my overtime shift to eat. I had to get out to Pennfield Township and I was already running late so I skipped it knowing I could grab something when I was done.
I’ve said it time and time again, I hate that pizza places close at 9 PM any night of the week but especially on Friday nights. I wasn’t in the mood for one of the chains and all the good places in Battle Creek were closed by the time I got done with work around 9:30.
That meant I was going to have to find something that wasn’t pizza and I had a couple of ideas.
I picked Buffalo Wild Wings because they have a deal for 20 wings and a large fry for $20. That and I just happened to be close to the one on the east side of Battle Creek.
The Buffalo Wild Wings in Battle Creek is located in the Lakeview Square Mall on Beckley Road near M-66. The restaurant is on the Beckley Road side near the entrance where the food court used to be on the west side of the property. The mall is kind of in an odd state right now. There aren’t a lot of stores anymore but there are still a couple of big ones (Horrocks, Barnes & Noble, Dunhams) and some big restaurants. There’s an Applebees right next to the Buffalo Wild Wings and Olive Garden and Texas Roadhouse just opened in the parking lot.
The Toasted Pickle (Grand Rapids)
820 Michigan Street NEI had a long work day in Grand Rapids at the end of last week. I knew it was going to be long but it turned out to be much longer than I had hoped for.
I got to Grand Rapids around 1:00 expecting that I was working the night shift. I had to help with a project a colleague usually does but he was on vacation this week. There are only a couple of us that know how this project works and two of the three were actually on vacation so that meant I had to do it.
I got to to work on then had to work with a different colleague on a project. That was why I was really scheduled to be in Grand Rapids that night. We finished up what we needed to do then an unexpected thing came up and that took up a big chunk of our night. When that was wrapped up, I still had to stay and finish up the special project…so yeah..long day.
Luckily enough, I thought I had some downtown so I left the building to go pick up dinner. There was a sandwich place that just opened in Grand Rapids not too long ago that I really wanted to get to.
The Toasted Pickle opened it’s Grand Rapids location last month on Michigan Street NE east of Eastern Avenue. This small building is a former Hot ‘n Now location that has been a couple of things since that chain went under. The last time I was in the building was way back in 2013 when the building was converted from the Hot ‘n Now to Donk’s Mexican Joint. That restaurant lasted a couple of years before it became a Thai food place. This is the third Toasted Pickle location. The other two are in Rockford and Grand Haven.
Chick-Fil-A (Westwood)
504 N. Drake RoadSeptember has been such a busy month. I haven’t had a single weekend that I’ve been home the whole weekend. We’re still busy skating and now that we have to go out to Wings Event Center, it makes our nights a little longer. The kids like skating at WEC better but Wings West is so much closer to home. It seems like we spend a lot of time on I-94 right now.
Long story short, I haven’t really grocery shopped much this month. We have been piecing together meals with what we have or eating way too much fast food…mostly Jimmy Johns.
There’s also not much food at home for me to take for lunch so I’ve been bad.
I was out on West Main early last week which gives me a lot of options to eat. I decided to go the cheaper route though and stopped at the Chick-Fil-A.
The Chick-Fil-A in the Westwood neighborhood is on the corner of Drake Road and West Main Street. We eat at this Chick-Fil-A all the time but I realized I’ve never been inside. We always do the drive thru which is super convenienent. It’s one of the newer designs with a double drive through and lots of space. This was the second Chick-Fil-A to open in Kalamazoo about four years ago. The first one in the area opened in Portage four years before that. There is now a third location set to open in Comstock Township on Gull Road in the near future.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 