Pizza Katerina
635 N. 9th Street, Suite EWhen Momma’s away, we eat pizza for dinner.
J had an early morning meeting in Saginaw so she went over the night before and got a hotel room. That seemed like a better idea than getting up early to drive.
She left straight from work so I changed my shift to work early mornings. That way I’d be able to pick the kids up from daycare.
B’s daycare is over on the east side of town and my plan was to pick up a pizza from the Cottage Inn on Sprinkle and Kilgore but that place closed (again). I had to come up with a new plan.
I pulled in to the new Circle K on that same corner and thought about just getting a pizza from there…but, as always, I had a better idea.
Pizza Katerina has been open in Oshtemo for a few months now. The small, made-from-scratch bakery/pizza joint is right next to Oshtemo Pharmacy on 9th Street in that small strip mall in front of Walmart. They’ve moved into the space connected to the pharmacy that used to be a small cafe.
Trak Houz Bar & Grill
5003 Park Circle DriveChange is good sometimes, right?
I’ve worked in a satellite office for almost three years now. It’s just me and one other person. I don’t miss the drive to Grand Rapids every day at all but I do miss the interaction with some of my co-workers.
Staffing around the holiday’s can get pretty thin in the office but all the shifts still need to be filled. There was an opportunity for me to take a couple of shifts in Grand Rapids….but they were what are essentially third shift times.
It worked out pretty well because J had to drive to Saginaw Tuesday night for a Wednesday morning meeting. She needed to leave before I would normally get home so we were trying to figure out what to do about picking the kids up from daycare. Working these shifts allowed me to get off by 12:30 so I could pick them up.
Monday night we split pickup duties. I got L who’s daycare is closer to our home and J got B who’s daycare is closer to her work. We didn’t have any plans for dinner so I texted J and asked if she’d want to me. There is a new place near B’s daycare we’ve been wanting to eat at so I picked up L and we headed to the east side of town.
Trak Houz Bar & Grill is a new restaurant in an old space. It’s part of the Zeigler Motorsports Complex on Sprinkle Road in Comstock Township. When the building was opened, Zeigler brought in Millennium Restaurant Group to open one of their Tap House concepts. Sprinkle Road Tap House was there for a couple of years but now, Zeigler has decided to bring everything in house. Read more…
Scotts Corner Cafe
11011 Norscott Street- Scotts, MI 49088
- (269) 626-0116
- No Known Website
- Menu
I think I tell this story every year. I like real Christmas trees. My family did the artificial tree growing up because my mom didn’t like cleaning needles out of the carpet. Our living room is hardwood so that’s not a problem. Therefore, we go find a real Christmas tree every year.
We used to really love going to Gull Meadow Farms. We’d pick out a pre-cut tree then visit the best Santa in the area. They haven’t done the pre-cuts for a few years so we’ve hard to find a new place.
J didn’t want to go back to the place we went to last year so I started looking for a new. I found a small farm near Scotts that had good reviews and good prices. We decided to get up Saturday morning, go to breakfast, and get ourselves a tree.
J assumed we’d eat in Kalamazoo before heading out, but come on….you know me better than that. Of course, I had a place in mind along the way.
I’ve wanted to get to Scotts Corner Cafe for years but we’ve never had any reason to go to Scotts before. I’ve driven through the small community maybe five times in the ten years we’ve lived in Kalamazoo and I’ve never stopped.
Scotts Corner Cafe is on the corner of Norscott and South 36th Street on the north side of town. I’m sure there’s a really cool back story to this building but there is very little information online about the restaurant. The lower level was an IGA Grocery Store many years ago and the upper level was a Grange Hall. It was probably many things both before and after. Today, it’s a delicious small town family restaurant.
The Lift Restaurant & Bar
2747 S. 11th StreetWe really used to love when there was an Old Burdick’sat the Holiday Inn on South 11th Street in Oshtemo Township. We’d order take out at least once a week. Greenleaf Hospitality sold that property a few years back and eventually, Old Burdick’s left too.
It seemed like the hotel was always under construction once Burdick’s left. My in-laws stayed there once before they moved to Michigan and we ate at what was then dubbed 11th Street Grill. It was fine, but it wasn’t Burdick’s.
We ate there one more time while they were doing another renovation with a limited menu a few years ago but it was kind of off-putting and really wasn’t that great…so we never went back.
The renovations at the hotel seem to finally be done. It’s no longer a Holiday Inn. It’s now a Delta Hotels by Marriottand the restaurant area has been renovated once again. Read more…
La Familia Cafe
224 W. Michigan AvenueIt’s always exciting when new restaurants open downtown. I’ve become one of those downtown workers that sort of gets stuck in a rut. I don’t always have time or want to sit down and eat and there’s not a lot of grab and go options downtown.
A few weeks ago I noticed a new sign on a building that has been home to several restaurants over the years and not long after that, I started to notice people coming out with large boxes of food to-go.
La Familia Cafe is on Michigan Avenue across from the Kalamazoo County Courthouse. The building was most recently Chau Haus Schnitzel Station but it has been multiple restaurants over the years. Read more…
City Barbecue (Kentwood)
3050 28th Street SEL has really gotten in to ice skating. She’s doing both the KOHA Learn To Skate and the Greater Kalamazoo Skating Association Learn to Skate right now. She can’t decide if she wants to play hockey or figure skate but either way, she really likes being on the ice.
The GKSA program has a half hour of free skate time that parents can sign up for. L has really wanted me to skate with her during those times so even though I pay for it the next day, I’ve been doing it.
I got tired of using the rental skates though. I wanted to get my own pair but didn’t want to buy new since I barely use them. I always used to buy used sports equipment from Play It Again Sports but Kalamazoo doesn’t have one of those…..so I went to Grand Rapids.
There are two PIAS in the Grand Rapids metro. I went to the one off 28th Street. I got what I needed then got back on 28th Street to head home. I knew I had plenty of food options along that stretch but it was the BBQ place that drew me in.
City Barbecue is a chain of BBQ restaurants out of Dublin, OH. They have about 50 restaurants in seven states. The only two in Michigan are this one in Kentwood on 28th and Radcliffe across from the Woodland Mall and one in Troy just off I-75.
Ghost Isle Brewery
17684 US-12Holy crap I turned 40 this year.
My birthday was in the middle of the week and my parents wanted to meet for lunch. I had plans the weekend after so I asked if they could do the weekend before.
We typically meet in the New Buffalo/Michigan City area. I usually find a place to eat we haven’t been to and hope it works out alright. That’s kind of how I roll.
Both my parents and I noticed a new brewery on the north side of New Buffalo on separate trips to the border town. I’m always open for a new brewery so I asked if they’d like to meet us there at noon when it opened.
Ghost Isle Brewery is fairly close to the I-94 exit on the north side of New Buffalo. The new construction restaurant sits off US-12 about half a mile from the Red Arrow Highway intersection. Read more…
Taco Bob’s (S. Westnedge)
1502 S. Westnedge AvenueSo, yeah, it’s been about a month since I blogged about a place in Michigan and even longer than since I’ve had a Southwest Michigan blog post…my apologies, but again, this blog is my journal so I blog when I travel.
It took a while to get back in the swing of things once we returned from Puerto Rico but we had no choice but to jump back in. Our plane got back to AZO at a little before 10:00 on Monday night and both J and I were back at work 9 AM Tuesday morning.
We didn’t really eat out much that week because we had eaten out a lot on vacation. I was ready to stop eating leftovers by Friday though so I ventured out at lunch time.
I really could have taken the easy route here and just walked to Taco Bob’s on The Mall but there’s a new Taco Bob’s…and I needed a new blog post. So here we are.
Taco Bob’s recently moved down Westnedge to the old Dairy Queen building near Westnedge and Crosstown Parkway. It’s right across the street from Happy’s Pizza if that helps for reference. This is a walk-up location with no inside seating but it does have something I don’t think any of the other Taco Bob’s have…..a drive thru. (Yeah, this was wrong. Portage Street and Centre Avenue both have drive thrus.)
Air Margaritaville (San Juan)
Avenue Aeropuerto, San Luis Munoz Marin Airport- Terminal B
- Carolina, PR 00979
- (787) 791-0300
- Website
- Menu
Alright. This is it. Last of my blog posts from Puerto Rico. If you’ve stuck around…thanks! If I lost you as I drug this out over three weeks…sorry, but as I’ve said many, many times, I use this blog as a journal so that’s why I blog about our travels outside of Michigan.
Our final day in San Juan was Monday. We got a late check-out at our hotel because our flight wasn’t until 2:30. Our car to the airport picked us up about noon and it’s only a fifteen minute drive out to Luis Munoz Marin Airport in Carolina.
We were pretty early for the flight and getting through check-in, USDA inspection, and TSA went pretty quickly. We still had over an hour and a half before our plane started boarding so we decided to eat at the airport.
There are not a ton of options at this airport but there was enough to choose from. We pretty much went for the biggest place with the biggest menu of bar food…it was also pretty close to our gate.
Air Margaritaville is an extension of the Margaritaville chain of restaurants. The Luis Munoz Marin location is in Terminal B not too far from the TSA check-point. There aren’t any walls separating the restaurant from the rest of the concourse but it’s pretty obvious by the change of color in floor tiles.
Below Zero (Condado)
1106 Ashford AvenueWe didn’t plan on getting dessert after dinner but sometimes it’s just too tempting.
We had just finished up with dinner our last night in San Juan. A few doors down we spotted a rolled ice cream place. We actually debated about whether we wanted it or not…mostly because we were so stuffed from dinner.
Eventually we did come to the conclusion that we needed to stop.
Below Zero appears to be a chain of rolled ice cream shops in Puerto Rico. The one we stumbled upon is in the Condado sub-barrio of San Juan on Ashford Avenue near Avenida Magdelena. It’s a very time space that’s marked by a very bright sign above the front door.
SW Michigan Dining 