Olga’s Kitchen (Oshtemo)
5095 Century AvenueSlowly but surely we’re starting to see the retail locations around Costco fill in. It took a while to get anything but a bank/credit union in there but the last few years have been pretty good to us with new restaurants.
We’ve really enjoyed having MOD Pizza so close and we treat the kids quite often with Menchines. The first restaurant that opened, Firehouse Subs has been a go-to when we just want a quick sandwich.
The next place to open just added a second Kalamazoo area location.
Olga’s Kitchen opened up on Century Avenue right next to that MOD Pizza in the Corner @ Drake shopping plaza. The large corner spot is visible from both Drake and Stadium Drive so it’s hard to miss when you’re driving by.
Kelvin & Co. Urban BBQ (Grand Rapids)
1450 Wealthy Street SEI was pretty bummed when Kelvin & Co. close their downtown Kalamazoo location in the midst of last summer’s construction season. I get it. The whole point of running a business is to make money and if that’s not happening, it’s time to close.
The Oshtemo location is still around not only is it closer to where I live but they also offer UberEats…so yeah, I still get my BBQ fix.
This past week, I was in Grand Rapids for work. It was dinner time and I was near Eastown. I was trying to think of what I could grab quickly when I remembered Kelvin & Co was adding a location in that area. I had no idea if they were open or not until I did a quick Google search and found that they were.
Kelvin & Co Urban BBQ Wealthy Street & Ethel Avenue in Grand Rapids’ Eastown Neighborhood. The building is pretty familiar to me. It used to be an Italian beef place called Big Willy’s. I ate there almost every time I went to Grand Rapids after the place opened.
BC Pizza (Kalamazoo)
1710 W. Main StreetAs someone who has been blogging about food for almost 11 years, I shouldn’t get all that excited when a new chain restaurant opens in town. If it’s a McDonalds or an Applebees, or something we already have, I don’t.
My enthusiasm for chains gets even higher when it’s more of a regional chain and if you want to narrow that down to just Michigan, well, hell, it might as well not even be a chain. Of course I’m excited about it.
BC Pizza is the newest chain take-out/delivery pizza joint to pop up in Kalamazoo. They’re a northern Michigan pizza chain with the previous furthest south location being in Dorr.
The Kalamazoo location opened on West Main in the Tiffany’s Village Retail Center in Kalamazoo Township between Tiffany’s Wine and Spirits and Saffron. It’s in the spot that was previously occupied by Papa John’s. Read more…
Guardian Brewing Company
3657 63rd StreetHave you ever been to The Critter Barn in Zeeland? I love that place. My kids love that place. It just stinks it’s so far away. We usually spend an hour or so there then look for someplace to eat and something to do in the Holland area or Grand Rapids.
We decided to take the drive to Zeeland last Saturday. It was supposed to be a nice day and we wanted to get the kids out of the house.
As predicted, we spent a little over an hour petting and holding animals then the kids started losing interest. It was around 1:00 so past lunch time. We made these plans with a brewery nearby in mind, so once we got back to the car, we headed towards Saugatuck.
Guardian Brewing Company is actually just outside of Saugatuck on the corner of 63rd Street and Blue Star Highway north of town. The restaurant is in the old Red Barn Playhouse across the street from the Belvedere Inn which was built in the early 1900’s and has been a theater space in Saugatuck since the late 1940’s. The building was purchased in 2017 to turn in to a brewery and opened in December of last year. By looking at the front of it, you wouldn’t have much idea that this used to be a red barn as it’s been covered with grey and brown siding.
Chicken Coop (Nazareth)
2500 Nazareth RoadI only had one day of work after returning from my trip. I drove all day Monday (after working all day Sunday), had Tuesday and Wednesday off, and had a previously scheduled vacation day on Friday. That just left Thursday.
J had made plans for dinner with some of her friends and the kids. I guess I was invited but if she doesn’t force me to go to these get togethers, I usually don’t go on my own. I would have been way late for dinner anyway.
I was working out near Parchment that day and when I got off work, I started thinking about what I was going to do for dinner. When J does her thing with friends, I’ve been trying to find bars that I wouldn’t go to with her or the kids for dinner.
I still have a few on my list but I wasn’t digging the bar thing. I knew I was passing a Chicken Coop on the way home and chicken actually sounded good right then.
The Chicken Coop is a chain of restaurants in southwest Michigan and, honestly, they’ve always been pretty hit or miss for me. I had never been to the Nazareth Road location and it was near where I was working that day just off Gull Road by the old Nazareth College campus. Read more…
Presidential Brewing Company
8302 Portage RoadCan we get back to (Kalamazoo)? If you’ve seen Hamilton, sing that as Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of The Election of 1800. After two weeks on the road, it’s time to get back to some Kalamazoo area blog posts.
I got home from D.C. around 7:00 on Monday night after driving all day. I had quite a bit of overtime and I had been gone for so long, my boss told me to take a couple of days off.
L was doing a theater camp again this year for Spring Break and since I was home, I told J I would pick her up as well as getting B from daycare. J gets home from work a little after 5:00 now. She didn’t feel like making dinner and I didn’t either…plus, she wanted to take me to a new brewery she and the kids went to with friends while I was traveling.
Presidential Brewing Company is yet another new brewery in the Kalamazoo metro area. It’s on Portage Road south of Centre Street. It’s actually in the building that used to be Lazer Land. The mini-golf course is still there but not being used at the moment. I guess they may try to rehab that and have some fun with it in the future.
Roy Rogers (North Somerset Travel Plaza)
179 N. Plaza Access RoadThis is it. After two weeks of travel in both Iowa and Washington, D.C., this is the last of my travel blogs. If you’ve been reading, yay! If not, I don’t blame you, but as I’ve said over and over these last ten years, this blog is essentially a journal for me…so that’s why I write about places not in Southwest Michigan.
I was nearing the point in my trip where I needed gas and a Pepsi or two. I don’t mind driving by myself and in some ways, prefer it, but I was starting to get tired and I wasn’t even halfway in to my trip yet.
I kept seeing signs for a place called Roy Rogers. This is, obviously, not a chain we have in Michigan despite being founded as a chain of roast beef stores in Ft. Wayne, IN. I didn’t know how far west they go. I knew if I was going to check this place out, I would have to do it soon.
Roy Rogers is a chain mostly in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. They have a very convoluted history being bought and sold over the last several decades including being owned by Hardee’s at one point (I’ll come back to this in a few).
The Roy Rogers location I stopped at is actually run by HMS Host…the same people that do almost all of the airport food franchises. It’s in the north travel plaza on the Pennsylvania Turnpike just southeast of the city of Somerville, PA.
Waffle House (Urbana, MD)
8906 Fingerboard RoadTime to head home. I didn’t get to see many sites but actually had a pretty great time in D.C. for the work I was doing. I like to think I got to see more than the touristy stuff most people go to our nation’s capitol for.
My co-worker had something come up and needed to get home quicker than an 11 car ride would get him there so he ended up flying. I dropped him off at Reagan National around 8:30 AM then headed on the George Washington Parkway out of town. The next ten hours or so would just be me, some Marc Maron podcasts and long stretches of highway on the three Turnpike’s between me and Michigan.
I noticed on our way in to DC on Wednesday night we passes some Waffle Houses. I was looking for those on the way back hoping I was taking the same route. Near Frederick, Maryland I finally saw one of those little yellow signs on the big blue signs right off the highway.
The first one I came to was right off I-270 and MD-80 in the census designated community of Ubrana, Maryland. The newer looking building sits right next to a 7-11 Gas Station less than a half a mile from the freeway interchange.
Yard House (Chinatown)
812 7th Street NWOur last night in Washington, D.C. ended just before midnight. We headed back to our car having not eaten since lunch time, but it was almost midnight on a Sunday night so I assumed our options were limited.
We were driving down 7th Street heading back to our hotel and passed a few restaurants but other than McDonalds, all were closed.
As we hit the intersection of 7th and I Street, I saw lights on inside a restaurant so I quickly pulled over and Googled to see how late they were open. We had about another hour, so we made the decision to eat before heading back to the hotel for the night.
Yard House is a chain of upscale sports pubs based in California and owned by Darden Restaurants. Most of the stores are west of the Mississippi and located in large cities. Here in Michigan, there is one in Troy.
The D.C. location is in Chinatown somewhat near Capital One Arena where there are lot of similar type pubs. The restaurant is right on the corner of a multi-story mixed used building. Parking is whatever you can find in the area. There are some garages as well as on street spots.
Shake Shack (Logan Circle)
1400 14th Street NWI woke up our last full day in Washington, D.C. not feeling very well. I knew we were going to have a late night of work and the chance of getting dinner before midnight was pretty slim. I knew I had to find something to eat but I didn’t know what.
My co-worker took the morning to go do some sightseeing. I chose to sleep in and it’s a choice I don’t regret. One of these days I’ll get back to DC to do the sightseeing thing. We were in town to work and we were working long hours so I took advantage of the late start on Sunday.
I crawled out of bed around 11:00 and took a shower hoping that would help me feel better. It didn’t. I thought maybe if I ate that would help.
As I’ve mentioned in a few of my other blog posts, there really wasn’t any walk up counter service places around where I was staying. I expanded my search a little bit thinking a walk would do me good and I finally found a recognizable place that I don’t get very many opportunities to eat at.
Shake Shack has multiple locations in the DC area, but the closest one to me was the Logan Circle location on the corner of 14th Street and Rhode Island Avenue. The restaurant takes up space on the ground floor of a pretty new looking mixed-use building on a very busy corner with a number of shops and other restaurants. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 