3000 Dunkel Road

So, I must be on a quest to eat at every Taco Bell in Lansing or something.  I got out of work around 9:00 and headed to my hotel.  When I stay in Lansing, I almost always stay at the Red Roof Inn on Dunkel Road.  The closest restaurant is either Taco Bell or Subway.  Both are right down the street as part of the Sunoco gas station just off I-494.  I wanted something warm, so I chose Taco Bell.

Even though it was only 9:00, the counter was already closed.  If I wanted tacos, I would have to go through the drive thru.  In order to do that, you have to go all the way around the building.  I’ve documented many times why I hate drive thrus and this expereience was no difference. 

I pulled up to the speaker and waited.  The girl working started talking before she clicked the button, so I only heard half of what she said.  I just wanted tacos, so I clearly belted out my order of five crunchy tacos.  What I heard back was, “Nachos supreme?”  No, five crunchy tacos.  The second time, she got it and told me to pull around. 

The total was just over five bucks.  I didn’t get a pop because I had actually planned to go back into the gas station and get a cheaper one from their fountain.  That never happened and I just bought one at the hotel.

When I got back to my room, I opened the bag and got really confused.  The taco shells were red like the ones used for the Volcano Taco.  It wouldn’t have bothered me if I had gotten five Volcano Tacos, but I didn’t.  Just red shells.  I’m guessing they just ran out of the regular shells and were improvising.  Not a big deal.  They taste the same.

Well, I polished off my tacos quickly and was still hungry.  It was a long day without a lot to eat.  I should have ordered a few more, but I didn’t and I didn’t feel like going back.  I have at least one more overnight trip to Lansing where I’ll stay at “my hotel.”  Probably go back then. 

3000 Dunkel Road

So, I must be on a quest to eat at every Taco Bell in Lansing or something.  I got out of work around 9:00 and headed to my hotel.  When I stay in Lansing, I almost always stay at the Red Roof Inn on Dunkel Road.  The closest restaurant is either Taco Bell or Subway.  Both are right down the street as part of the Sunoco gas station just off I-494.  I wanted something warm, so I chose Taco Bell.

Even though it was only 9:00, the counter was already closed.  If I wanted tacos, I would have to go through the drive thru.  In order to do that, you have to go all the way around the building.  I’ve documented many times why I hate drive thrus and this expereience was no difference. 

I pulled up to the speaker and waited.  The girl working started talking before she clicked the button, so I only heard half of what she said.  I just wanted tacos, so I clearly belted out my order of five crunchy tacos.  What I heard back was, “Nachos supreme?”  No, five crunchy tacos.  The second time, she got it and told me to pull around. 

The total was just over five bucks.  I didn’t get a pop because I had actually planned to go back into the gas station and get a cheaper one from their fountain.  That never happened and I just bought one at the hotel.

When I got back to my room, I opened the bag and got really confused.  The taco shells were red like the ones used for the Volcano Taco.  It wouldn’t have bothered me if I had gotten five Volcano Tacos, but I didn’t.  Just red shells.  I’m guessing they just ran out of the regular shells and were improvising.  Not a big deal.  They taste the same.

Well, I polished off my tacos quickly and was still hungry.  It was a long day without a lot to eat.  I should have ordered a few more, but I didn’t and I didn’t feel like going back.  I have at least one more overnight trip to Lansing where I’ll stay at “my hotel.”  Probably go back then. 

6260 S. Cedar Street

I had a real hard time finding lunch.  It seems like everywhere I wanted to go decided to close.  My first attempt was Conrad’s College Town Grill.  Since the kids are on break, they weren’t opening until 7 PM.  My next attempt was Ramon’s, but they too were closed.  I was frustrated at this point and just started driving.  Somehow, I ended up in South Lansing near where we used to live.  I was just going to hop back on the Interstate and go find fast food or something back near MSU.  As I was making my way down Cedar, I noticed a new restaurant behind the Pizza Hut.  Yay!  New restaurant.

Scalawags White Fish & Chips is a small Northern Michigan chain.  They have three stores now in the Lansing area.  The newest location is on Cedar Street in the strip mall at the corner of Edgewood Boulevard.  It has to be a fairly new joint.  It wasn’t there when we moved from Lansing three months ago and there was no indication that anything was moving in to the space.

All of the other Scalawags locations have a pretty nice looking storefront.  The South Lansing location is in kind of a rundown strip mall.  They really stand out with the blue banner that boasts their logo and name that wraps around their corner of the building.  The inside of the store is actually pretty nice.  I don’t remember what was in the location before, but everything inside is new for Scalawags.  The feeling I got was sort of like dining on an old wooden fishing boat.  It was a pretty typical quick service restaurant set up.  There were booths and tables in the front of the store.  The small order counter was in the back.

As you can imagine, most of the menu is fish.  I don’t like fish, but I know fish places usually serve chicken.  That’s what I decided to stop.  I ordered the 8 piece chicken fingers basket which comes with fries and hush puppies.  It doesn’t come with a drink and since they had Wi-Fi and I could check my e-mail, I decided to dine in, so I added on a Pepsi. 

The bill was a little high at a little over ten bucks.  They were having problems with their computer system and it took a long time for my credit card to go through.  The lady working was very apologetic and swiped the card a couple times to get it to work.  While I was waiting, she told me to go get my pop and take a seat.  She would bring the copy to sign once it went through.  By the time I got my pop, the computer figured itself out. 

I took a seat while my chicken was being cooked.  This is no fast food place with food waiting under warmers.  In fact, they don’t even pull already cooked chicken out of a freezer to reheat it.  There’s a window that you can see through from the cash register and I actually saw the cook breading the fresh chicken before he dropped it into the fryer.  I was really happy to see this.  It’s a simple process, but it adds so much flavor to the chicken.  You know you’re getting a unique product and not something from Gordon’s.

It only took a few minutes for the chicken to cook.   The lady who was serving as cashier/waitress brought the food out and admitted to dropping a piece of chicken on the way.  I probably wouldn’t even have noticed, but she said she already had the cook drop another one in the fryer and it would be out in a minute.  Sure enough, a couple minutes later, another paper boat with a piece of chicken and hush puppies were set down in front of me.

Like I had hoped, the chicken was really good.  It was cooked nice and crispy.  The pieces weren’t huge, but I was surprisingly full when I left.  The breading was done really well.  Someplaces have a problem keeping the breading attached to the chicken when they bread it fresh, but not Scalawags.  The fries were pretty typical restaurant fries, but they were done right.  The meal also came with cole slaw, but I’m not a slaw fan, so I didn’t even touch it.  I’m also not a huge hush puppy fan, but they were good albeit really small. 

Overall, Scalawags surprised me.  I had always avoided the place because I don’t eat fish and even places that serve chicken usually have the problem of the chicken tasting like fish due to frying in the same oil.  I didn’t have that problem at Scalawags.  If we still lived in our southside Lansing apartment, I would bet that we would be hitting this place up for chicken quite often.  Too bad we don’t. 

1167 E. Clinton Trail

Like everyone else, I seem to wait until it snows to get my truck ready for winter.  The timing was impeccable.  We’re under a blizzard warning and I had to drive to East Lansing for work.  I have four-wheel drive, so I wasn’t super worried, but like most people, I’m more worried about the way other people drive than I am about the roads or conditions. 

I made it to Battle Creek doing 45 MPH the whole way.  I got off to get a Pepsi, text J to let her know how far I had made it, and use the bathroom.  I didn’t need gas, but I pulled up to a pump to clean off my windows.  This exact same thing happened to me last December.  I had a long drive and I was out of windshield washer fluid.  I should have bought some at the gas station, but it never occurred to me, so I got back on the road.

By the time I made it to Olivet, the road was clear, but still a little wet.  By the time I got to Charlotte, the road was actually dry, but passing semi’s had done a number on my windshield.  It was getting to the point it was hard to see, so I had to pull off.  Lucky for me, I knew there was a Meijer at the next exit.

The Charlotte Meijer sits right off I-69 on East Clinton Trail.  There’s not much surrounding the store in the immediate area.  There’s an urgent care and a Meijer gas station, but that’s about it. 

The first thing I noticed about this store was the design.  I say all the time that Meijer’s always remind me of warehouses.  Usually, that’s because of the ridiculous size.  The Charlotte store actually looked like a warehouse.  I wouldn’t have guessed it was a grocery store if there weren’t large “Meijer” signs hanging from the facade.

The inside of the store was one of the nicer Meijer’s.  Immediately off to the right is the produce, bakery, etc.  I went to the left to try to find automotive.  I was again texting J to let her know I was making progress and she could stop worrying. Mid-text, I walked by some green bottles.  Luckily, I just caught sight of them out of the corner of my eye.  They had a mid-aisle display of the Meijer brand de-icer and windshield washer. 

I grabbed a bottle and headed towards self-checkout.  The big bottle was just a little bit over three bucks.  I probably should have went looking for new wiper blades too, but I didn’t and I’ll have to take care of that on my next Meijer trip…..and you know there’ll be plenty more. 

3490 Okemos Road

Back in East Lansing and there’s a little bit of nostalgia this weekend.  I had to be in town a couple days, so I went looking for the cheapest hotel I could find.  Usually, the two Red Roof Inn’s are the cheapest and recently, I’ve been staying out in Delta Township because it’s five bucks cheaper.  This weekend, however, I decided to stay at the East Lansing Red Roof Inn. 

I say there’s a little bit of nostalgia because two years ago, J and I made a frantic, last-minute trip to Lansing to find a place to live.  We had been in Bristol, TN for the Nextel Cup Race the weekend before.  She got the phone call on Tuesday that she had been hired in Lansing.  We were at her parents in Chicago because we didn’t have to be back to work in Peoria until Thursday.  We packed up the car again on Tuesday and drove to Lansing to find a place to live.  We only had a week and a half to make the move. 

We had stayed in a Red Roof Inn in Johnson City, TN and were happy with it, so we found one in Lansing and we spent our first night in what would become our new home at the Red Roof Inn on Dunkel Road.  This recent trip was the first time I had stayed at that hotel since that first night.

We were given a pretty long lunch break, so I decided to go check in and drop my stuff off.  Before that, I wanted to grab a sandwich or something somewhere so I could eat while watching ESPN in my room.  I couldn’t really think of much other than fast food chains along Jolly Road so I started driving towards Okemos. 

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to see what Big John Steak & Onion was all about.  I would never take J there because she’s not a big steak fan.  When we lived in Lansing, I didn’t do much dining out on my own, so I never really had a chance. 

Big John Steak & Onion is a small regional chain with most of its stores in the Flint area.  There are three in the Lansing area.  I chose the one in Okemos on Okemos Road near the I-96 interchange.  The store is in a building connected to a BP gas station, but it’s a separate space.  You can’t walk between the two businesses. 

The space is a typical quick service set up.  There are tables as you walk in and even a small counter facing the window.  On one side of the room is the kitchen and order counter.

I had never eaten at Big John before so I really had no idea what to expect.  I scanned the menu pretty quickly, but they had signs all over for a special they had going.  It’s hard to pass up two Original Steak subs for $5….I didn’t pass it up. 

I did keep the onions off though.  I hate onions and I know that’s probably blasphemous since they have “onion” in the name of the restaurant.  To make up for the lack of onions, I added jalapenos. 

The cook took out a handful of thinly sliced ribeye steak and threw it on the grill.  They kind of give it a Philly cheese steak treatment and cut it up on the flat top.  I didn’t really watch as they put my sandwich together, but I do know the meat came right off the flat top and on to a bun.  The jalapenos were added and they were wrapped up and handed to me with a cup of Big John Red Sauce in a small plastic cup. 

I headed back to my hotel and ripped the sandwiches open.  They resembled a Chicago-style Italian beef, but they weren’t wet or seasoned anything like that sandwich.  The meat was good and it was tender, but there wasn’t a strong unique flavor.  There were quite a few jalapenos which added a lot of flavor…and heat, to the sandwich.

Two sandwiches for five bucks is a great deal.  If you’re a big eater like I am, two sandwiches is enough for a meal.  You do get quite a bit of meat on each sandwich, so that’s a good thing too.  There’s just not a deep or complex flavor to the sandwich.  It is what it is.  If you want a quick, warm, meaty sub, Big John is your place.  

6400 W. St. Joseph Highway

If you would have told me two years ago one of the things I would miss most about Lansing was Quality Dairy, I would have called you crazy.  From the outside, these stores look like the typical convenience store.  Inside?  Not much different…at least until you dive into their unique goodies. 

For me, most Quality Dairy stops were Pepsi stops.  The thing I really loved about QD is that there’s almost always one near where you are.  I could actually plan a trip somewhere and know that I could stop for a 32 oz. pop on my way and not have to deal with the gas station hassle of everyone in front of you buying cigarettes and the clerk not knowing which package is which.  It was almost always a quick in and out.

My second day of work in East Lansing ended pretty late.  It was after 10:00 by the time I started heading back to my hotel.  I thought about grabbing a pizza in East Lansing, but I was tired and not really wanting to deal with Friday night crowds in a college town, so I just drove.  I didn’t want fast food again, but I really wanted a Pepsi. 

I took the Creyts Road exit off I-496 to get back to my hotel on Saginaw Highway.  Along the way, I came across a QD at Creyts Road and St. Joseph Highway.  There were also a couple gas stations in the area, but just because I had started a mission to hit every QD (31 in all) I crossed traffic to see if I could find something to eat.

If you’re in a doughnut or ice cream mood, Quality Dairy is a good choice.  They have some delicious fresh-baked (in Lansing) pastries and some great premium ice cream.  I wasn’t in the mood for either.  Some QD locations have pizza by the slice.  It’s not great pizza, but at least it’s warm.  This is not one of those locations. 

I grabbed my Pepsi from the fountain machine which looks to be pretty new.  Some of the older QD locations had some pretty sad-looking fountain drink machines.  This was not one of those. 

After that, I started looking around for food.  All I could really find were cold meat sandwiches.  I had picked up one of their sandwiches before and was pretty satisfied by it, so I grabbed a Triple Turkey Wedge. 

Tonight’s “dinner” cost me a whopping four bucks.  Hard to argue with that.  I waited until I got back to the hotel to dig into the sandwich.  It really isn’t much more than a truck stop sandwich, but instead of just two wedges, there were three.  There was a slice of turkey wedged between a slice of yellow cheese and a slice of white cheese (no indication on the package what kind it was).  I wasn’t super hungry due to a big lunch, but it was something before bed and I knew Saturday was going to be another day where I wouldn’t get a whole lot of time to eat. 

Quality Dairy came through again.  Like I said earlier, I know it’s wierd to miss a convenience store, but I’d really rather go to a place like this for a quick pop than a gas station.  At least I still have a few more trips to Lansing to see if I can hunt down the other stores I wasn’t able to make it to when I lived there. 

622 N. Homer Street

Call me lazy.  I’m not completely proud of the fact that I’ve now eaten two fast food meals in a row, but once again, I’m trying to make as much money as possible, so going cheap on the lunch is a necessary evil.  I would much rather eat like this alone and be able to spend a little more when I go out with J.

Work day number two in Lansing started around 1:30.  I didn’t eat before going to work because I knew our lunch break was going to be pretty soon after we got to the job site.  Once we were released around 2:45, I headed to Frandor because I wanted to look at Staples for something.  After that was complete, it was on to lunch.  Sure, I had a bunch of options in Frandor, but since I was going to eat fast food anyway, I decided to go to a place I really like.

The Arby’s near the Frandor Shopping Center is located on Homer Street.  Because Homer is a one way street, there is also a back entrance from Clippert Street which is where I was coming from.  The building sits pretty close to Homer.  There is a huge parking lot in back and a few slots on the sides.  I took one of the side spots

Eating alone at Arby’s must have been the thing to do.  There were a number of solo diners in the restaurant when I got there.  Like almost every other fast food chain, I have a predictable order.  I get the sandwich they used to call “The Big Montana.”  Now, it’s just a large roast beef.  I got the combo and made it a large.  That’s not something I usually do, but I didn’t know if or when I would get to eat again, so I needed to load up. 

Arby’s isn’t one of the cheaper chains, but I still got my meal for under eight bucks. 

I sat down and dug in to the roast beef first.  The sandwich is pretty big and hard to get a handle on, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I must look like a caveman trying to eat it, but I was dining alone, so etiquette was not really on my mind. 

The fry situation at Arby’s always confuses me.  I really prefer their homestyle fries which most locations have stopped serving.  Still, there are some that do.  This is Arby’s not one of those.  I wasn’t given an option of anything but curly fries.  I don’t mind the curly fries, but I like the homestyle a lot better.  Never could figure out why they got rid of those.

When it comes to chain fast food, Arby’s is right at the top of my list.  J always laughs when we go out to eat with my family because Arby’s is usually their first choice.  When we go out with her family, there’s always a big discussion about which local eatery we should hit up.  Not so in my family.  It’s where’s the closest Arby’s. 

7240 W. Saginaw Highway

My quest for cheap meals went on with one of the most obvious choices when it comes to dining on the cheap. 

My first day of work in East Lansing ended around 8:30.  I was exhausted and headed straight for my hotel.  As I was driving across town on I-496, I was trying to picture what I could grab quickly and eat in my  hotel room.  I was drawing blank, but I knew there were a couple options right there near the Red Roof Inn.

Like most cities, Lansing is littered with McDonald’s.  I chose the location on West Saginaw Highway and Vermillion Road in Delta Township for one reason.  It was close to where I was going. 

Being 9:00 at night on a Thursday meant I should be able to get in and get out in a hurry.  I’m not a drive thru fan.  In fact, I despise them.  Unless I absolutely have to, I never use them.  If J forces me to, she leans across the seat and yells into the speaker.  I guess I don’t speak clearly or something because I never have good luck.  I’d rather just take the extra few minutes and walk inside.  No one has ever died from getting out of their car for a hamburger.

I’m really predictable when it comes to McDonald’s.  For, oh 15 years now, I’ve gotten the Double 1/4 pounder with cheese plain.  That’s what I got this time.  I was starving so I actually made it a large.  It didn’t take long for the food to come up and since it cost me just a little over six bucks with a drink, I hit my goal of trying to eat cheap. 

McDonald’s is what it is.  I’m not going to trash the place because it is a go-to if you’re in a hurry.  You always know what you’re going to get and as long as that’s what you’re looking for, that’s not a bad thing.  There are times I just don’t want to think about dinner or I just want to get something and get back on the road.  No matter where you’re at, you can find a McDonald’s to accomplish that. 

2418 E. Michigan Avenue

Back when we lived in Lansing (a whole two months ago), I accepted a lot of work at MSU thinking I was only going to have a five-minute commute.  Things changed suddenly and I really didn’t want to give up the work, but now, my commute was going to be over an hour.  When I work multiple days in a row, it’s not really worth driving back to Kalamazoo.  By the time I get home, it’s bed time then I have to turn around and drive back. 

I tried Pricelining hotels, but that’s impossible on a football weekend, so I just went to Hotels.com and took the cheapest room I could find.  I was staying two nights, so that was a good chunk out of my pay for the weekend.  When it came to meals, I did my best to get by as cheap as I could, but still leave satisfied. 

When lunch rolled around on Thursday, I immediately thought of a desolate shack on Michigan Avenue that I was always interested in trying but afraid to drag J to.  I didn’t really know what I was going to find, but I assumed it would be cheap, quick, and it put off one of the fast food chains for one more meal.

Fish & Chips is on East Michigan Avenue in Lansing right at the corner of Foster Avenue.  It looks like the building was a fast food chain in a previous life, but I really couldn’t tell you which one.  It’s a pretty cookie cutter building with a sun room that was a popular feature in the 80′s.  I read somewhere that it may have been an Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips from the 70′s.

They try to mimmick the interior of a British pub, but it’s just not easy to do unless you go all out.  When you try to mix pub and fast food, the look comes off forced.  The tables are cheap, plastic, and yellow.  There are some booths in the front part of the dining room as well as some wobbly tables in the sunroom extension. 

The store was empty when I dropped in.  There were two guys working.  One took my order.  The other prepared it.  I’m not a fish fan which is pretty nuts when you consider I went to a place called Fish & Chips for lunch, but their window signage said they had grilled chicken.  I didn’t see it on the menu, but they did have a Chicken & Chips option.  If I would have looked a little more before ordering, they also had a Wing Ding Dinner which also sounded like something I would enjoy.

The total was just over seven bucks.  The pre-cooked chicken was dumped back in the deep fryer for a final crisping.  The chips got the same treatment.  It was all loaded into a paper boat with a coupe hush puppies before being delivered to me on a tray with my Pepsi. 

Since I had time to kill, I just ate at the restaurant.  I took a seat in the sunroom and examined my food.  I wasn’t sure if I had gotten fish or chicken.  The meat in front of me didn’t really look like any part of the chicken I’m familiar with.  It sort of looked like breast meat that had been trimmed off the bone, flattened then beer battered and deep fried.  In due time, I figured out it was chicken that was meant to look like fish. 

Even though I’m sort of calling it a mystery meat, the chicken was pretty good.  I enjoyed the beer battered treatment and, to my surprise, it didn’t have a fishy taste.  The chips were large french fries that could have used a shot of salt when the came out of the fryer.  They weren’t bad though and there was salt on the table.  I’m not a hush puppy fan, but I gave it a shot anyway.  They were alright, but I didn’t take more than a bite.  It’s just not my thing.

Fish & Chips wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it did turn out to be a decent, cheap lunch.  Since ultimately what I was looking for, I guess they hit it out of the park. 

719 Brookside Drive

Another weekend on the road back in East Lansing for work.  I was on my own for a hotel, so I was on the look out for the cheapest I could find.  That’s not an easy task on a football weekend, but I was able to find one for under $50/night.  It was the Motel 6 on Saginaw Highway.  Not a five-star hotel by any stretch of the imagination..hell, lucky if it was one, but all I really needed was a bed for a few hours and it did serve that purpose and I’m sure I’ll be staying there a lot this winter.

Before bed though, I needed food.  There aren’t many places in Delta Township where J and I didn’t eat.  That area of Lansing is one of the major shopping districts and we made trips out that way once a week.  We almost never did pizza on that side of town though, so I pretty much had my pick.  There was only one chain out there that wasn’t on the south side where we lived.  Even though I read a so-so review a year or so ago, I decided to give it a shot. 

Dolly’s Pizza is a chain out of White Lake, Michigan and most of their stores are in the Detroit area.  They were voted Best Pizza in Michigan at some point by the Michigan Restaurant Association yet they never say what year that was. 

The only Lansing location is in Delta Township on Brookside Drive.  It’s in a strip mall anchored by an Outback Steakhouse on Saginaw Highway.  Like most chains, Dolly’s is a strictly carry-out/delivery business.  The store front is mostly kitchen with a small waiting area that included a couple chairs and some old Sports Illustrated magazines. 

My plan was to call in an order and go pick it up, but I couldn’t find a phone number.  It wasn’t listed in the Yellow Pages and my computer was in the process of dying (I eventually got the dreaded blue screen of death), so I had no choice but to walk in and place an order. 

When I got inside, a guy behind the counter asked if I was picking up.  I told him no and I needed to place an order.  He finished making the pizza he was working on then took care of me.  I ordered a large pepperoni pizza.  He took my ten bucks then I sat down to wait.  As I was waiting, I noticed there could have been more to my large pizza at no extra cost.  Apparently, they have two styles of large.  Both a traditional round and a square.  I wasn’t offered a choice.  They also have flavored crust.  Again, I wasn’t offered a choice.  Since it was my first trip, I didn’t know these were options.  Would have been nice if the clerk would have asked me if I would have liked any of those.  It’s not a huge deal, just one of my pet peeves with chain pizza joints. 

I took a seat in one of the chairs and waited.  It took a little over ten minutes, but I knew that going in.  When my pizza was done, the guy that took the order brought it out to me and thanked me for my patience.  Again, I knew what I was getting into when I walked in, but it was nice of him to say that. 

It was a short five-minute drive back to my hotel where I grabbed a Pepsi from the vending machine and dug in.  Dolly’s claims their “secret is in the sauce,” so I really paid attention to what I was biting into.  I didn’t notice anything.  At first glance, the pizza looked similar to most chains, but the crust was a little bit thinner.  It wasn’t a thin crust pizza, but it wasn’t the very doughy thick crust that similar places use.  There was some cornmeal left sticking to the bottom which is something I like.  Reminds me of Chicago and it gives the crust a little more texture since you don’t normally get that crunchy crust with a conveyor cooker.   The cheese was really greasy which is a sign of cheap cheese.  Not that I could tell a difference..I was so hungry, it didn’t really matter.  I just dove in. 

Dolly’s was slightly better than average.  I ate three-quarters and saved the rest for breakfast.    It’s not a pizza I’m going to crave, but it is a decent option if you’re in an unfamiliar area and looking for something familiar. 

248 Jenison Field House

It’s wierd.  I’ve been to DeMartin Stadium, but I’ve never blogged about it.  I was thinking that Sunday as I was standing there watching the MSU women take on the Minnesota Golden Golphers.  I don’t have a lot of experience with college soccer stadiums or soccer in general, but DeMartin seems like a nice place to play.

DeMartin Stadium sits behind Jenison Field on Michigan State University.  It’s part of the athletic complex that makes up Old College Field along with the softball and baseball diamonds.  DeMartin Stadium is barely a year old.  Before the 2008 season, a number of changes took place to the soccer field including the orientation and the addition of seating bringing the capacity to 2500. 

The closest parking lot to the field is at Jenison and on game days, parking can be at a premium.  People were parking everywhere.  In spaces, on the grass, wherever they could find a spot to put their cars.  The only bad thing about Old College Field is the parking, but that seems to be the trend at all of MSU’s athletic facilities. 

You enter Old College Field between the baseball and softball diamonds…that is, if you’re paying.  You wouldn’t believe how many kids…and adults were sucking in their guts and squeezing through the fence that is meant to keep people out.  I don’t know how much a soccer game costs, but it can’t be that much. 

If you did pay, you have a little bit of a walk to the grandstands.  They are on the other side of the field.  There’s a huge section of bleachers if you’re in the sitting mood or you can stand along the sidelines at the fence.  The fence is only a few feet from the playing surface, so if that’s you’re thing, you could have a really good spot. 

Concessions are all portable stands.  There were actually four or five trailers selling different things including a honey roasted almond truck and a Mr. Pita truck.  I was tempted to buy a bottle of pop from the Pita guy..until I saw the price was $3.50/bottle.  I could wait until I could get to a gas station.  I need less pop anyway. 

The facility is said to be one of the premier soccer stadiums in the country.  I have no idea because I only have one other comparison.  Soccer is not really my thing, but people do come to games and it’s nice to have so much seating if you’re going to sit in the rain and watch the Spartans.