I saw a review for Rendezvous on the Grand in The Hub‘s 2 for $20 feature shortly after moving to Lansing. We got up early one day and decided to hit Rendezvous for lunch before my girlfriend had to go to work.
We stopped in on a Tuesday afternoon just after the lunch rush. The place was empty. The waitress/bartender and the cook were wrapping silverware at a table near the back. They were very friendly when we walked in and took a table near the bar. The Rendezvous is located in Old Town which is the hip, artsy part of Lansing. The decor of the old bank building embodies that spirit. When you walk in, you walk into a spacious, high ceiling space filled with art deco chairs and tables. The feature that jumped out to me was the light fixtures. They took something as simple as conduit and bent it into an art piece. The lights on the end of each condiut are spot lights that are plugged right into a junction box on the end of each piece of conduit. There’s an upstairs area with a few more tables and a pool table then there’s a dance floor in front of a stage with permanent stage lighting hanging from the ceiling.
We took a seat near the bar and the waitress came over with paper menus to take our drink order. Since it was early, we both went with Pepsi’s. The menu is pretty interesting with salads, sandwiches, and personal french bread pizzas. I went fairly safe and got the Beefeater sandwich. The kaiser roll was filled with sliced roast beef, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, and bistro sauce. I left the lettuce and tomato off and went straight for the meat. The meat itself was nothing special. It actually kind of tasted like they went to the deli and got some roast beef. The bistro sauce was interesting and I couldn’t really place what it actually was, but it was good and added some flavor to a sandwich that really wasn’t much more than cold meat sandwich. The sandwich came with chips and a pickle spear.
My girlfriend got a little more adventerous and got the chicken satay. The waitress almost accidently talked her out of it because it’s probably supposed to be an appetizer and not a meal, but when the waitress said it came with mashed potatoes, she figured it could be a meal. With this meal, chicken breasts were wrapped in bacon and skewered with green pepper, tomato, and pineapple then the whole thing is drizzled with a sweet BBQ sauce. The two skewers came beautifully presented on the plate with a drizzling of the same BBQ sauce underneath. Heck, they even put the BBQ sauce on the garlic mashed potatos. One bite and she knew that she had made the right choice. The chicken had a delicious smokey flavor from the bacon and the grilled veggies were a great compliment to the meal.
After we ordered, we realized neither of us ordered fries. I tracked down the waitress and asked if we could still put in an order. She said the fryer had been down all morning and she wasn’t sure if it was hot enough to actually cook the fries. After talking with the cook, she came out and apologized that the oil wasn’t hot enough. A few minutes later, she came back and said the oil had warmed up, so we went ahead and told her to fry some up. The cook came out 5 minutes later with an order of fries. Nothing special here, but I really like the way the staff handled it. Most places would have just tried to pass off the fries as cooked, but these two were not going to serve something that wasn’t done right. The first couple my g/f bit in to she said were a little under done, but I didn’t notice.
We picked Rendezvous because of the claim the Lansing State Journal made about two meals under $20. As promised, this meal came in under the $20. With tip, we paid $17 and made it in and out with enough time to spare to walk around Old Town.
Mid-Michigan Dining 
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