Mid-Michigan Dining

• 254 W. Grand River Ave.
• East Lansing, MI 48823
• (517) 351-2506
• Website
• Menu
• Original Review

Crunchy's in East Lansing. Picture taken in the spring of 2008

I first reviewed Crunchy’s back in the spring not long after moving to Mid-Michigan.  That was the beginning of my quest for the best burger in Lansing.  I wasn’t overly impressed, but really liked the bar.  There were a few other things on the menu we were wanting to try and figured we’d get back there some day.  Fast forward six months.  I was working at Munn Ice Arena and J and I decided to meet up for dinner after the hockey game.  There’s not a whole lot of options after 10:00 other than pizza so J suggested we meet at Crunchy’s.

Saturday night is probably not the best night to go to a college bar if you’re not in college, but we knew that heading in.  J called ahead to see when the kitchen closed.  I was expecting to get done with work around 11 and the kitchen closed at 11:30, so we knew it was going to be close.  Turns out, I got done before 11 so we made it in plenty of time.  We were carded at the door and a waitress pointed out a table just inside the dining room that we could take. 

Saturday is karaoke night at Crunchy’s and it was L-O-U-D.  Really loud.  We had tried karaoke one other time and the song selection was pretty bad, so we never went back for that.  Karaoke wasn’t the intention tonight, so J didn’t even pick up a song book which surprised me a little bit.  Those that were doing the karaoke were picking songs that everyone knows so the entire bar was singing along at the top of their lungs which made conversation difficult. 

The waitress came over for drink orders first and we yelled those at her.  I always forget where I’m at and order a Budweiser out of habit instead of taking advantage of the drink specials.  Bud only comes in a bottle which still isn’t priced all that bad at $2.50.  J got a Bud Light also in a bottle.  The waitress brought the drinks over and said she’d be right back for food. 

Since I had the burger last time, I decided to go with something else.  The Stone Baked Subs sounded good to both of us, so we each got a different one so we could both try each others.  I got the Buffalo Baked Chicken Melt.   Deep fried chicken nuggets were covered in buffalo sauce and a couple slices of American cheese were placed on top.  I didn’t get the “stone baked” part of it because the bun didnt’ taste very toasted at all.  It was still really good though.  The sub came with fresh cut fries.  It was good, but a toastier bun would have made things even better.

J ordered the BBQ, Turkey, and Bacon sub.  It was freakin delicious.  She gave me a bite and I wanted to steal it when she wasn’t looking.  The sandwich was turkey and crispy bacon covered in a Double Cream Stout BBQ sauce and even that was delicious.  I was jealous of her sandwich.  She also got fries with her, but didn’t eat more than half.  But there was a good reason for that.

Last time we looked at the menu, we noticed Crunchy’s buckets of food.  The special on Saturday night is a bucket of buddies, a bucket of munchies, and a bucket of beer for $30.  There was no way we were going to drink a bucket of beer so we passed, but we couldn’t pass on a Bucket O’ Sweet Nugs.  They took deep fried pizza dough and rolled them in vanilla bean powdered sugar.  It was like heaven in a bucket. I got the last few bites of J’s sandwich and half of her fries because she really wanted the dessert.  Even so, we got so many “nugs” we had to ask for a to-go box and ended up eating them for breakfast the next morning.  Even eating my meal and some of J’s, I had a handful of “nugs” myself.  They were delicious and hard to turn down.

Even with two drinks, our bill came out to about $21.  That was a little surprising considering how much food we got.  We both left full and satisfied, but wanting more of the Sweet Nugs.  For a college bar, Crunchy’s isn’t all that bad.  It was incredibly loud, but they have good food and drink specials.  We only spent about a half hour or so in the bar.  So even though it was packed, we were able to get a few drinks, some good food and be on our way.