Mid-Michigan Dining

• 5800 W. Saginaw Highway
• Lansing, MI 48917
• (517) 327-4751
• Website
• Menu

Logans Roadhouse in Delta Township

I never know what to do when my parents come to town.  They’re not very adventurous eaters so I always hesitate bringing them to someplace I’ve never eaten at.  Chains are always safe because the menus are usually big enough to have something they will eat. 

Saturday, my parents decided to come to town for the weekend.  They hadn’t been here since last fall due to the weather and since my mom had the weekend off, they made the trip north.  They timed it so they got here about a half hour before I got home from the spring football game.  J entertained them while I finished up.  After a quick shower, we headed out to find dinner.  I don’t think my parents had eaten yet and my mom was hungry.  We wanted to make a stop at Babies-R-Us anyway and since we’ve eaten at a Logan’s Roadhouse before (in East Peoria, IL), I thought it was a safe bet. 

Logan’s Roadhouse is in Delta Township near the Lansing Mall on Saginaw Highway.  The parking lot looked pretty full when we pulled up, but we noticed the same for most of the restaurants along this strip, so it’s not like we’d be better off going somewhere else.  Fortunately, the dining room is big. Actually, it’s pretty large.  We were met by a hostess who took us to a non-smoking table in the middle of the dining room near the kitchen. 

Logan’s really pulls off the Roadhouse theme.  The dining room has a tall ceiling and the rooms are spacious.  The floors are distressed woods that creak a little when you walk.  Those floor boards are covered with peanut shells.  Yup, Logan’s puts buckets of peanuts on the table and the shells end up on the floor.  I love that.  It reminds me of the place my mom works at in Illinois.  My mom did mention that the peanuts actually tasted fresh.  At her restaurant, they go through a lot, but they buy them in big 50 gallon drums, so it takes a while to go through them.  By the time you get to the bottom, the peanuts have a little bit of a staler taste.  Not these.

The waitress came and took our drink orders.  They have Coke on the menu which is not something my family is a fan of, but we made due.  My mom and J got Diets.  My dad got a Sprite.  I got a Coke.  When drinks were brought back, some rolls were also brought out.  They were delicious, soft, flaky rolls that had melted butter on top.  There was also a container of whipped butter in the basket, but we were never given silverware, so we couldn’t really use it.

For dinner, I went with the Pepperjack BBQ burger.  The burgers at Logan’s are blend of ground sirloin, chuck, and steak.  My sandwich came topped with pepperjack cheese, crispy onions, and a sweet and smokey BBQ sauce.  The burger is served on a toasted bun and comes with chips, but I upgraded to fries for a buck.  The burger was kind of dry.  There wasn’t a whole lot of fat in the meat.  I could barely tell that there was any BBQ sauce on it.  At first, I took the bun off to see if it was even there.  I didnt’ see it until I took a bite and tiny bit squeezed out from under the cheese.  The burger was ok, but nothing special and not something I’d go back for.  The fries were alright, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of them either.  I still left full and needing a nap, so I can’t complain too much.

Logan's Roadhosue on Saginaw Highway in Laning.

J ordered the Kickin’ Logan’s Chikin Salad.  A bowl filled with a mixture of romaine came topped with blackened chicken, red onion, shredded cheese, and a roasted corn and black bean salsa.  The dressing was a spicy Roadhouse Ranch and crispy tortillas.  The salad was good, but she said the tortilla’s were weird.  She said it was like someone took the crumbs out of the bottom of the bag and smashed them in their hand before throwing them on the salad.  She got crunch in every bite, but it was a weird crunch.  The chicken was good and there was a lot of it.  I got a few pieces and it had a kick to it.  Remember how I said we didn’t have utensils for the rolls….same for the salad.  J had to ask to get a fork.

My mom ordered the Porkies which both J and I considered ordering.  It’s three small pulled pork sandwiches that have covered in a slightly spicy, chipotle BBQ sauce and served on a hard wood smoked yeast roll with cole slaw.  The cole slaw threw my mom.  She had never seen pulled pork served that way, but she seemed to like it.  The rolls the sandwiches were served on were the same as the dinner rolls we had gotten earlier, but they had been smoked.  She really liked that part of the sandwich.  She opted to get the homemade chips with her meal and she liked those as well.  She had so many she put some on another plate for me and my dad.

My dad ordered the hot roast beef sandwich.  When our meals were brought out, his wasn’t and the waitress didn’t say anything about it.  We sat there for five minutes or so and my dad still didn’t have his plate.  WHY do waitresses do this?  Do they not realize how uncomfortable it makes everyone else?  My mom, who I’ve already mentioned has been a waitress for a long time, flagged our waitress down and asked about the missing plate.  She very rudely said they were finishing it up.  A few minutes later, his plate did come out and the meal looked really good.  There was a big portion of roast beef sitting on top of two pieces of bread and covered in gravy.  His meal came with mashed potatoes as well.  He seemed to really like it and didn’t offer me a bite.  Whenever we go out, he almost always gets an open faced sandwich covered in gravy, so I was happy to see that on the menu.

Guess what happened next.  Yup.  Waitress forgot about us.  Almost twenty minutes after we finished eating, we got our bill.  I’m really getting frustrated with eating out.  I’m almost to the point I don’t want to do it.  It’s not because we can’t afford it.  It’s because the service is so awful and I’m just getting fed up.  Give me the f’n bill!!!!!!! Can I say that any clearer?  I don’t give a rat’s ass if you set the bill down when you bring the food, but don’t make me sit there and stare and empty plates while you continue to walk by our table and not acknowledge that we’re even there.  This has been a huge problem lately and I’m really getting tired of it. 

When the bill finally did come, it was just over $45 which isn’t bad for four of us.  We paid cash so we wouldn’t have wait for her to come back with a receipt to sign.  Usually, my mom is a pretty good tipper, but she actually took a few singles out of the pile of cash that my dad and I threw together.  When another waitress goes cheap on a tip, you know service was bad.  Last time we ate at a Logan’s, we were all pretty happy with the results which is why I chose it this weekend.  Not this time.  The food was just alright and the service was pretty brutal.