The Pink Pony Bar & Grill in downtown Mackinac Island.
After our carriage tour of Mackinac Island, J and I made our way back to Main Street. It was now pushing 5:30 and we still hadn’t bought any fudge. J mentioned we should probably buy some then added she could go for dinner. I felt the same way. We burned a lot of energy today and lunch seemed so long ago.
This was going to be our last meal on the Island and there were still so many choices. I picked up a Mackinac Island dining guide from the Visitor’s Center, but there were no address or maps of where any of the places were. As we toured the Island, we walked by a number of places that would normally catch our attention. I stopped and browsed menus at a few, but when it comes down to it, J and I are really pub food people.
I thought it might be nice if we could spend the end of the day enjoying dinner overlooking Lake Hudson. The first place that popped into my head was the Pink Pony. We walked by earlier in the day and it looked cute plus the back of the building overlooked the harbor.
The Pink Pony Bar & Grill is on Main Street inside the Chippewa Hotel. The bar/restaurant takes up a large portion of the bottom floor and it’s divided into several sections. If you walk into the bar, there is no hostess station, but there is a sign pointing you to the lobby of the hotel. We just stayed outside and walked to the lobby where we found a hostess just in front of the main dining room.
The hostess asked where we’d like to sit. There are four options. There’s the bar, which, on a cold day, would have been our first choice. There’s a dining room that is a little more formal and kind of stuffy four our tastes. There’s the outdoor patio which wasn’t an option because it was already full. The final option was an outdoor dining room. I immediately said outside, but looked at J and asked for her opinion. She said as long as there was shade, outdoors would be great.
We were shown to the outdoor dining room which is up a flight of stairs from the patio. There are only a handful of tables and we were lucky enough to get a table right along the railing so we could look out over the water.
As we were looking over the menus, the waitress brought us our Coke’s. The menu had a number of dinner entrees, but fortunately for us, they had a couple sandwiches. Like I’ve mentioned many times, J and I are happiest when we cna get a delicious sandwich. Entrees are nice, but costly and we were trying to do this trip on a budget since we have other commitments in the coming weeks.
The Pink Pony Bar & Grill in the Chippewa Hotel on Mackinac Island.
Both of us were debating over two sandwiches on the menu so we decided to each get one and split it. The first sandwich, and the one J actually ordered, was the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. The sandwich was a perfectly grilled chicken breast that was covered in their “Island famous Pony buffalo sauce. The menu said the sandwich comes with bleu cheese, but my impression was that it was more of a bleu cheese sauce. J and I were split on this one. She really liked it and thought the sauce was good. The chicken was hot, but the sauce was enough to cool it down. I wasn’t a fan of the sauce. I like chunks of bleu cheese better. I thought the sauce made the sandwich messy and the bun soggy. The chicken was delicious though. I would have enjoyed a dozen wings in the buffalo sauce.
The other sandwich we ordered was the Barbeque Pork Sandwich. The meat is “mojo marinated” and slow roasted pulled pork that has been tossed in their signature BBQ sauce then topped with fried tobacco onions. I really liked this sandwich. As far as roasting pulled pork goes, this is one of the better ones. There was a little bit of saltiness in pork which I really liked and there was just enough sauce. The meat was covered but it wasn’t dripping off the bun. I took the onions off and gave them to J. She liked her half of the sandwich, but still preferred the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.
Both sandwiches came with fries. For another couple buck, J upgraded hers to sweet potato fries. They were interesting because they were crinkle cut sweet potato fries which is something I’ve never seen before. I don’t like sweet potatoe fries so I didn’t try any, but J liked them. The regular fries were out of the bag restaurant fries.
We really enjoyed our meal at the Pink Pony. Sitting out on the deck was a nice relaxing way to end the day. We even had a little bit of unexpected entertainment. For some reason, two guys were horsing around on one of the nearby docks and before long, one of them was stripping down to his tighty-whities and laying on the wood planks. A few minutes later, one of Mackinac Island’s finest shows up and hauls the guy away in handcuffs. J got a picture of the cop hauling him away as a memento.
Our bill, with tip, was right around thirty bucks. Again, a little high for pub food, but markup’s expected at a tourist destination. The patio looked like a lot of fun and I sort of wished we could have gotten a table down there. There’s a full service bar as well as a hot tub. There was also some live entertainment that carried over to us in the outdoor dining room. The Pink Pony was a good way to wrap up our day. Sure, it was just bar food, but in this instance, but the atmosphere is what made this meal memorable.
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