I was working near Clark Lake for a couple weeks and I drove by In Good Company a couple times on the way to my job. Since I had a little time for lunch one afternoon, I decided to head back and give the place a shot.
You walk into the restaurant and come to the hostess station. The dining room is seperated into three sections. Since I was dining alone, they put me in the middle dining room by myself at a table for two. The waitress came over and brought me a Pepsi then took my dinner order. The menu at In Good Company is really unique for a diner. They have exotice things like a Bison Burger and they take someting like a panini and go a little bit farther than the usual diner fare.
I went with the Only One Burger. A fresh 1/2 lb angus beef patty is topped with bacon, cheddar, tomato, lettuce, and onion then put on a baked fresh bun. You get the option of either just ordering the sandwich or ordering a meal which gives you your choice of two sides. I went with a salad for my first choice. Just your basic side salad with a Italian dressing. My second choice I went with fries which are curly fries similar to those you get at Arby’s.
The burger was a little disappointing. All the extras made the burger tasty, but the meat itself was dry and 
sorta flavorless. It was a good concept for a burger, but overdone a little. I asked for the burger medium and it came out more well done.
The waitress came with the check while I was still working on the burger, so there was no lag time there. The bill was $10 before tip. Not bad for a full meal like that. The service was quick and I was able to make it back to my job in under an hour. In Good Company has a menu full of interesting items that will make this place worth a return trip.
I picked my girlfriend up at work and we took a quick dinner break at the PAD. We walked in and waited for a waitress at the front counter. The waitress came out and asked smoking or non-smoking. We chose non-smoking which is a pretty small dining room in the front of the restaurant. There’s a wall that seperates that space from the smoking section, but windows still allow the smoke to sneak through. The non-smoking side of the dining room is actually pretty big. I headed back that way to the restrooms and there were quite a few people back there enjoying their meals in the thick, smoky air. Most of the patrons back there seemed to know each other as converstions extended beyond their own tables.
The Penn Ave. Diner passed the test as a greasy spoon diner. They didn’t really do anything that made them standout, but most people don’t go to a place like this for something super special. The bill seemed to be a little high to me coming in at $15 before tip. I’m sure it was the extra we had to pay for a fry cook to open a bag of fries and drop them in the oil. It was a quick meal though as we were in and out in about 20 minutes. The PAD has a unique design and food that satisfies, but doesn’t wow.
most people, but once this law went into effect, it made dining out so much better. You could go to a pub after work or for lunch and not have to worry about your suits soaking up that cloud of smoke. Ther have been some bumps in the road in Illinois. The disfunctional legislature hasn’t been able to agree on how to enforce the law so all tickets wrote in Illinois have been thrown out so far. Communities have had to deal with an abundance of trash on the sidewalks. In my former home of Peoria, the city has stepped up and given the downtown bars 
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.
The place was gorgeaus, but how would the food stack up? Our waiter came over for drinks. My girlfriend went with one of their many cocktails. I had a Pepsi. The drink menu is just about the same size as the dinner menu. I’m not sure I’ve ever been handed a menu so thick. Meals range from burgers to steaks and everything in between. I went with my new favorite, the Black and Bleu burger. The half pound burger with Cajun seasoning comes on a Ciabatta roll with blue cheese crumbles and hardwood smoked sugar cured bacon strips. The waiter said it was a good choice as Clara’s is known for that burger. The sandwich came with the standard out-of-the bag fries which were crispy and salty, so no complaint there. The sandwich was delicious…except I didn’t realize it was going to have mayo on it. The menu doesn’t say anything about mayo and I was really surprised when I took a bite to find that there. The first few bites it was overpowering and took away from the taste of the cheese, but the more I ate, the more the bleu cheese flavor came out.
Mid-Michigan Dining 
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