Buffalo Barbeque Wings

18 08 2008
  • 1085 N. Wisner St.
  • Jackson, MI 49202
  • (517) 782-4344
  • Website
  • Menu
Buffalo Barbeque Wings in Jackson

Buffalo Barbeque Wings in Jackson

I first heard about Buffalo Barbeque Wings (yes, Barbeque, not Wild) a few months ago when the Jackson Citizen-Patriot ran a blurb about it’s opening.  I blogged about (here) and I have gotten hundreds of hits for that post.  When you type “Buffalo Barbecue (sic) Wings” in Google, that post is the first hit you get.  Seems there are a lot of people wanting to know more about this place but since they don’t have a website, they keep getting directed to my site.

My girlfriend and I were down in Brooklyn for the Sprint Cup race.  I was doing some work and we both had garage passes.  The concession stands in the pits suck and the media lunch was at noon, so by the time 6:00 rolled around, we were both starving.  As we were waiting for Carl Edwards to make his way to the conference room, J asked about dinner.  Since we were already going through Jackson, I asked her if she was up for some wings.  I figured if people are going to come to this blog looking for information, I might as well give it to them.

We avoided the mess on US 127 by staying on US 12 after leaving the track and cutting through the country on Jackson Rd.  We ended up only sitting in traffic for 20 minutes instead of the hour plus we did last time.  Since we took Jackson Rd, we ended up going all the way through town to get to where we were going.  That’s not necessary on a normal day.  We found on the way home Buffalo Barbecue Wings is less than a mile from I-94 and US 127.  We found the shop in a strip mall.  There was just a sign that marked the spot.  Had we not been looking for it, it would have been easy to miss.  It’s behind Biggby and that’s how I knew to start looking.  I saw the Biggby and turned into the parking lot.  After a quick scan of the storefronts, we found Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Bar, Chicken, Jackson, Local Flavor, Michigan, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar, Wings

Reno’s West Sports Bar & Pizzeria

3 08 2008
  • 5001 W. Saginaw Hwy.
  • Lansing, MI 48917
  • (517) 321-0616
  • No Known Website
  • Menu (from East Lansing Location)
Renos West Sports Bar and Pizzeria on W. Saginaw Hwy in Lansing

Reno's West Sports Bar and Pizzeria on W. Saginaw Hwy in Lansing

What a day!  Everything we tried to do just didn’t want to work out.  The day started off with us getting up super early (for us) to get tickets to Barack Obama’s speech on Monday.  We made it to Gone Wired Cafe at about 8:30 and the line was four blocks long.  We jumped in line thinking, “The Lansing Center holds 5,000 people, I bet there’s not more than a couple thousand in line.”  According to the LSJ, they only gave out 1,000 tickets, so by about the time we got within one block of the front door, they ran out of tickets.  Not a big deal to me, being from Illinois, I covered Obama’s Senate run, have interviewed the Senator many times, and worked for the campaign at his Presidential Announcement in Springfield, IL on the steps of the Old Capitol…oh yeah, and I’m a Republican and probably won’t be voting for him.  My girlfriend, on the other hand, was working in a different state during that election and has never seen Obama speak live, so I was hoping to get tickets so she could see him.  Didn’t work out.

After we left Gone Wired, we figured since we just blew two hours, we’d get some breakfast.  I’ve read on Runs With Spatula about Soup to Nuts Bistro more than once.  We headed back to Kalamazoo Street only to find Soup to Nutz closed on Saturdays.  Two strikes against us and it’s not even 11:00.

Since we were at that odd time of not quite breakfast, not quite lunch, we headed out to the Lansing Mall to do some shopping for a wedding next week in Chicago.  We finally caught a break.  My girlfriend found a great dress at 60% off.  After walking around the mall, we’re both starving.  We’ve drove by Reno’s West a few times and since it was close, we headed back down Saginaw.  Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Bar, Lansing, Pub, Restaurant, Reviews, Sandwiches, Sports Bar

Buddies Grill – Holt

17 07 2008
  • 2040 Aurelius Rd.
  • Holt, MI 48842
  • (517) 699-3670
  • No Known Website
  • Menu (From Okemos Location)
Buddies Grill in Holt

Buddies Grill in the Holt Plaza Shopping Center

Buddies has been on the short list of places to try near our house for some time.  Why we never got there is a mystery, but we finally hit it up for lunch.  Even the day we went, it was second choice.  I had heard about a deli inside a hardware store on Aurelius Road and that’s what we went looking for.  We found Big T’s Extreme Deli inside Brower’s Hardware, but there was a closed sign on the counter, so we were forced to find something else.  We had just drove by Buddies and my girlfriend suggested we turn around and head back there.

Buddies is located in a strip mall at the corner of Holt Rd. and Aurelius Rd.  It’s a huge space with a nice big outdoor patio.  The heat index was up over 90 degrees the day we stopped in, so we passed on the outdoors thing.  The inside is seperated into two rooms.  The main bar area with a variety of pub tables and regular tables scattered around the bar and then there’s another non-smoking room off to the left.  We took a table in the non-smoking section.  Our waitress came over for drink orders as we looked over the menu and it’s a pretty big menu.  By the time she came back with our Pepsi, we still weren’t quite ready, so she gave us a few more minutes.  Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Burgers, Holt, Pub, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar

Harper’s Restaurant & Brewpub

19 06 2008
  • 131 Albert Ave.Harper's Restaurant and Brewpub
  • East Lansing, MI 48823
  • (517) 333-4040
  • No Known Website
  • Menu

I noticed Harper’s one night while driving around East Lansing pretty late looking for a pizza-by-the-slice place.  We didn’t stop because we weren’t looking for a bar and especially not a college bar, but I put that info in the back of my head for future use.  Today, my girlfriend and I were making a run to the Grand Traverse Pie Company to get pie’s for the weekend, but weren’t in the mood to eat there.  After driving around with my head cut off, my girlfriend mentioned that brew pub I was telling her about, so we headed down Grand River to downtown East Lansing.

The building for Harper’s is massive.  When we drove by, we weren’t sure if it was even open.  It looked dark, so we drove around the block again.  The parking is across the street in the public pay lot, so we went through the gate and found a place to park.  It was just starting to rain as we got out of the car, so we hustled across the street hoping they were open.  I got to the top of the steps and pulled on the big wood double doors and they opened up right into the bar.  Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Brew Pub, Burgers, Downtown, East Lansing, Reviews, Sandwiches, Sports Bar

The Beach Bar

16 06 2008
  • 3509 Ocean BeachThe Beach Bar
  • Clarklake, MI 49234
  • (517) 529-4211
  • Website
  • Menu

The Beach Bar is one of those places that is really off the beaten path.  We left Michigan International Speedway after the Craftsman Truck Series race hungry and needing a place to eat.  The Beach Bar is one of the suggested places on MISpeedway.com, so I found a website and was impressed (again, I reiterate, restaurant owners, YOU NEED A WEBSITE if you want to be found).  We left the track and the GPS took us back into Brooklyn to Clarklake Road.  After winding through the Irish Hills and down what seemed like some country roads, we came upon Clark Lake.  My companions in the truck with me were starting to wonder if we were going the wrong way until we hit the lake which is a beautfiful site.  All of a sudden, I looked to the right and there was this big building right across from the docks.  I was almost expecting a little hole in the wall, but this was a big, nice looking building.  I was also somewhat expecting it to be packed since we were still fairly close to MIS.

When you walk in, there’s a little area for carry-outs.  I think it’s pretty safe to assume they do a pretty good carry-out business with the lake across the street.  People come in for food, but want to sit on their boats.  You go through that room and enter the bar.  The hostess station is almost in the middle of the room and it took us a while to notice it.  I almost suggested just grabbing a station when my buddy saw the hostess.  We were shown to a table in the non-smoking section near the back of the restaurant.  the space is divided by a game room area with the smoking section in the front of the space near the bar. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Bar, Clarklake, Local Flavor, Pub, Restaurant, Reviews, Sandwiches, Sports Bar

City Limits Sports Grill

1 06 2008
  • 801 N. Cedar St.City Limits Mason
  • Mason, MI 48854
  • (517) 244-1090
  • Website
  • Menu

City Limits was a recommendation from an avid reader and one of my girlfriend’s interns.  We were sitting around after spending all day being a tourist in our own town debating about what to do for dinner.  I didn’t really feel like cooking, so we decided to go out.  We hopped in my truck and headed down Cedar Street to Mason.  City Limits sits just on the other side of 127 inside the Mason Bowling Center.  The parking lot looked pretty full when we pulled up.  Then it hit me.  Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals had just started. 

We went inside and there was a hostess station at the door, but no one was there.  We didn’t know if we should wait or just sit down.  Finally a waitress noticed us and told us to sit wherever we would like.  The dining area is divided into a smoking and non-smoking space.  The non-smoking is down a couple stairs into a big, open room filled with tables, dart boards, and, of course, big screen TV’s.  We chose a booth along the wall near one of the huge projection TV’s.  I wasn’t super interested in watching the game, but that didn’t matter.  You can’t look up without seeing a TV somewhere.

It must have just been our luck that particular day.  Everyplace we ate we had a wait.  It took five to ten minutes before our waitress finally noticed us sitting there.  Once she did, she brought menus and got drink orders.  Saturday night is a margarita special, so my girlfriend got a strawberry margarita.  I wasn’t in the mood for alcohol so I just got a Pepsi.   The menu was full of the traditional sports bar fare.  There were burgers, pizza, salads, and chicken sandwiches on the menu, but the interesting thing was the grinders.

When I lived near Kankakee, IL, we always used to go to a pizza place called Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders (I’m still trying to figure out if the Mancino’s here in Lansing are the same thing), so we had Grinders all the time growing up.  My girlfriend had never heard the term before and was a little surprised when I got my sandwich.  I went with the half pizza grinder.  The seven inch sandwich was topped with pepperoni, ham, banana peppers (according to the menu anyway.  I didn’t taste or see them on the sandwich), mozzerella cheese and pizza sauce.  It’s like a little mini-pizza in sandwich form.  It was delicious.  I almost wish I got the full sandwich because when I was done, I wanted to keep eating.  It’s not quite the same as Mancino’s, but this one had a unique flavor with the ham.  For an extra buck, I added fries to my sandwich.  They were just typical fries…nothing special.

My girlfriend got the Southern Fried Chicken Salad with Buffalo Chicken tenders.  Again, they have the option of a half or full salad.  She asked the waitress what the size of the half was, but didn’t get a really good answer, so she ordered the full salad just to be safe.  The salad came with a bed of fresh lettuce, jack cheddar cheese, tomatoes, red onions, bacon and buffalo chicken tenders.  The chicken was hot and there was a lot of it.  Almost enough to make that a meal on it’s own.  She passed a few pieces of the chicken over to me and it really tasted like a boneless chicken wing.  She said the chicken was as hot as she likes buffalo wings and any hotter would have ruined the salad.  Her only complaint was the red onions.  They were stronger than she likes, but that’s a personal preference when it comes to onions.  Neither of us are big onion fans and there’s always the hope they won’t overpower the other ingredients.  With all the chicken, she probably finished about half the salad.

City Limits is a great space.  Yes, it’s a sports bar, but the design allows it to be a family friendly atmosphere as well.  The table next to us was a family with four kids.  They had a couple pizzas and all eyes were glued to the TV’s.  My girlfriend said her eyes got really dry from the smoke, but I didn’t notice it until we were leaving.  I think someone opened the door to the bowling alley a little too long and a huge cloud of smoke rolled in, but she said it was there the whole time.  We both LOVED the food.  My sandwich was delicious and something you can’t get at a lot of places.  We both left stuffed and only paid around $20.  Even with the crowd for the Red Wings game, our server was there when we needed her after the initial wait.


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Categories : Bar, Mason, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar

Art’s Bar and Grill

13 04 2008
  • 809 E. Kalamazoo St.Art's Bar and Grill
  • Lansing, MI 48912
  • (517)482-8328
  • No Known Website
  • Menu

Art’s Bar and Grill claims to be Lansing’s oldest sports bar serving up award winning pizza and out of the ordinary pub food. After doing some Internet research, my girlfriend and I decided to give it a shot for a Saturday night dinner.

We both had a few reservations as we were heading to the bar.  The neighborhood surrounding Art’s is full of rundown buildings and it just didn’t look that inviting…nor did the exterior of Art’s, but we thought we’d give it a chance anyway since it has been highly recommended on the web.

When you walk in, you come right to the main dining room.  There’s also a bar area to the back and video games are spread throughout the space.  We found a table near the back of the dining room near the shuffleboard table.   There was only one waitress working the entire restaurant and she was busy.  She noticed us right away and yelled over that she’d be right there.  After unloading her tray
filled with drinks, she came over with menus and took our drink order.  After coming back with drinks we were ready to order.

My girlfriend went with the chicken strip basket.  Deep fried chicken strips and fresh cut fries.  YES!  FRESH CUT FRIES!  This place already scores extra points with me.  She liked the chicken and the fries and the portion size was more than enough for her with a little left over for me so I could get a quick bite of the chicken.

I went for a house special.  Art’s Burger.  I didn’t realize what I was getting into when I ordered this.  1lb. of burger broken up into two 1/2lb patties that had a 2oz. slice of ham wedged between them.  With cheese on top, this made for one helluva sandwich.  I couldn’t even get the thing in my mouth.  The burger was nice and juicy and the ham and bun were both toasted adding this amazing flavor.  The burger came with chips on the side and a pickle.  The waitress asked me if I wanted fries and I said yes assuming that the fries would replace the chips, but they didn’t.  I got a huge side of the fresh cut fries on top of the meal. I think it goes without saying, but I definately did not leave the table hungry.

Art’s was a chance we took and we’re both so glad we did.  The clientel was all over the board including many different social groups.  Art’s has great pub food in a great atmosphere.  From my table I could see at least three different TV’s including a giant screen projection in the corner.  After a little hesitation up front, we will probably be going back to Art’s regularly.

 


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Categories : Burgers, Lansing, Local Flavor, Michigan, Reviews, Sports Bar

Coach’s All-American Pub-Grill

11 04 2008
  • 6201 Bishop Rd
  • Lansing, MI 48911-6208
  • Phone: (517) 882-2013
  • Website
  • Menu

Coach’s is your typical sports bar. There’s a bar when you walk in, multiple pool tables, dart boards, and dozens of TV’s. There’s also two pretty large dining rooms where they serve not your typical pub food.

My girlfriend and I stopped in on a Saturday night for dinner. We were a little worried because the NCAA tournament was on, but surprisingly, the place wasn’t crowded. We showed ourselves to a table in the first dining room and a server was right behind us to get drinks.

The menu had your typical pub fare plus entrees and unique pizza combinations including calzones. My date ordered the chicken strip and fries basket plus a side salad. She liked the crispy fries and said her chicken strips were good. I grabbed a bite of one and it all tasted like someone opened a bag and dumped them in the deep fryer. Doesn’t matter what I think, she enjoyed her dinner and that’s what really coungts.

I ordered the Bourbon Chicken Dinner. Two boneless chicken breasts come covered in a Bourbon BBQ glaze with fries, a salad, and a cheese breadstick. The BBQ was sweet and added a nice touch to chicken. THe fries were the same as my dates. The portion was a pretty good size. I didn’t leave stuff, but I didn’t leave feeling cheated either. The side salad was your typical greens with croutons, cucumber, and tomatos. I got the Italian dressing which was a little thicker than usual, but still good.

The bill with three drinks was about $30. There’s a lot on this menu I really wanted to try. I’ve heard the pizzas were good, the burgers looked good and there were a few more dinners that looked appetizing. Coach’s really tries to be more than just another sports bar and with this menu, they are succeeding at doing so.


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Categories : Burgers, Lansing, Local Flavor, Michigan, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar

Champion Sports Bar and Grill

11 04 2008
  • 2440 Cedar St
  • Holt, MI 48842-2104
  • Phone: (517) 694-7660
  • No Website Known
  • Menu

Champion Sports bar is your classic sports bar with TV’s everywhere, lots of beer, and decent pub food. We stopped in for a business meeting which happened to be on the same day as the Detroit Tigers season opener, so there were quite a few guys at the bar and it got loud everytime someone hit a pop fly.

We walked in and showed ourselves to a table near the back of the restaurant to try and get away from the sports crowd. This is where the horrible service started. We sat there for a good 10 minutes before one of the ladies in my party got up to find a waitress. About the time she got up, the waitress noticed and came over and took drink orders. It took about 10 minutes to get those drinks and menus. Then she left again and it took another 10-15 minutes to for her to come back to actually take the order.

I ordered the blackened burger. Really it was just a burger with cajun spices, but it was pretty hot for a burger. I was a little surprised and had to keep grabbing my Pepsi (which also took a while to get refilled). The sandwich came with fries which were the ordinary out of the bag crispy fries.

My girlfriend ordered the blackened chicken salad. When she asked the waitress what kind of dressing they had, the waitress replied, “we pretty much have anything.” Well, that was true as long as you didn’t want a vinegrette. The salad did come piled with chicken pices and she said it was good.

The other two ladies in my party split between a sandwich and a salad. One ordered a fajita salad and had them put it in a taco shell. The other had a chicken sandwich. Neither of them made any comment to me about their meals, but both finished and were too stuffed for desert.

The waitress came back one more time to see if we wanted anything and at that point, one of the ladies I was with asked for the check…not sure if the waitress would ever come back. The price for four of us was about $40, but it took over and hour and a half to eat a meal at a sports bar. The food was ok. The atmosphere and the bar area are great if you’re wanting to watch a game, but the waitress was not very on top things and it really dragged the place down.


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Categories : Holt, Michigan, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar, Uncategorized

The Nuthouse Sports Grill

11 04 2008
  • 420 E Michigan Ave
  • Lansing, MI 48933-1421
  • Phone: (517) 484-6887
  • Website
  • Menu

 

The Nuthouse Sports Grill has a great location just across the street from Oldsmobile Park in downtown Lansing. It’s hard to miss driving by as the huge signs out front scream out to you as your driving by.

After finding parking in their tiny lot, we went inside where the hostess showed us to a table in the main dining room near the bar. There are also a couple more rooms that are available for private parties which I was told they use as overflow dining when the main room is packed.

Our server came over and took drink orders. By the time he came back, we were ready to order.

I got the Black & Bleu burger. A 100% Angus beef patty with a cajun spice came topped with provolone and crumbled bleu cheese. The meat itself was alright, but the combination of the two cheese really gave the burger a lot of flavor and made me want another one. The sandwich came with a side of cajun fries which were nothing special, but tasty and complimented the sandwich well.

My girlfriend got the Garden Burger. A 100% meatless patty came topped with provolone on a kaiser roll. She said the guacamole that was served on the side is what made the sandwich for her. Like my burger, hers also came with the cajun fries which she enjoyed more than I did.

Once he took our order, the server seemed to disappear. Someone else brought our meal. When it was time for drink refills, he was no where to be found. I was sucking on ice cubes. I think he finally noticed when my date held her glass up to show me she was empty. Then he came with a couple Cokes.

The price wasn’t too bad for a sports bar and we left stuffed. They look like they have pretty good drink specials and you couldn’t ask for a better location. I’m sure the place is hopping before a baseball game. I’m sure once we move to Lansing, we’ll be spending a lot of time at The Nuthouse.


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Categories : Lansing, Local Flavor, Michigan, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar

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