My girlfriend and I were checking out the city courtesy of the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitor’s Bureau “Be a Tourist in Your Own Town” (which is an incredible event and I would definately recommend you check it out next year.) Around lunch time, we made it downtown and decided to hit up Washington Square for lunch. At first, we stopped into Tavern on the Square, but the menu kind of sucked. There were no sandwiches and it was pretty expensive. We were just looking for a quick lunch so we could keep touring the town.
Across the street sat Kelly’s. So we got up and left Tavern on the Square and crossed the street. There was a patio outside, but we chose to go inside and found a table near the front of the shop. There’s a huge bar in the middle of the space with seating all the way around. We sat down and waited five to ten minutes for the lone waitress/bartender to even acknowledge us. She yelled across the bar to get our drink orders then a bus boy actually brought them out. After a few more minutes, she yelled across the bar to take our order as well.
My girlfriend got Kelly’s Thatsa Wrap which is listed as vegetarian, but offers options to add grilled chicken which she did. The wrap comes standard with tomatos, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and mushrooms inside a flour tortilla. Besides the chicken, she got ranch on the side and added fries to her order. She seemed to really like the wrap and had some fries left over for me. She said the cucumbers were a good addition changing the texture and the flavor of what you usually expect in a wrap like this.
I got the Bear Burger. It was a 1/3 lb sirloin burger with crumbled bleu cheese and bacon. The burger was obviously a frozen patty. It was really greasy. I picked the sandwich up and it was wet. At first, I was afraid it wasn’t done. There was a puddle of grease on the bottom that I almost mistook for blood. I bit into it anyway and it was done, but it was really greasy. Fortunately, the bleu cheese covered most of that up. I did a double check just to make sure there was bacon on there. It kind of got lost in all the wetness.
After the initial delay in getting to us, the waitress did a much better job. Our drinks never got empty and she got the check to us pretty quickly. For the two of us, it was about $20, but we ended up spending more time in the restaurant than we really wanted to. Really it was only about forty minutes, so it’s not terrible and normally I wouldn’t complain. I’ve read a lot of good reveiws about this place, but it didn’t do anything for me. My burger wasn’t very good and places like this I usually expect more. I just haven’t had much luck with the downtown restaurants yet. I’m still looking for that place near the Capitol that is worth getting in the car and paying parking for. Kelly’s would probably be a great night spot, but for lunch, it just didn’t do anything for me.
The menu is interesting. I couldn’t decide as there were so many things I wanted to try. I settled on the Irish Bacon BBQ burger. The 1/2 lb. Angus burger came with two slices of “Irish Bacon” (strips of ham grilled on the flat top) and cheddar cheese then it was drenched in a green apple bbq sauce. Lettuce, tomato, onion, and a pickle spear served on the side next to a cup of green apple cole slaw. Fries were a dollar more. The burger was delicious. It took up half the platter it was served on. There was a lot of bbq sauce. Somehow, I managed to let enough drip off then set the burger in it, so everytime I picked up the burger, I was grabbing the sauce. It was pretty messy, but it was really good. The green apple bbq sauce was different and the Irish bacon was much better than traditional bacon. The fries were not very good. They were steak fries that were not very crispy and actually kind of soggy. The burger was delicious though and very much worth the price.
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.
Mid-Michigan Dining 
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