Stevensville, Michigan area

I'm here every year, and every year, for the pub dinner, we hit Clementine's. Been tossing suggestions to the group, and it seems we are willing to branch out from the ordinary, and try a new place. Read through some other threads here, and I think the Red Arrow Road House is the front runner for the new experience. Just looking for a dinner /booze style spot with GOOD food. Probably stick around for a few too many rounds after the meal. Not fancy, just a step up from the regular fried foodservice offerings of most of the places. Anyone have a recent recco or opinion on which is better, or, for this style of place, maybe a different one that's better than both?

In a nutshell - for drinks / dinner only:
Clementines, R.A. Roadhouse, or Other?

How about beer and BBQ in an artsy post-industrial spot that might remind you of Pilsen or Brooklyn or Potrero Hill, but more desolate, yet only minutes from the beach and fudge shops?

Couple of minutes past Clementine's.

The Livery is a nice, newish, well-regarded brewpub.

http://www.liverybrew.com/cafe.html

Doesn't have much of a menu, but BYO food is ok, and the BBQ places I noted here previously (Lark's, Piggin n' Grinnin) are near. The latter is basiacally next door. Get the Pulled pork, and the beans.

Quite interesting, thanks. Lark's was actually one of the suggestions I threw out to the group.

seebee wrote:Quite interesting, thanks. Lark's was actually one of the suggestions I threw out to the group.

After eating at Lark's a couple of years ago I burped lighter fluid for two days.

Piggin' N' Grininn' is a good idea. Great owners and great food.

There is an excellent Mexican taqueria on Pipestone between Napier and M-139. La Perla is the name. Basic menu but great Mexican food, probably the best in the area. Inexpensive too.

I don't think there is much better/different in the area than the Roadhouse.Mojitos just opened in Bridgman haven't heard much one way or the other.A new place is opening next week in Union Pier just down from the Roadhouse called Franky's place.I think steaks seafood sandwiches.I get a kick out of Bill's Tap in Baroda but haven't been there in years.Some like Schu's a lot in St.Joe.I don't know nothing fantastic thats for sure.I like the bar at 5 OClocks because they have the buzztime trivia.Woodfire grill in Dowagiac has some fans but it is not a pub.Enjoy the beach.

Bruce,

I've had limited but very recent expereince with Lark's. All I burped was wood, and I also spent some time talking with and observing the pitmaster. Now, it's not up there with BA's or Honey1, but it was solid, and probably on par with an I-57 or one of the better Leon's. It does seem like a bit of a shoestring operation, so I could see them pulling out a bag of Kingsford, too.

I'm in the other La Perla regularly (maybe 5 mi east on Napier in the orchards/vineyards). Very good carnitas. I actually prefer many of the things further east, at El Supermercado 2. The dona there makes most masa stuff by hand to order, ditto for guacamole, makes requeson, and they have a steak in chile de arbol that is special.

JeffB wrote:Bruce,

I've had limited but very recent expereince with Lark's. All I burped was wood, and I also spent some time talking with and observing the pitmaster. Now, it's not up there with BA's or Honey1, but it was solid, and probably on par with an I-57 or one of the better Leon's. It does seem like a bit of a shoestring operation, so I could see them pulling out a bag of Kingsford, too.

I've gone by there early in the morning several times when they are firing up the pits and seen them pouring bags of charcoal in and then squirting at least one bottle of lighter fluid on. Although I haven't been there that early in quite a while. I ate there the one time, and have no desire to go back. They used to cater our company picnic. They aren't well liked. Piggin n Grinnin does a better job. I will give Lark's a shot sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I'm in the other La Perla regularly (maybe 5 mi east on Napier in the orchards/vineyards). Very good carnitas. I actually prefer many of the things further east, at El Supermercado 2. The dona there makes most masa stuff by hand to order, ditto for guacamole, makes requeson, and they have a steak in chile de arbol that is special.

There are at least 3 La Perlas. Pipestone/M-130 in Benton Harbor, Napier/M-140 east of BH and south of Watervliet, they have a 3rd place in downtown Eau Claire. The Eau Claire location serves the best food of the three. You can get some of the more "exotic" fare at the latter two stores. I'm in the Benton Harbor location for lunch at least 2x week. 2 tacos or 1 burrito and a pop for less than $5 can't be beat. I've gad the steak in chile de arbol a couple of times and its great. The torta's are good too, but I like the meat doubled.

If you want to pound cocktails, eat and then pound more cocktails afterwards I'd go to the Grand Mere Inn in Stevensville. The bar area has ample seating and is separate from the restaurant. Plus the bar gets pretty loud so no one will give you the hairy eyeball if you start getting rowdy. The Red Arrow Roadhouse isn't really the place to do any serious drinking, it leans much more toward being a restaurant than a bar. The food at Grand Mere isn't mind boggling, but it's pretty solid supper club stuff - stick with the steaks and you'll be happy. Plus you get free chopped liver with your bread basket, where else do you find that nowadays?:

Grand Mere Inn
5800 Red Arrow Hwy (just south of John Beers Road)
Stevensville, MI
(269) 429-3591 (strongly suggest making a reservation)

Got a local rec for the grand mere inn when we were there over this wknd.
Decent. Very decent. Step up from Clementines, and we did wind up being a tad rowdy in the dining area, but we were definitely not out of place. Thanks for the recs.

we too got a local recommendation for Grand Mere and went over the weekend... (why do the places on the winery circuit seem to not have anywhere good to eat nearby?, or they close at 5pm Central time???)... it was pretty decent. we didn't know the address so i was googling while on the way (which turned out to be a challenge, since..well, we heard "mirror" not "mere").. but the reviews i read seemed to indicate seafood was the way to go. so we had walleye and perch...

perch was better than the walleye.. both pretty decent though. they had butternut squash on special that was simply excellent. and their wine selection was pretty decent. had a local Pinot Noir from Domaine Berrien, which is one of my fav wineries in the area...

made out w/ a nice meal, bottle of wine, tax/tip for $90 for 2. we seemed to pick just the right time to get there... the dining area facing the lake was full, so we were seated in the bar area (we didn't initially notice the view we were missing by going to the bar). the bar was empty--around 6eastern...then in a matter of minutes the place was packed, people standing and waiting everywhere.

This is the view from just on the place... (you can even see the chicago skyline faintly in the distance).

My grandmother lives in a senior community in Stevensville/Bridgman, and we will drive there from Chicago to be with her for Thanksgiving. It would be nice to take her to a restaurant (as opposed to eating in the dining room of her facility), and so I called both Grand Mere Inn and Tosi's, but neither will be open then.

Anyone have any ideas for a place that would be open thanksgiving and that would be grandmother-friendly (she is spry, and in her late 80s)? We would be willing to go from New Buffalo to South Haven if needed (even to Hesson's in LaPorte).

Thanks.

Hi- I grew up about 20 miles from Stevensville. I was going to recommend Schuler's, but I just found out that they have closed apparently. There is Clementine's in St. Joe that is not bad. There is also Schu's in downtown St. Joe that I have seen, but have not been too. I don't know if it is as good as Schuler's was or not. It's too bad that Tosi's is not open. I have not been there in a while, but I really enjoyed it the few times I went. They have very good Italian. There is also Tabor Hills which I have not been to, but is supposed to be good. Hope this helps, Nancy

Maybe grandma would like the Thanksgiving buffet at the Four Winds casino in New Buffalo.Skip's I am pretty sure is open also.

Hi,

Schuler's Restaurant's website gives no indication of closing, especially since they are recommending reservations for Thanksgiving.

Regards,

Schuler's in Stevensville has been closed for a while.The location is now a sports bar called 5 O'Clocks.I am sure Schuler's in Marshall is still open.

trudie wrote:Schuler's in Stevensville has been closed for a while.The location is now a sports bar called 5 O'Clocks.I am sure Schuler's in Marshall is still open.

I didn't know there were two locations. Thanks for the clarification.

Regards,

trudie wrote:Maybe grandma would like the Thanksgiving buffet at the Four Winds casino in New Buffalo.Skip's I am pretty sure is open also.

My wife and I took her mother to the Four Winds 2 years ago. She was 97 then and is currently 99. We had a good time and good food. We did not eat at the buffet since neither of them eat very much. I have grazed through the buffet several times over the years and have found parts of it to be pretty good. You might give a call or check the website to check it out first. Copper Rock may have something also. Copper Rock is excellent but I don't think they open until 5:00 pm and probably only have their regular menu unless they have a special for the night.

The Boulevard Inn Bistro in downtown St. Joseph is also excellent. I dined there last week and remember seeing signs saying they were having a T-Day buffet.

Just checking in. Anything new and exciting for a bunch of guys without spouses, looking to eat, and get a tiny but rowdy after a few rounds?

seebee wrote:Just checking in. Anything new and exciting for a bunch of guys without spouses, looking to eat, and get a tiny but rowdy after a few rounds?

Just be sure you get your rowdiness in before they roll up the sidewalks at 9:00.

Sorry, I have no suggestions unless your idea of getting rowdy is eating lots of great pastries. I enjoy stopping at Bit of Swiss Bakery in Stevensville. They make artisan breads and pastries. For mother's day, i picked up a delicious white cake, layered with lemon curd, and topped with white chocolate shavings and roses.

www.bitofswiss.com

There's only one place that you should go based on the parameters -- Greenbush. Excellent brewery, excellent kitchen. Nearly everything is smoked and/or cured in house and as local as possible, all without any pretentious localvore hipsterism (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's in Sawyer just east of the exit. About 10 miles/10 mins from Stevensville. Otherwise check out the Buck in St. Joe's.

Greenbush looks right as hell. Thanks!

http://www.greenbushbrewing.com/

There is a very active Facebook group called Southwest Michigan Restaurant Reviewers that you may inquire into. Their have been a TON of new restaurant openinings in and around St. Joseph in the past year and they have the skinny on it.

We called an audible based on the amount of beer left in the cooler, and the local's rec that we should probably stay close to our hotel for dinner. "Coach's!" As soon as we got out of the car, I spotted a real deal smoker in back. SCORE! Standard bar/grill type place with all of the menu standards you'd expect:
Fried apps
wings
Grilled sandwiches
burgers
AND REAL BBQ. Ribs, pulled poke, and brisket.
They had a sampler platter, which, for some reason, had not one rib bone on it, but I got to try the pulled poke, brisket, and wings. All decent enough, but the brisket that night was AWN! Tender, juicy, smokey, and a perfect amount of fat for this fat lover to be happy, but not so much that that fat haters couldn't work around it. If I could do it over that night, I'd have tried to get a plate full of that brisket and a veggie side. I wouldn't hesitate to return to this place. Nothing mind blowing, but VERY solid brisket that night.

Also tried:
Onion rings: Battered, solid
Jerk Wings: Sauce tasted more like a decent salsa de chile arbol with some dried thyme than anything else
Sweet Habanero wings: No. Globby, sweet, like low level Chinese resto sweet/sour sauce with a habanero kick
Fried pickles: solid
Two other tablemates had the same bq sampler, one went rogue with the reuben which he declared pretty decent.

http://www.coachsbarngrill.com/

There were many baked goods on display (danishes, tarts, scones, croissants, breads, macarons, muffins, cakes, cookies, etc.). This bakery was not really setup for dine in. There were two small tables, but they didn't have any plates and only offered plastic spoons for utensils. The quality was similar to Ambrosia Euro American Patisserie except that there was a greater variety of items:

Bit of Swiss
4333 Ridge Rd
Stevensville, MI 49127

Bert's Breakfast Corner is a quality old school diner in Stevensville.
2814 Kimmel St, Stevensville, MI 49127

Hungry Mountain - Biscuit, Hash Browns, 2 Eggs, Sausage Gravy

Any new hotspots or anything new noteworthy?
Dinner in mid Oct on a Tuesday night.
We Greenbushed last year, and loved it.
Probably more interested in bbq and a few drinks more than anything else (handful of married, suburban guys, pretending to be Michigan fisherman for a day, with no spouses.) Yeah, we'll prolly be partying it up until 9pm!

We have been living in Covert on weekends for a couple of years and experienced much culinary disappointment in the surrounding areas. But that changed when we went to Houndstooth! Just off the arts district in Benton Harbor, it is a total gem. Creative and designed to share, menu is mostly small plates with a couple of more entree size dishes, and our server recommended 2 small 2 snack and 1 main for our table of two. Every single thing was delicious, a meal we'd be happy with in Chicago. Japanese milk bread with black garlic was like your best izakaya did texas toast. Scallops with soubise were perfect. BBQ carrots with cumin cream and crispy chickpeas felt like a younger sibling nod to Publican, and were quite well balanced and smokey. Bigeye tuna with kumquat and avocado was maybe a touch too spicy, but very nice. Burrata with olives and agrodolce and crispy sun choke chips stole the show. Cocktails were great. Give it a try on your next beach trip if you need a nice meal.

Thanks!
Heading there this weekend, actually. We've been steady Coach's and Greenbush fans for a quite a few years now. Last year, both places truly impressed us, they've both seemed to up their game, imo.

Quick update:

Bert's Breakfast is still takeout only. The super friendly lady stuck her head out of the drive up window, and chatted us up about other options in the area. We had Illinois plates, and she asked us if we were looking for a sit down joint, probably not her first rodeo with tourists.

My better half raved about the Full Circle Cafe last year, and was itching to go back. We just wanted to try Bert's after hearing such good things. Full Circle is basically just around the corner-ish from Bert's.

If you're looking for an indie, chill, coffee shop with very respectable food, I have a very good feeling you'll love Full Circle as much as we all did. Someone here takes a LOT of pride in their food. The bakery case was packed full of very homemade looking treats, and even had a "keto" section (which was sold out.)

We tried a crustless quiche which was very light and fluffy, and also VERY good. I think it was a Lorraine style - ham/swiss. Maybe a fancy cheese like Gruyere.

Wife ordered the biscuits&gravy on a whim, going off of her intel from the previous year. B&G is not something we'd ever order but Seebee Jr is a fan. She ordered it knowing we'd all be sharing, and that Jr would probably eat it all no matter what. I've never really been a fan of B&G at ALL, but I absolutely loved theirs. The gravy was a touch spicy which probably helped me to like it. I would never ever order B&G on my own, but I was the one who ate the most of this.

They also had homemade English Muffins, which we obv had to try. Perfect vehicle for too much butter and jam, but they needed a little more salt in the dough, imo.

From the bakery case, we had to try:

Pecan sticky bun:
Not enough buttery goodness, but loaded with pecans, and decent dough. Served warm without asking. (Again, someone takes PRIDE in their food here!)

Creme Brulee Cheesecake:
Light and fluffy style, not dense. Touch too sweet, but about as good as it sounds. We had to try it, and for sharing, it was VERY good.

There were many more cool sounding creations in the bakery case, but we didn't go overboard like we normally would have if we were going to bring it home. This will now be a mandatory stop in Stevensville for us. My wife went for lunch last year and RAVED about their homemade soups and sammiches. One soup was a butternut squash that was supposedly over the top crazy good. Servers / Counterpersons were all friendly, and knowledgeable. Order at a counter / food will be brought out to yer table type of place.

https://www.fullcirclestevensville.com/

Redmak's:
I've heard from countless friends, neighbors, fellow Illinoisans about Redamak's burgers. We were in the area for a kids' sports tourney, and some friends from the team were big fans of Redamak's, and were hot on going. I've heard recent reports of the place not being as good as it used to be, but I've never been, so I had no frame of reference. There were several groups of folks waiting outside to have their house provided buzzer go off. We joined the waitlist, and milled about for about 20 minutes. Beautiful day, no qualms. Plenty of friendly folks unexpectedly happily commenting / complimenting on my minty new White Sox jersey of a great player who was traded away, recently. I figured we'd be in Tigers country, but I'm guessing most of the crowd was from Chicago, really.

Anyway -
Sorry for the buildup. Redamak's was straight trash. Overpriced, overhyped, nothing was worth anything. Onion rings were good, but nowhere close to 8 bux good. I'd avoid going even if someone else was buying. Not worth the wait or the price. So much better in the area. Nostalgia? Maybe. My first thought after a a few bites of the food was, "I bet this place was a zillion times better 20 years ago." No joke, you could actually sense the shark was jumped here.

We did Greenbush the next day as therapy. We ate an early lunch there, so some of the Q was leftovers - namely the pulled chicken. Let me tell you tho:
The FRIED chicken? Yup. It can come with varying heat levels, I think I chose a 3 out of 5, assuming they were real. They were not. I'd easily try a full on 5 next time. We'll have a half fried bird on our table for every visit now. Every part was juicy, crunchy, well seasoned, bordering, just bordering on salty, but not cloyingly salty for my tongue. I could have easily ate all of the chicken myself.

Jr went Shrimp&Grits. HUUUUUGE portion for the price. There were obviously 2 pots of grits in the kitchen that day. I opted for grits as a side with my fried bird, and drew the short end of the straw, because I obv got grits from the pot that wasn't quite done, yet. Crunchier. not still raw, but noticeably "al dente" compared to the wife's and jr's fluffy, soft goodness. The shrimp&gravy Jr had was delicious. Wife had a BBQ sampler. The brisket and pulled pork were decent, but the chicken was kinda sad, imo. She liked it far more than I did, but, if it was my restaurant, I wouldn't have served it. It was from yesterday. I don't remember any other sides - ope - I got a side of brisket chili. Nothing too special, but not bad. I think they were out of greens, so I opted for slaw which was actually good, NOT sweet at all. Real mayo and vinegar, with a good amt of tang from the hit of vinegar. I think we got there at 11:30, and by the time we got our entrees, the place was packed. I'm a fan.

Anyone that would like my current list of faves in the area:

Full Circle
Greenbush
Coach's
Wegner's Lakeside (30 min further east in Niles, but worth a mention if anyone is looking.)