Road Tips

Founders Brewing Company - Grand Rapids, MI

During our vacation earlier this year up in the Grand Rapids area, we visited many of the local breweries the city has to offer.  Quite possibly the most successful and high profile brewery in the city is Founders Brewing Company.  We found out that they had a taproom with a kitchen that featured deli-style sandwiches and hand-tossed pizzas.  We decided to head to Founders for lunch one day during our time in Grand Rapids.  

It's sort of interesting how I found out about Founders Brewing.  My Michigan brewery of choice for a number of years was Bell's Brewery based out of Kalamazoo.  About 10 years ago, my wife and I were on a vacation trip to Michigan and it seemed like every place where I tried to order a Bell's Two Hearted American IPA - a staple at bars and restaurants around the Midwest - didn't have it.  About the only Bell's beer that we encountered at places in Michigan was the Bell's Oberon Ale wheat beer.  However, most places had the Founders Centennial IPA available.  At one place, I asked the bartender as to why there seemed to be a dearth of Bell's beer - especially when their brewery was just down the road in Kalamazoo.  I was told that Bell's founder Larry Bell could be, well, sort of a prickly individual - only the term the bartender used a much stronger term than that.  "A lot of places have just given up trying to work with Bell's," I was told.  "The guys at Founders are good guys and they make good beer."  I've since sort of migrated over to the Founders All Day IPA which is a lighter version of the Centennial IPA.  

The history of Founders Brewing starts with two college buddies who had a common interest in home-brewed beers.  While he was in college, Dave Engbers received his first brew kit as a present from his parents.  His older brother had already been making homemade wine, beer and mead, and Engbers parents thought that Dave would enjoy brewing his own beer.  

Mike Stevens was enamored with the growing culture of west coast craft beers, especially the beers from Sierra Nevada.  He set about to try and replicate some of those beers at home.  Even though he threw out his first batch of beer, he persevered and little did he know that his hobby would later become his vocation.

Stevens and Engbers met at Hope College in Holland, MI and found their common interest in home brewing beers.  Engbers was the one who first proposed having their own craft brewery at some point after some of the west coast craft breweries he was so fond of.  

By 1994, both were out of college and started to work on a business plan they could present to banks and other investors for financing for their brewery.   By 1997, they had procured approximately $350,000 and were ready to open their brewery.

Pictured right - Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers.  Photo courtesy Craft Brewing Business.  

Coming up with a name was the next thing to do.  Initially, they were going to call their brewery Canal Street Brewing Company as a homage to the street where the bulk of Grand Rapids breweries were located before Prohibition.  In the process of doing background work on the history of Grand Rapids breweries, the two found a picture of four men who were owners of breweries back in the 1880's.  Above the four men was the term "Founders" which meant those gentlemen were the founders of the breweries.  Steven and Engbers used that picture on their early bottles they had brewed.  Some of their early customers started to refer to their beer as "Founders".  Both Engbers and Stevens figured out that was probably a better name than Canal Street Brewing Company.

The first Founders brewery was a 9800-square foot building known as the Brass Works Building on Monroe Street in Grand Rapids.  (Monroe Street was originally called Canal Street before the turn of the 20th century.)  By 1998, Founders opened their first tap room serving beers to the public.  Because they were on a shoestring budget from under-capitalization, Engbers and Stevens were the brewers, bartenders, bar managers and owners.  

Founders beers weren't exactly setting the world on fire.  By 1999, the co-owners had fallen behind on financial payments and at one point their only income was from the tips they were receiving working at the bar.  But it soon became evident that the two were going deeper and deeper into the hole.  

By 2001, they were far behind with payments to the bank and they were behind in rent to their landlord.  Plus they were 8 months behind in paying state taxes.  One day, they got a certified letter from their bank saying they had 6 days to make up the payments of which they were in arrears.  Their landlord caught wind of it and immediately demanded payment or he would lock up the building with a chain and lock.  Really down on their luck and not thinking straight, Engbers went out and bought a large bolt cutter that he thought they would have to use if their landlord or the bank locked them out.  

Instead of having to use the bolt cutters, Stevens and Engbers started to canvas other potential investors around the area to see if someone would help them get out of their dire situation.   One of those potential investors was Grand Rapids area philanthropist Peter Cook.  During their meeting, Cook gave no indication that he was interested in investing in their brewery.  But he did give them this advice, "Look forward to the future and not backwards at the disaster."  

After leaving their meeting with Cook, Stevens and Engbers were all but sure they would be forced into bankruptcy.  They went back to their taproom to have a "come-to-Jesus" realization meeting with themselves. They realized the beers they were making were bland and they didn't even really like them at all.  They started to talk about the beers they wanted to make at some point, not knowing if the bank would be showing up in the next couple days to serve papers on them.  

However, the next day they got a call from their bank.  Peter Cook had made a phone call and guaranteed the bank loan and authorized a line of credit for more financial help for Steven and Engbers.  Other investors stepped forward to help pay off other debts the brewery had accumulated.  That was the impetus the duo needed to continue on with their venture.  

Engbers and Stevens then fired their head brewer at the time and brought in a new team that included Jeremy Kosmicki.  With Kosmicki's vision, Founders dumped their boring beers and came up with some exciting beers such as the aforementioned Centennial IPA, the Kentucky Bourbon Stout - commonly known as KBS - that was aged in bourbon casks, and the Dirty Bastard Scotch ale that became Founders signature beer.  

As Founders Brewing Co. grew, they continued to lose money.  Distribution problems, mounting costs and the lack of a proficient space to brew their beers was the biggest problem.  Their original location could only produce approximately 5000 barrels of beer annually.  A larger place would allow them to produce more beer and to one day pursue national distribution.  

In 2006, Engbers and Stevens found a building that was an old trucking warehouse on Grandville Ave. SE just south of downtown Grand Rapids.  The 27,000-square foot terminal had closed in 1991 and had sat vacant since then.  They were able to renovate it into a brewery and they moved into their larger facility in 2007.  The brewery was soon producing 11,000 barrels annually and was growing exponentially over the next few years, finally going into the black and being able to begin to pay back investors and financial institutions.  In 2014, Founders announced a $35 million dollar expansion adding another 12,000-square feet to the building that would give them the capacity to produce up to 900,000 barrels of beer on an annual basis.  By 2018, Founders was the 14th largest brewery in the United States and was producing over 550,000 barrels of beer annually.   

To help finance that expansion in 2014, Stevens and Engbers sold a 30 percent stake in Founders Brewing Co. to Mahou-San Miguel, the largest brewer in Spain.  And in 2019, Mahou-San Miguel bought another 60% of the brewery allowing for Engbers and Stevens to stay on as combined 10% share holders in the brewery.  The further investment by the Spanish family-owned brewery was designed to take Founders nationwide.  In all, it was estimated that Engbers and Stevens were paid over $295 million dollars for their controlling stakes in Founders Brewing Co.  Not too bad for a couple guys who were hours away from bankruptcy just 20 years ago!

Founders Brewing Company is located between the Grand River and the US 131 freeway that winds north south through Grand Rapids.  (see map)   Parking is sort of limited in the area, but we found a parking spot on the north side of the brewery along Williams Street SW.  

As we went to the front door of the public entrance to Founders Brewing, we found their beer garden to the left.  It was a good sized open air space with benches, picnic tables and outdoor heaters for cooler days and evenings.  It was a brilliant sun-shiny day when we were there and we sort of contemplated about sitting outside for a moment.

On the far end of the beer garden was a full functioning bar with high-top tables and heaters hanging from the ceiling.  It was open on the sides, but it appeared that there were plastic screens that could be rolled down to continue to make it a functional space even on cold or rainy days.  

The main area of Founders Brewing Company features the original beer hall.  Heavy on wood accents, the main hall has a stage at one end for live music events.  Garage doors that can be opened to the beer garden are part of the beer hall with a long ornate bar opposite the garage doors.  

We took a seat in the middle of the beer hall and were given a couple food menus and beer menus to look over.  It wasn't long before our server, a 30-something guy by the name of John, came over to greet us.  It turned out that John had worked in the kitchen at Founders Brewing for 5 years before he grew tired of being in the back and wanted to interact with people out front.  Before he started at Founders, he told us he was a pastry chef.  "But, man, the 3 a.m. work calls got to be too much after awhile," he said.  John gave us a few minutes to get settled in as we checked out the lengthy list of beers they had to offer in the tap room.

It turned out that John was very helpful in trying to figure out which beers to try at Founders.  They have three different classes of beers at Founders - Class 1 features some of their well-known beers as well as some seasonal beers.  Class 2 beers are the more eclectic beers including their nitro-based beers and fruit-based beers including their Rubaeus pure raspberry beer.  Pints were $6.50 each for the Class 2 beers while Class 1 beers were $5.50 a pint.  

Class 3 was the upper echelon of beers available at Founders.  These were generally the highest in alcohol content (ABV) and featured some of their barrel-aged stouts.  An 8-ounce glass of these ales ran $7.25 each. In all, Founders featured 10 beers available that day that weren't available outside of their taproom.  

As we were looking over the menus, John came back to our table with two small glasses of their Kentucky Barrel Stout infused with cinnamon, vanilla and cocoa.  "It's sort of our breakfast stout," John told us.  It was complex in its flavor, but we decided that it wasn't for us.   

John was asking what we liked in beers and we both said we like the IPA's or hazy IPA's.  "I don't want to try an All Day IPA because I can get that anywhere," I said.  John said that most people don't get their mainstream beers in the taproom because of the large list of other beers that are available.  

We decided to get a flight of beers to start out with and John was very knowledgeable in the differences between some of their IPA's.  We settled on four beers the Red's Rye IPA, the Unrivaled IPA, the Hello Jane IPA, and a special IPA - Ales for ALS where the proceeds of the beer's sales went to the ALS Association earmarked for research.  

John brought out the flight of beers we'd ordered up and he brought along another one that he said he really liked - the Scarlet Dawn IPA.  Red's Rye IPA was a little too much of a whiskey taste for me.  The Unrivaled IPA was smooth, as was the Hello Jane, but just a bit more hoppy in taste.  The Scarlet Red was all right - it was basically a combination of a red ale and a session IPA.  I'm afraid that it really didn't trip my trigger and I apologized to John for that.  "No problem," he said.  "It just happens to be my favorite beer right now and thought you might like to try it."

However, the Ales for ALS was my clear favorite.  This had a bit higher ABV (7.1%) than the other IPA's we had tried and it had a wonderful flavor.  My wife thought it was a bit too forward, but she liked the Hello Jane IPA as it was sort of in between the Ales for ALS and the Unrivaled.  I got a pint of the Ales for ALS and my wife got a pint of the Hello Jane.  

The menu at Founders Brewing featured a number of appetizers such as chips and guacamole or chips and salsa, a Bavarian-style pretzel, bourbon-barrel smoked chicken wings and a beer cheese dip that was made with smoked Gouda, cream cheese, chopped fresh garlic, red peppers, spinach, all blended with a combination of their Centennial IPA and the Red's Rye IPA.  The beer cheese dip comes with seasoned crostini and tortilla chips. 

14" hand-tossed pizzas were part of the menu as well as a handful of salads.  But deli-style sandwiches were the main items on the menu.  The "Devil Dancer" featured roasted chicken, Muenster and pepper-jack cheeses, jalapeños, banana peppers with a chipotle mayo.  The "Backwoods Bastard" featured barbecued pulled-pork, Colby Jack cheese, house-made cole slaw and a house-made barbecue sauce.  They had their own rendition of a Philly cheesesteak sandwich at Founders, as well as a ham and cheese sandwich made with cheddar and Swiss cheese with Founders Dirty Bastard stone ground mustard.  

John must have come over three or four times while we were trying to figure out what we wanted to order for lunch.  It really shouldn't have been that big of a problem, but we were just sort of taking our time trying to figure out what to order.  After the third time John came back and we weren't ready, I began to apologize profusely.  "No problem," John said.  "Take your time.  I'm not going anywhere."  

My wife was sort of torn between a couple things - she thought about getting the turkey reuben on sourdough bread, but ended up getting the "Blushing Monk".  It consisted of cranberry/chicken salad topped with provolone and smoked Gouda cheese, finished off with lettuce, tomatoes and red onions on a Mexican-style telera roll.  She got a half and she was glad she did because it was huge on its own.  She got a side of their house-made cole slaw.  She really enjoyed the sandwich, but she thought the cole slaw was just all right.

I had the same problem figuring out what I wanted.  They had a smoked-pork Cuban sandwich, as well as a smoked pastrami on Polish rye.  But John talked me into the reuben sandwich - "Rubin's Reuben".  It featured thin-sliced house-made corned beef with sauerkraut cooked in Dirty Bastard beer.  It was topped with Swiss cheese, 1000 Island dressing and served on Polish Rye.  It was excellent.  Once again John didn't steer us wrong.  

After we finished up our lunch and paid the bill, we took a little look around the rest of the tap room.  The addition that was built back in 2013 added a separate tap room next to the gift shop and the office area.  There was a separate bar in there and was a bit more cozy than the main tap room. 

Part of the secondary tap room had a display of Founders memorabilia through the years.  There were old bottles, photographs, and other items they had accumulated since Founders started nearly 25 years ago.  It was sort of neat to see some of the awards they had won for their beers over the years.  

While there are a large number of great little craft breweries in Grand Rapids, a trip to the area can't really be complete without a visit to Founders Brewing Company.  There are some locals in Grand Rapids who we talked to about Founders who felt that Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers literally sold out the craft beer movement when they gave up majority interest in Founders Brewing.  But I look at it as a way to preserve their legacy from taking their little two man operation that was on the verge of insolvency 20 years ago and making it into one of the largest breweries in the United States.  The Founders Brewing tap room was a great place to relax and have some of their special beers that are not available elsewhere, and to nosh on some pretty good sandwiches.  We can't say enough about the service we had from John who was friendly, helpful, knowledgable, patient, and had a great sense of humor.    Founders Brewing Company wasn't even our favorite brewery that we visited during our trip to western Michigan, but we realized that it was good to go pay homage to one of the pioneers of the craft beer movement in Grand Rapids.  

Bombay Cuisine/East West Brewing Co. - Grand Rapids, MI

While we were on vacation in Grand Rapids earlier this year, my wife and I visited a number of breweries in the area.  One evening, my wife was in the mood for Indian food, but I was still sort of in the brewpub mode thinking of a good place to get a meal with a good locally-brewed beer.  To the wishes of my wife, I looked up all the Indian restaurants in the area on my computer.  One immediately popped out at me - it was a combination Indian restaurant/brewery.  I said, "I think I found one that we'll both like!"  Later that evening, we headed over to Bombay Cuisine - East West Brewing Company for food and beer.  

Now, I like brewpubs and I like Indian food and there is only one other place that I have ever encountered that had that combination and that was Jaipur Brew House in Omaha.  (Click here to read the Road Tips entry on Jaipur Brew House.)  And the food and beer were both very good at Jaipur.  So, I had high hopes that Bombay Cuisine/East West Brewing would be a winning combination.  

About 22 years ago, Balwinder Bal opened the doors to his Indian restaurant, Bombay Cuisine.  He was soon joined in the business by his daughter, Monica.  The elder Bal became enamored with the burgeoning craft brewing industry in Grand Rapids and about 15 years ago he began to brew his own beers at home.  He figured that being a chef was similar to being a brewmaster - it was mixing ingredients to make things taste good.  

Pictured at right - Balwinder Bal.  Photo courtesy Grand Rapids Now.

Bombay Cuisine had a space next door where Balwinder Bal put in an English-style ale house/sports bar - Queen's Pub - in 2009.  That concept lasted for about 3 years until Bal brought in a young chef by the name of Jayson Leek to come up with a Southern-inspired restaurant by the name of Radix Tavern.  However, less than a year after Radix opened, Leek decided to head on and Bal sought another person to come in to run a restaurant in the space.  

Longtime local chef Dan Chudik stepped in to open Trattoria di Stagione in June of 2013.  Chudik was well known for his own Italian restaurant Tuscan located on the southeast side of Grand Rapids that closed a few years before he teamed with Bal to open the new Italian cafe.  Things went well for three years before Chudik parted company and took over a nostalgic 50's-style Fodero diner back on Grand Rapids' southeast side.  (COVID-19 and 2020 wasn't kind to Chudik and he was forced to close his diner.  However, it's been reported that he is moving the diner - all 20 tons of it - to Muskegon about 45 miles northwest of Grand Rapids.)   

Faced with another space that he had to figure out what to do with, Balwinder Bal decided to take his love for homebrewing to the next level and he announced that he was going to put in a brewpub.  Bal had an affinity for pale ales, but he also used spices that he cooked his Indian specialties for some of his homemade brews.  And he felt that bit of differentiation would make his new brewery unique in the face of an ever increasing market for craft breweries in Grand Rapids.  

First of all, Bal had Bombay Cuisine switch places with the space the other restaurants had been in and turned the old Indian restaurant into the brewpub.  Bal next hired a consultant to help him get his brewery up and running, procuring his stainless steel brewing tanks from a local Michigan company.  

Through a mutual friend, Bal was introduced to Teo Watson-Ahlbrandt, a brewery consultant based out of Ann Arbor.  Watson-Ahlbrandt - who consulted with a handful of start-up breweries before opening his own nano-cannery Edelbrau Brewing Company in 2019 - was intrigued with Bal's approach to combining culinary spices with craft beer brewing.   The two collaborated on some of the brews that Bal would later incorporate into his line-up of beers when he was getting close to opening his brewpub.  With beers in place and a bar manager hired, East West Brewing Company opened in December of 2016.  

Bombay Cuisine and East West Brewing Company are located in the Eastown neighborhood near the corner of Lake Drive SE and Robinson Road SE.  (see map)  We drove around the block and found parking on Richard Terrace SE and took a short walk to the restaurant/brewery.  

The combo Indian restaurant/microbrewery is a small and cozy place.  Bamboo light shades hung from the ceiling in the dining area that also had exposed duct work.  My wife especially liked the plant wall near our table as it gave the restaurant a bit of vibrancy, not that it needed it.  

We were seated at a table in the dining room near the bar.  The young lady who seated us was also our server that evening.  She gave us both a food menu and a beer menu to look through.  We both tried a sample of their Calipur IPA and we decided we liked it.  We ordered a couple of pints for us to enjoy while we looked through the menu.  

When East West Brewing Company first opened, there was a separate menu for the brewpub versus the Indian restaurant.  However, it all changed over to Bombay Cuisine's full Indian menu not long after East West opened.  Most of the items on the menu were typical of what you'd find in most Indian restaurants - lamb, chicken, and seafood dishes as well as a slew of vegetarian selections.  Bombay Cuisine also had tandoori items on the menu, as well as biryani dishes.  

Probably one of the more interesting items found on their menu was their melding of Indian and Quebecois dishes - Indian pub poutine.  They had four dishes that featured fresh cut fries topped with a choice of chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, a mushroom mutter sauce, and a chana pindi poutine with garbanzo beans mixed in a spicy tamarind sauce.  All of the Indian poutine dishes are topped with melted cheese.  The Indian pub poutine selections made me pause for a moment as I really thought about getting one just to see what it was like.  

We started out by ordering some Samosa, but we were informed moments later that they were out of them.  My wife decided to get the vegetable pakoras for an appetizer instead, but we never did get them.  I don't know if she forgot to place the order for them or what the deal was.  They weren't listed on our final bill.  

My wife selected the murg methi, a combination of two of her favorite sauces - butter chicken and tikka masala.  The murg methi intrigued me enough that we ended up sharing it family style.  We had also ordered up some garlic naan to go with our meal.  

The combination of the tikka masala and butter chicken was interesting.  It was a mild-plus sauce with a bit of a peppery taste on the back end.  The chicken was tender and cooked perfectly.  I complemented my wife on her choice of food.    

I was torn between the lamb rogan josh and the lamb saag in a spinach sauce.  And I have to say that I was still somewhat interested in the butter chicken poutine.  I wavered back and forth a moment before I finally pulled the trigger on the rogan josh.  

The lamb rogan josh was equally as wonderful as the murg methi.  It featured a slightly spicy curry sauce with cubes of tender lamb.  The spices and flavor were just outstanding.  And the Calipur IPA was a nice complement to the meal.  It was a lot of food, but since we didn't get either the samosa or the pakora for appetizers, I finished most of the rogan josh.  

Indian food is our comfort food and my wife felt she needed a hearty meal while I was still looking for good brewpubs to try in the greater Grand Rapids area.  It turned out Bombay Cuisine and East West Brewing Company was the perfect combination of what both of us wanted that evening.  The Indian food we both had was excellent and the house-brewed IPA they had on tap was a great complement to the Indian food.  The service was a little choppy - we had ordered an appetizer that we never received - but that was fine as the food we had more than satisfied our appetites.  I don't know if we'll make it back to Bombay Cuisine/East West Brewing Company, but if we do I really want to try the butter chicken poutine.  

Uccello's Ristorante - Grand Rapids, MI

During our vacation stay in Grand Rapids, we were getting acquainted with the downtown area and we happened upon an area - Monroe Center Street - that had a number of restaurants up and down the street.  One restaurant caught the eye of my wife for it's Italian name, old world facade, and the dining patio in front of the restaurant.  We decided to give Uccello's Ristorante a try for dinner one evening.  

Faro Uccello immigrated from Sicily to Grand Rapids in 1976 and within two years he opened his first take-out pizza place - Faro's Italian Pizza.  Less than 10 years later, Faro's had grown to 7 locations around the greater Grand Rapids area.  In 1990, Faro sold his chain of pizza places and was in the midst of moving his family back to Sicily when circumstances changed and the Uccello family ended back in Grand Rapids.  

In 1996, Uccello opened Uccello's Ristorante Pizza and Sports Lounge on East Beltline Road in Grand Rapids.  The concept caught on and four more Uccello's restaurants opened over the next 20 years on the periphery of Grand Rapids.  But an opportunity to put a restaurant in downtown Grand Rapids came about in 2016 when Adriano Moscatelli, the owner of the popular Tre Cugini Italian restaurant retired in December of that year and closed the doors to his restaurant.  

Uccello's Hospitality Group - the corporate umbrella owned by Faro Uccello, his son Sergio, and Faro's son-in-law Mario Piccione - bought Tre Cugini in early 2017 and Uccello's replaced it with Mazzo Cucina d'Italia in May of that year.  However, less than a year later, Mazzo shut down and was replaced by a Uccello's location.   (In addition to the six Uccello's locations, the Uccello's Hospitality Group operate two Herb & Fire Pizza locations in the Grand Rapids area.)    

The Uccello's Ristorante in downtown Grand Rapids is located just across from Rosa Parks Circle, a popular destination especially for ice-skaters in the winter.  (see map)  Parking on the street is limited around and near the restaurant, but there was a public parking lot located just next door to Uccello's.  

The patio in front of Uccello's was set back from the front of the restaurant along a wide sidewalk along Monroe Center.  It looked nice enough as it was spread out and the tables were away from both foot traffic and car traffic on the one-way street.  It was just a bit cool out and my wife wanted to sit inside that evening.

Walking in to Uccello's, well, I immediately noticed that it didn't look like a nice little Italian restaurant but more of a sports bar with a line of flat screen televisions along the wall opposite the bar.  The curved bar had more televisions hung on the back wall.  I should have known better as this was nothing more than a glorified sports bar.  

We were shown to a table along the wall and given a couple menus to look over.  Our server that evening was also the bartender, a young lady by the name of Lexi.  I started out with a Deschutes Fresh Haze IPA while my wife ordered her usual top-shelf vodka and cranberry juice.  Later on when we got our meals, my wife got a glass of the house chianti and I got a glass of the house cabernet.  

The menu was a cross between what you'd see at a sports bar with some Italian dishes mixed in.  While they had calamari, bruschetta, and a margherita dip with Italian bread for appetizers, they also had wings, nachos, and chicken tenders on the menu.  "You don't see chicken wings on the menu at many Italian restaurants," my wife noted.  

While they had Italian specialties such as pasta dishes, chicken marsala, and Italian sausage with peppers, they also had a burrito, a grilled chicken wrap, and a turkey avocado with Swiss cheese sub on the menu.  And since Faro Uccello got his start in the pizza business over 40 years ago, Uccello's had pizza with their traditional crust, a thin-crust, and a thick crust pizza.  They also had a stuffed pizza available on the menu.  

Something in my bones was telling me that this was going to be a monumental mistake.  They had a four-cheese stuffed ravioli on the menu, but I would rather have beef or veal stuffed ravioli.  There was a fettuccine in a sausage cream sauce that caught my eye, but I wavered on that, too.  I ended up getting the chicken parmigiana.  

I should have listened to my bones.  When the chicken parm was brought out to the table, I almost recoiled in horror at what was presented to me.  It was a plate featuring two very overcooked breaded chicken breasts covered in a thin layer of mozzarella cheese.  A side of spaghetti with a small dollop of marinara sauce came with the chicken parm.  

When I cut into the chicken parm, I could easily tell that it was overcooked.  It was tough, the chicken was dry and there was absolutely no flavor to the meat.  My wife could tell that I was not happy.  When she asked me how it was, I said, "This may be the worst chicken parm I've ever had.  It's set all the other chicken parm's in the world back 30 years."  

My wife ended up getting the penne pasta in a tomato cream sauce.  She also got some grilled chicken on top of it.  Now, my wife's idea of a tomato cream sauce and what she was served was completely 180 degrees out of phase. She thought that it was supposed to be in a sauce, but it looks like the noodles may have been IN a tomato cream sauce, then taken out and served in the dish.  "Ahh...", she hesitated for a moment.  "I've had better."  She wasn't all that impressed with her meal, either.

I wanted to get some more marinara sauce to put onto both the chicken breasts - to help with the taste and make it more easy to get down - and onto the spaghetti.  When Lexi came over to check on us, I asked if I could get some extra marinara sauce.  "Um, well, we don't really have a marinara sauce," she said completely confusing me.  "It's more like a tomato sauce."  I was confused at this point - and maybe she was, too.  I thought to myself, "Isn't marinara sauce really tomato sauce?"   She told me that they had a meat sauce and I told her that I'd take that.  But she was busy behind the bar and with other tables - no doubt due to a staffing shortage - and it was quite sometime before I got the meat sauce.  And I was also charged $3.00 for it.  And it wasn't worth 3 bucks.  

I should have known better when we walked into Uccello's and saw that it was nothing more than a glorified sports bar that happened to serve Italian food.  My wife was completely underwhelmed with her penne pasta in a tomato cream sauce - which was more of a glaze on the pasta than a sauce.  And I have to say that the chicken parmigiana that I had may have been the worst I've ever experienced.  I make chicken parm at home and it's not all that hard to make.  The service was friendly, yet spotty - but, we're giving a lot of places the benefit of the doubt because of staffing shortages.  All the promise that Uccello's had - the nice looking building frontage, the nice patio out front, even the name yelled "Old World Italian".  But I'm sorry to say Uccello's Ristorante was one of the biggest disappointments that we have encountered in our travels.  

Harmony Brewing Company - Grand Rapids, MI

On our trip to Grand Rapids, MI, I was keen to try some of the nearly 5 dozen breweries/brewpubs in the area.  I had looked up some in advance and found that a good portion of the breweries served food.  Well, on our first night in Grand Rapids, my wife wasn't too whippy about going to a brewpub for dinner.  She saw a Cuban restaurant south and east of downtown Grand Rapids that she really wanted to try.  I decided to go along with her wishes and we found the restaurant.  We parked in the back, went around to the front door and pulled on it.  Locked.  Closed.  According to the sign on their front window, they were supposed to open at 5 p.m. and close at 9.  It was well past 5 p.m. when we were there.  My wife was crestfallen and wondered if I had a Plan B.  I did and it wasn't all that far away.  We ended up going over to the Harmony Brewing Company.  

Like most brewpubs, the genesis of the business usually starts in someone's home or basement.  And that's exactly what happened with brothers Jackson and Barry Van Dyke who started to brew their own beers at home around the start of the millennium.  The brothers eventually got into property management and helped develop some old buildings in Grand Rapids in the city's Uptown neighborhood.  However, their dream to open their own brewpub was always in the back of their minds.  

The brothers found an old building in the Eastown neighborhood of Grand Rapids that had been a liquor store for years before the place went out of the business and the building fell into neglect.  The building originally was built in 1928 and when Prohibition ended in 1933, it became a distribution center for Miller beer.  When the brothers bought the building in late 2009, they found product on the shelves, as well as bottles of soda pop still in long shut down coolers.  The Van Dyke brothers spent the first month of ownership of the building taking garbage and old inventory out of the main floor and the basement.  

Over the next two years, the Van Dyke brothers spent $300,000 on the transformation of the old building.  They used salvaged doors and floors throughout the place and their first beer vessels were re-purposed dairy tanks they bought on line from a dairy farm in Wisconsin.  Renovations took a little longer than they anticipated, mainly because the brothers were doing most of the build-outs themselves.  But in February of 2012, the Van Dyke brothers - along with their sister Heather - opened the doors to Harmony Brewing Company.  

Business turned out to be brisk and at times demand was so high for both beer and food at the original location that the Van Dyke's knew they needed to expand.  Since they were sort of locked in at Harmony Brewing, they found a 100-year-old-plus building on the west side of Grand Rapids that had originally been a sausage factory, but more recently had been a Mexican restaurant.  After renovations, the Van Dyke's opened Harmony Hall in 2015.  

We found Harmony Brewing Company at the corner of Wealthy St. SE and Lake Drive SE - a sort of convoluted intersection that puts Harmony Brewing inside a triangle.  (see map)  There's a small parking lot that we were able to get the last parking space when we drove in.  Other than that, parking is available on the street near the brewery.  

(A quick aside - we were sort of amused and somewhat curious about Wealthy Street and the origin of the name. It's a prominent street on the east side of Grand Rapids and we found ourselves on Wealthy Street a handful of times during our visit as there were a number of restaurants, shops and breweries along the way.  It almost sounded like a street on the board game Monopoly, or was named for one of the more well-to-do areas of the city.   It turns out that the street was named for the wife of one of Grand Rapids' first merchants and community leaders, Jefferson Morrison, who was also instrumental in platting out the city in the mid-19th century.  After losing his first wife to illness, Morrison married Wealthy Davis in 1850 and named one of the streets after his new wife.  That's it - the street was named as a loving gesture to Morrison's new wife.)

After getting inside, we entered the bar area and there was a hostess at the stand just inside the door.  The small bar featured a few stools and there were a small handful of booths in the bar area.  The hostess took us to a booth in the bar and dropped off a couple menus for us.  

There was a back dining area in Harmony Brewing that featured booths and tables with garage doors that would open for patio dining.  It had been raining and had cooled off after the front came through, so there was no outdoor dining that evening.  A small stage was in the corner that has been used for live music in the past, but there was a four-seater table on the stage during our visit.  

Our server that day was a young guy by the name of Keely who was a personable and helpful staffer throughout our visit.  We sampled a couple of their beers - the Fiddlestix American pale ale and the Pleasant Peninsula India pale ale - to start out.  We both liked the flavors of the Fiddlestix over the IPA and ended up getting that.  I was sort of surprised that my wife didn't get her usual vodka and cranberry juice as they had a full bar at Harmony Brewing.  

The menu is pretty basic at Harmony Brewing.  The main emphasis is on their wood-fired pizzas called by some as the best pizza in Grand Rapids.  But they also had appetizers such as house-made breadsticks that could be topped with either a pesto or with a balsamic vinegar, sea salt and oregano.  They also had pretzel rods with a beer-cheese sauce for appetizers, as well as a roasted red pepper dip served with kettle chips.  

My wife felt she needed some greens to start out with, so she ended up ordering a Caesar salad from their salads part of the menu for both of us to share.  For a dollar up-charge, she also got anchovies on the salad.  The romaine lettuce was cool and crisp with a nice house-made Caesar dressing along with fresh grated parmesan cheese and croutons.  Fresh-cracked black pepper was mixed in with the greens and dressing.  The salad was big enough for one person to have as a meal.

We ordered our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  It was a Neapolitan-style pizza with a thin hand-tossed crust.  It was a good pizza - not the best we'd ever had - but it was still good.  I think my wife was not too enamored with the pizza because I think she had her heart set on having Cuban food.  But we ended up eating all of the 12" pizza.  

I knew we were going to go to Harmony Brewing and get one of their pizzas at some point during our visit to Grand Rapids.  Because the Cuban restaurant that my wife wanted to go to was closed for the evening, we ended up going there on our first night in town.  We enjoyed their Fiddlestix American pale ale, and my wife really liked the Caesar salad that she had ordered to start off with.  And the Neapolitan pizza we both shared was a good pizza.  Harmony Brewing's original location was a cozy and funky little joint, and the service we had was fun and friendly.  For our first visit to a brewery in Grand Rapids - a city that is known for their numerous breweries - Harmony Brewing was a good choice. 

Grand Rapids and Western Michigan

My wife and I had a week's worth of vacation time left on the calendar this year and we definitely wanted to make it count, considering our vacation to the Gulf Coast of Alabama earlier this year turned out to be quite possibly the worst vacation we had ever been on.  We kicked around a number of options and decided that we wanted to head to Grand Rapids, MI.  There were a couple three reasons why - 1) It has an extensive number of microbreweries and brewpubs in, around and near the city; 2) We've never been to Grand Rapids before; and 3) My wife wanted a place where we could go and walk along the beaches of Lake Michigan, about a half-hour drive from Grand Rapids.  

We went just after Labor Day - I had to change my vacation dates because I was supposed to attend a trade show that my company decided to attend just three weeks before the show.  I was going to be on vacation that last week of August, but our company made a decision to just go and set up in a meeting room at a hotel near the trade show site.  I was able to push my vacation back a week, but my wife had some minor problems getting her company to allow her to change her vacation.  But she was able to pull it off.  

However, with the rise of COVID-19 Delta variant cases across the nation, a number of manufacturers decided to pull out of the trade show and a week before we were to attend the show, my company decided to pull the plug, as well.  So, I guess I didn't have to change my vacation, after all.  But, it turned out for the best as the crowds along the Michigan beaches were down dramatically from the week before.  

The weather was unseasonably cool for the first couple of days we were in Michigan.  The day we were traveling to Grand Rapids, a strong cold front brought severe storms through southwest Michigan.  There was some tree damage to parts of the Grand Rapids area, but we were able to get through the rain rather easily.  After the storm front had passed, brisk winds out of the northwest brought cooler than normal temperatures.  It was refreshing, actually, from the warm humid air we had experienced for days before.  

We stayed just east of what is known as the "Medical Mile" in Grand Rapids.  The Medical Mile originated in 1996 with the Jay and Betty Van Andel Institute, a medical research facility started by one of the co-founders of the Amway Corporation.  From there, a number of other hospitals and research facilities including four different college medical schools sprung up along Michigan Street in Grand Rapids Hillside neighborhood.  The DeVos family - the other founders of Amway; and the Meijer family - from the Meijer grocery store chain - have also given millions of dollars toward hospitals and research facilities over the past 25 years.  Quite actually, the medical campuses were rather impressive.  

Being a Hilton Honors Lifetime Diamond member, we naturally stayed at one of Hilton's properties while in Grand Rapids - the Hampton Inn and Suites.  (see map)  (There was a very nice Embassy Suites along the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids that was also very nice, but they wanted too many points for the stay there.)  The Hampton Inn featured a parking garage under the hotel, we got a nice upgrade to a junior suite for being a Lifetime Diamond member, and it was clean, quiet and comfortable.  We slept great every night we were there.  I would absolutely recommend this hotel if you make it to Grand Rapids. 

Getting around Grand Rapids proved to be a bit of a challenge.  Coming into the city, the eastbound lanes of the Gerald R. Ford Freeway (I-196) were closed at the bridge over the Grand River.  Our hotel was on the east side of the river and we had to get off the freeway and then sort of navigate backstreets to get to our destination.  All around Grand Rapids we found street closures and construction work going on.  Some roads were torn up completely and we wondered how in the world they were going to be able to finish those projects before the snow started to fly.  And the one-way streets in Grand Rapids were also sort of confusing.  After a couple three days of driving around, however, we were able to figure out what was where and how to get there.  

For years, the two cities of Grand Rapids and Asheville, NC have vied for the unofficial title of "Beer City USA".  We went to Asheville a little over 4 years ago to experience some of their numerous breweries.  (Click here to see some of the places we visited.)  We had enjoyed Asheville immensely and had always wondered about Grand Rapids.  Well, it turns out that Grand Rapids has over 50 breweries of all sizes in and around the city.  And in places like Kalamazoo - an hour to the south - there's another 12 to 15 in that area.  In fact, in the 6 counties that encompass southwest Michigan, there are over 100 breweries that you can visit.  We tried to focus on the ones in Grand Rapids, but we found ourselves going to brewpubs in Grand Haven, South Haven and Saugatuck.  

Unlike Asheville, however, many of the Grand Rapids brewpubs were spread out and you couldn't walk between many of them like you can in Asheville.  Ride shares are plentiful in Grand Rapids, so you can park and ride between many of the brewpubs.  

We found some pretty interesting places in our quest to discover the brewpubs in the area.  One of the more unique ones was Brewery Vivant whose taproom was in an old funeral chapel.  (Below left)  We just sort of stumbled upon it one night as we were driving by and I couldn't believe the luck of finding the place.  Brewery Vivant was styled after European pubs and their Rapid IPA was a fine beer.  Someone asked us later on if we had eaten there, but we had already eaten at another brew pub earlier in the evening.  "Oh, you should have eaten at Brewery Vivant," we were told by a young woman at another brewpub we visited.  "They have excellent food."  

We went over to Grand Haven one day, about a 30 minute drive from Grand Rapids and found Odd Side Ales.  (Above right)  It was part brewery, part coffee house situated in what was a former piano manufacturing facility.  Not only were their beers good - the Citra Pale Ale was exceptionally good - but it was a pretty neat and laid-back setting.  My wife loved the place tremendously and since we've been back she's told everyone who asked about our trip about our visit to Odd Side Ales.  

Also over in Grand Haven was the Grand Armory Brewing Co.  (Below left) This small brewery was situated in a 115-year-old historical building that once was the small town's local armory and gathering hall.  Grand Armory shared the first floor of the building with a coffee shop and a barbecue joint.  The second floor housed an art gallery.  The brewpub's tap room was a cozy little place and my wife and I both enjoyed their Crop Duster hazy IPA as well as their Weezin'-the-Juice citra IPA.    

Another interesting brewpub we went to in Grand Rapids was the Mitten Brewing Company. (above right)  Housed in an old fire station, this brewpub featured a baseball-themed taproom with memorabilia on display, primarily from the Detroit Tigers.  My next door neighbor is a huge Tigers fan and I remarked to my wife that he would have been in heaven in the place.  We enjoyed a couple of their Fogout New England hazy IPA's on their patio out back before we had to go inside as it got cold once the sun went down.  Actually, my wife was dressed for it, but I just had a polo shirt and jeans on and it was getting a little nippy for me.  

Some of the other places we stopped by were Greyline Brewing, ELK Brewing, the Grand Rapids location of the Atwater Brewery out of Detroit, City Built Brewing and the resurrected Grand Rapids Brewing Company which first brewed beer in 1883.  We also ate at a handful of brewpubs during our trip to Grand Rapids and Western Michigan, so I'll have individual entries on those places in the coming weeks.

One of the things my wife and I like to do do when we go on vacation is to check out parks or arboretums.  It turned out that Grand Rapids had a world class arboretum and sculpture garden - the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park.  The grounds have a year-round arboretum and over 300 sculptures and works of art on the grounds.  Originally opened in 1995, over 700,000 people visit the park annually and we thought it was well worth the $14.50 per person admission fee.  

The Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory featured over 500 plants from 5 continents, the largest display of its kind in the state of Michigan.  Waterfalls and streams wandered through the gum trees, palms, and walls of orchids with pathways around the perimeter and into the heart of the exhibit.  Tropical birds in cages were also place throughout the floor area of the 5-story building, and in the spring the conservatory has a tropical butterfly display where hundreds of butterflies - imported in their own chrysalis from Asia, Africa and South America - fly freely throughout the conservatory.  

Also in the immediate area to the conservatory was a garden featuring cacti, succulents, agave plants and floral displays that survive in the most arid parts of the world.  My wife really digs succulents and we took our time going through that room to check things out.  

In the sculpture park, we found a number of interesting and sort of confusing works of art that had been gathered by the Meijer family over the years.  This sculpture (below left) was near the amphitheater that features concerts from mid-July thru mid-September.  (This year, performers such as the Beach Boys, Emmy Lou Harris, Squeeze, Ani DeFranco and Harry Connick, Jr. graced the stage at the Meijer Gardens Amphitheater.)  The sculpture - Lying Man by Sean Henry - was realistic looking from afar.  However, upon closer inspection, the man would have been 9 feet tall if he was real.  

Off the path of the sculpture park was this interesting looking sculpture - Neuron by contemporary artist Roxy Paine.  (Above right)  Clicking on the picture, you can see the intricate detail of Paine's work.  It was strange, yet sort of spellbinding.  

Back in an area of the sculpture park called The Grove, there was this cool piece of art by Kenneth Snelson called B-Tree II.  (Below left)  The sculpture was built on site and is another example of "Tensegrity", a concept that Snelson helped devise with Buckminster Fuller and who both have patented some of the concepts of tensegrity.  Tensegrity is explained as a "design principle which applies when a discontinuous set of compression elements is opposed and balanced by a continuous tensile force, thereby creating an internal prestress that stabilizes the entire structure."  B-Tree II is based on patterning triangles where carefully calculated tension of the stainless steel cords locks the tubes in place.  

As we continued to wander along the pathway that wove through the park, we came across this interesting statue called "Broken Nose Carrying Bottle Number One."  The lifelike bronze sculpture by Spanish contemporary artist Juan Muñoz is similar to many works that Muñoz placed in unexpected spots that would somehow cause conflict between the sculpture and the viewer.  The Meijer family acquired this work in 1999, two years before Muñoz died of a heart attack due to an aneurysm in his esophagus. 

Throughout the sculpture garden were a handful of waterfalls with babbling brooks draining into small ponds.  While there weren't any rose gardens or large flower displays that we like to see in gardens when we travel, there was a tranquility in the running water that allowed my wife and I to linger in those spots before we moved on.  

Probably the highlight for us was the Richard and Helen DeVos Japanese Garden.  This 8-acre garden was designed by Hoichi Kurisu, a world-renowned designer of Japanese gardens, both in Japan and in the U.S.  In addition to the Japanese garden at the Meier Sculpture Garden, Kurisu has designed Japanese gardens in Portland, OR, Dubuque, IA (which I never knew until writing this), and in Florida.  Kurisu put in traditional elements of a Japanese garden - quiet areas (including a Zen garden), waterfalls, and numerous vistas.  The picture above right is from the Viewing Hill which overlooks the Lena Meijer Pond on the grounds.

But the most prominent feature of the Meijer gardens was the two-story tall "The American Horse" created by noted animal sculptor Nina Akamu.  Commissioned by Fred Meijer nearly 25 years ago, the sculpture pays homage to the famed Italian artist/architect/engineer/sculptor Leonardo da Vinci.  

Information boards at the site of The American Horse told the story of da Vinci's project that he was working on for the Duke of Milan starting in 1482.  He made a number of drawings of the anatomy of a horse and started work on a life-sized clay model of the horse in 1491.  Over 70 tons of bronze was accumulated for the 26-foot high horse by the time the life-sized clay model was finished in 1494.  However, the bronze that was to be used for the project was given to the uncle of the Duke of Milan to forge cannons that would be used to fend off invaders.  

In 1499, the French invaded Milan and the clay statue was used primarily for archery practice.  The elements further eroded the sculpture and it was destroyed just a few short years later.

In the 1970's, full-time airline pilot and part-time art collector/historian Charles Dent came across an article in the National Geographic magazine featuring da Vinci's horse.  Determined to finish what da Vinci started, Dent set up a large studio in his hometown of Allentown, PA and set up a non-profit corporation - Leonardo da Vinci Horse, Inc. (LDVHI) - to help raise money for the project.  By 1988, $2.5M had been raised allowing Dent to commission Garth Herrick to begin work on the project.  However, Dent later contracted ALS and died in 1994.

In 1997, the LDVHI had contacted a company to cast the horse, but the company wasn't keen on the design.  They suggested bringing in Akamu, a well-known animal sculptor who after looking at the original model, determined that it was unsuitable for casting.  Fred Meijer then became involved and raised the money for two identical 26-foot high horse statues be cast.  Akamu finished the project in 1999 with one horse going to Milan, while the other was placed in the center of the DeVos/Van Andel Piazza.  da Vinci, Dent and Akamu are all recognized with small displays and plaques in the piazza.  

We were at the Frederik Meijer Gardens for a little over two hours and we didn't even visit the interactive children's garden, nor the farm garden on the far end of the sculpture garden.  We figured we walked over two miles during our time there.  It was a great day - a bit cool, but we sort of forgot about that while we were walking.  

One morning, we took a walk along the river on the Butterworth Trail what is part of the Grand River Edges Trail.  We walked along the east side of the river from a parking lot in Canal Park up to Leonard Street and then back down south to below the dam.  For a mid-week day, there were a number of bikers, walkers and joggers on the path enjoying the morning.  There were a handful of turnout areas where you could look over the Grand River to the west side.

We made it down to the dam and noticed there were a number of anglers in waders just below the dam.  My wife asked one of the guys coming up the ramp what they were fishing for.  "Coho salmon," he said as he trudged past us, probably calling it a day.  We stood there for a few moments watching the dozen or so men fishing in the shallow water below the dam and there were no bites noted while we were hanging out.  

The I-196/Gerald R. Ford Freeway bridge over the Grand River was closed to east bound traffic, so there was a large construction presence past the dam.  Past the expressway bridge, the trail loops over across the river to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.  However, the library/museum had been closed for sometime due to COVID restrictions.  But that was OK with me.  Even though I'm a big history buff, I just didn't think the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum would be all that interesting.  It's sort of like the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, IA - 45 minutes from where I live.  I've even driven past the library/museum a number of times when I would visit a good friend who lived in West Branch, but I've never really wanted to go in to see the museum given Hoover's track record as president.  

My wife was adamant that we went to Lake Michigan and walked on the beaches.  We drove 30 miles over to Grand Haven one day and walked the beach there at the Grand Haven City Beach. (Below left)  It was a brisk day with the winds coming off the lake at about 25 miles an hour.  It reminded us of our vacation along the Gulf Shores of Alabama where the wind coming off the ocean was relentless the whole time we were there.  We walked for about 25 minutes along the beach before my wife decided that she was getting sort of cold.  The water temperature on Lake Michigan had to be in the 60's making it pretty cold on our feet and legs when the waves would wash up on the beach.   

One other day, we went down to St. Joseph, MI to Tiscornia Park, a place my wife and a friend of hers had visited earlier in the summer.  (Above right)  She was adamant that we go there as she found the place to be so peaceful and pleasant.  And we picked a great day for it, too.  Winds were light, temps were in the upper 70's and we walked along the beach then out to the St. Joseph North Pier lighthouse.  I can see why she wanted to go there.  It was actually sort of tough to leave.  

We made it over to Saugatuck, a small town that we've been to two or three times before.  This time, we walked along the boardwalk that meandered through the large marinas lining the harbor at Saugatuck.  There was very little activity going on in the marina - we figured that some of the boats probably wouldn't be going back out on the lake since it was after the Labor Day holiday.  But we marveled at the size of some of the boats in the slips at Saugatuck - some we're undoubtedly worth more than our house.  

Just outside of Saugatuck, we were driving along the back roads and encountered a hops farm.  My wife was stymied for a moment as to what the long vines growing up along wires were, then when I said they were hops, she immediately knew.  "I guess I've never seen hops vines so long," she said.  Come to think of it, I really hadn't either.  But it showed that there was a conscious effort by local farmers to help the local breweries out by having locally-grown hops for their beers.

All in all, our trip to Grand Rapids and Western Michigan was clearly one that we needed.  It was 180 degrees out of phase from our trip earlier in the year to the Gulf Shores of Alabama.  It was peaceful, the weather was nice (except for the day at the beach in Grand Haven), and we were able to catch up on sleep.  We visited a number of breweries and had some pretty good food - with the exception of one place that I'll talk about in an upcoming entry.  The parks and villages we visited and walked around were both fascinating and laid-back.  We avoided the tourist traps and found some places that we wished we could have spent more time.  My wife even came home with a big bag of Michigan peaches that we ended up freezing so she can enjoy them in smoothies for the next couple three months.  Oh, yeah - we're going back to Western Michigan again at some point.  And maybe sooner than later.