505 E. Grand River AvenueAaaand, we’re back. It’s competition season for figure skating again. L is starting her second season by moving up a level and competing in the National Solo Dance Series. By this time next year, we will likely have a second kid competing. The boy is just itching to get out there. His time is coming soon.
The first competition of the year for L’s coach was the Van Camp Invitational in East Lansing. We did this one last year but L was still in the basic skills categories. We only had to go on Saturday. This year, she’s moved up to Excel series in free skate and she’s competing in NSD.
The dance portion of these competitions is usually during the week. In this case, L would be competing in four events on Friday and one on Saturday.
I took the day off because I was excited to see her skating in Solo Dance. When I said I was taking the day off, my parents decided to drive up from Illinois. They would be able to see her skate in three of the four events and they would also get to see her do the dance competition for the first time.
L’s day was pretty packed between practices and events. There was about an hour around lunch time that I could leave the rink and go get food. I watched her skate in her first of two Solo Dance events then took my parents to go pick up lunch for all of us.
L is kind of a picky eater. When she’s nervous, she carb loads. A bagel with cream cheese is about the best thing I could get for her so I went to a bagel place.
Bruegger’s Bagels is a chain of about 200 restaurants founded in Troy, NY in the early 80’s. There are six locations in Michigan with the East Lansing spot the closest to Southwest Michigan.
The restaurant is near the corner of East Grand River Avenue and Division Street in downtown East Lansing. We were kind of in a hurry and hoping to find a close parking spot but East Lansing was nuts that weekend. It was St. Patrick’s Day and the kids were already out day drinking. We had to settle for the ramp on Division Street and walk back to the restaurant.
The restaurant is pretty typical for a bagel shop. You can get just bagels with a variety of cream cheeses or you can order a sandwich.
There’s a long order counter bagels, spreads, and toppings laid out like a sandwich shop. The menu board hangs behind the counter in front of the baskets of bagels.
I got a sandwich for J and myself and just a plain bagel with cream cheese for L. We were getting a little worried about timing and just grabbed our sandwiches and left. The cost for my part of the meal was right around $20. My parents each got a sandwich too but they wouldn’t let me pay for theirs.
In an odd twist, Bruegger’s has a small dining room but they don’t let people use it. There are not tables along the walls anymore and the booths have signs saying the dining room is closed and you can’t sit there. I assume this is from COVID and they never reopened the dining room but it seems odd when you have that much space.
We hustled back to Suburban Ice to try to get the bagel to L before her next event but she had already done her makeup and didn’t want to mess up her lipstick. I stuck it back in the bag and told her to find me as soon as she was done.
I wasn’t going to wait. I was hungry.
I ordered the Hot Pastrami for myself because I love a good hot pastrami. This sandwich is an Everything bagel with pastrami, red onions, pickles, Swiss cheese and a spicy brown mustard. The pastrami isn’t piled high like it is at a New York deli but there’s plenty of meat alongside the sourness of the pickles and mustard. My dad got this sandwich too and was surprised he really liked it. My dad is critical of almost every meal we eat out and bagels aren’t really his thing so him telling me afterwards how much he liked it is kind of a big deal.
J asked for a Build Your Own and I messed up right at the beginning by getting it on an Everything Bagel. She didn’t specify the bagel and by the time I looked at the text message close enough, I didn’t want to text her back and wait. We were in a hurry so I picked the Everything bagel knowing she bought the Everything But the Bagel seasoning….so I assumed she like Everything bagels. She told me later, she does not….so that was my bad.
She picked ham, lettuce, and cheese with the veggie cream cheese spread. Her sandwich was pretty similar to mine with a decent stack of meat alongside the veggies and cream cheese…it was just on the wrong bagel
I got to L as soon as her event was over and get her the bagel. She keeps it really simple with plain bagels and plain cream cheese. They really laid the cream cheese on thick which is the way she loves it. She still had some butterflies because she hadn’t gotten her score yet and she still had two more events so she ate half and unbeknownst to us, saved the rest for later. She had every intention of eating when she and J got to the hotel room later that night but J found it and threw it out because the cream cheese had been at room temperature for about 7 hours at that point. L was bummed…she really liked it and was looking forward to finishing it later.
Bruegger’s Bagels did the job. We were all hungry and no one wanted greasy. East Lansing was pretty nuts the weekend we were there so this probably worked out best. We got a delicious meal and got it pretty quickly. I think the thing is going to really love about college are bagel shops like this. It would be her breakfast every day if she could.