148 W. Main StreetI was the unlucky one that didn’t get the five day weekend for the 4th of July. I had the weekend off, and the 4th itself, but I had to work Monday night (3rd).
I worked a pretty late shift Monday night. It was almost 2:00 AM before I got to bed. I told J I wasn’t going to go back to her parents house on the lake after work. If I felt like coming back, I’d come back in the morning.
I woke up around 9 AM Tuesday morning. I knew if I was going to go back to the lake, I should do so before the parade in Schoolcraft shut down US-131. I got myself up and moving then started the drive towards Centreville.
J and I typically weave through the back roads as we make our way to the lake. The most direct route is to go through Three Rivers and Centreville but we chose a route that misses those towns and goes through Mendon instead.
I was coming through Mendon a little after 10:00 and I was hungry. I knew there was a diner on Main Street but being the holiday, I didn’t know if it would be open. I didn’t tell anyone I was stopping or asked if anyone wanted to join me. With my luck, the whole group would have been there and the place would have been closed.
Family Affair Restaurant is right on Main Street in downtown Mendon near the intersection with Nottawa Road. The brick building with red awning is one of several buildings like it in the small town business district. All of the buildings are connected to each other and have probably been there as long as most people in town can remember. The buildings have been cleaned up quite a bit over the years. The space Family Affair is in sat empty for a while after a coffee shop moved out and the building next to it was a grocery store that had seen better days but the time it closed a decade or so ago.
I pulled into a parking spot on the other side of M-60 when I noticed the “open” sign was flashing in the window. They were open just for breakfast on this holiday. It was about 10:15 when I walked in to the building and there was a sign on the door they would be closing at 11:00 so it was a good thing I got moving when I did.
The dining room is pretty large and it looks like what you expect a small town diner to look like. It’s got a real homey feeling to it with carpet on the floors, neutral colors on the walls, and lights hanging from a white ceiling. There were a couple of big groups of regulars finishing up breakfast and coffee while shooting the shit when I walked in. I spotted an empty booth along the wall and sat down. Menus were already on the table so I started looking as the waitress came over to get my drink order.
The breakfast menu wasn’t quite as big as I was expecting. There’s four pages to the lunch menu but breakfast is all squeezed in on one page. I found what I was looking for right away so maybe that’s not a bad thing.
I ordered the steak and eggs which came with potatoes (American fries) and toast (white).
I started with the American fries because they looked delicoius. They were really little French fries. They were super crispy and golden on the outside but soft and airy like a steak fry on the inside. The waitress put down a bottle of A-1 Sauce for my steak but I used it on the fries instead. They were fine on their own but I actually haven’t had A-1 in a long time.
The steak was the last thing I went for and that probably wasn’t a smart move. There was a lot of food on the plate. The eggs were eggy and the toast was toasty and I ate all of them before getting to the steak and I was kind of feeling full already.
The steak is an 8oz ribeye. I asked for it cooked medium. I got one side of it medium rare and one side of it a little well done, but it really didn’t matter. I liked both ends. The medium rare side I ate as it was and the well done side got a little bit of A-1. I don’t have high expectations for breakfast steaks. As long as they have a salty crust and a little bit of juiciness to them, I’m happy. This steak was delicious and even though I was pushing the limits of what my stomach could do at this point, nothing on my plate went to back to the kitchen.
The cost of my meal was right around $16 which I paid for on my card.
Family Affair isn’t too far from my in-laws place but we never do breakfast out. Everyone gets up at different times…my in-laws early, B and J at a more normal time, L and me way later than we should…so J’s mom usually just makes a pound of bacon and we each grab a bagel or some toast when we get up.
This place is a pretty typical, and great, small town family diner. I wasn’t part of any of the conversations but I learned so many things about what was going on in Mendon just from overhearing the conversations that spanned several tables. You get a lot of food for the price and chances are, you’ll learn something new if you just open your ears and take it all in.