1851 Landwehr RoadThis is the last post from our trip to Chicago. Back to Southwest Michigan restaurants very soon.
We spent a lot of time at the Glenview Community Ice Center for US Figure Skating’s National Solo Dance Finals. L qualified for one of the events after competing all year in Preliminary Shadow Dance.
L’s event was Friday morning but that didn’t stop us from being there literally all weekend.
We got to Glenview around 10 on Thursday morning. L had practice times at 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM but she wanted to watch the other skaters in our club skate. We had someone in every event but 2.
We were all really pumped when we got to the rink and found a bar upstairs. The menu looked fantastic and we all knew we were going to needs drinks by the time it got to the later events in the evening.
North Branch Pizza & Burger Company actually has a restaurant just down the street from the ice rink on West Lake Street. We passed it on our way to and from our hotel everyday.
They also have a restaurant inside the ice rink on the second floor. It’s pretty much only open on weekends when there are events going on in the ice center but they knew there would be a lot of people at the Center for this competition and they found a way to get open for dinner time the first two nights as well as lunch time on Saturday.
North Branch Pizza & Burger Company is on the second floor of the Glenview Community Ice Center. It’s all the way down the hallway from the stairs leading up to the seating areas from the main entrance. The restaurant is separated from the rest of the facility by a short half wall and has large windows overlooking Rink A, the main rink in the facility and where the actual competition was taking place. There is also some seating along the opposite wall that looks into the Studio Rink which is used for Pee-Wee hockey and other events that don’t need a full sheet of ice.
We did some snacking and ordered some beers throughout the weekend but it wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that I actually sat down for dinner.
The Western Michigan football game against Iowa started at 2:30 CT and my plan was to grab a beer and a burger and sit down and watch the game.
Ordering is done at a counter that kind of has concession stand vibes. The menu is written in a chalkboard above the window. It includes, as the restaurant name eludes to, pizza and burgers, but also has some salads, appetizers, and sandwiches…..oh, and beer.
I put in an order for the Joe Burger and a beer. The cost was about $22 which was a little more than I was expecting but I didn’t look at the screen to see how much the beer actually cost….at any point during the week that I ordered a beer.
The first time we ordered on Thursday evening, they gave us a number to put on the table and brought the food. They ask “for here” (in restaurant area) or “to go” (able to take in to the arena seating area.
The nice thing is you can order something to eat and go sit in the arena but they don’t want you taking their plates. They put it in a pretty substantial box so it’s easy to eat out of while you’re sitting in the bleachers. J got hungry after I was done with dinner so she got herself some fries and took it in to the rink to watch.
They do the same with drinks. To make it easier, they just put everything in a plastic cup. I ordered several Anti-Hero’s from Revolution Brewing that weekend. It used to be one you could only get in Chicago although that’s not the case anymore. It’s still one of my favorite IPA’s and it was the best one they had on tap.
If beer isn’t you’re drink, they also have wine and they also have little plastic wine glasses. There were a lot of those in our cheering section.
Back to my meal, I settled in at a table with my beer and put the game on my phone. It was airing on Big Ten Network and I probably could have asked them to change one of the TV’s, but I assumed no one else in the bar had any interest in that game, so watching it on my phone was fine.
It took less than 10 minutes for my burger to come out. There really wasn’t a description of what the Joe Burger is but I assumed it would be a simple smash burger. That’s exactly what it is. It’s a double smash patty with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and pickles. The burger is pretty substantial for a smash burger. The meat had those crispy bits around the edges where it’s smashed on to the griddle and what I think was American cheese melted in to the crevices of the meat. I had been waiting all weekend to sit and eat a meal at this restaurant and this burger was exactly what I was hoping for.
The sandwich comes with fries. They’re pretty simple frozen skin on fries. They have a little bit of salt and pepper seasoning on them but nothing overwhelming.
The thing we probably ordered the most over the weekend was the soft pretzel. It’s one of the few things L will eat and she loves them. The pretzel is huge so we could all share it. It comes with beer cheese for dipping but L doesn’t dip. She likes just the pretzel. She asked for one for dinner Saturday night but they had already closed for the night so I had to run to Culver’s for her instead to get pretzel bites.
We spend a lot of times at ice rinks now and we always feel lucky if they have a decent concession stand. I’ve always said how much I love Wings West as our “home rink” because they have Burdick’s. North Branch fills the same need that Burdick’s does. They have great food and they have drinks for parents who spend A LOT of hours at the rink. I think we were all pretty happy to have something with such great food right on site. A lot of our club did the DoorDash thing all weekend but it was nice to be able to sit down and eat a meal when North Branch was open.