114 N. Main StreetJ and I used to take road trips all the time just to find new restaurants.
Our kids don’t enjoy eating out nearly as much as we do so the road trips have pretty much stopped.
There are so many breweries and restaurants outside of Kalamazoo I want to try but it’s hard to find a reason to do so anymore. And dragging the kids out of the house usually isn’t worth it.
I worked a lot of extra hours a few weeks ago and had a little bit bigger of a check than normal so I asked J if we could go to lunch last Saturday. There’s a brewery in Van Buren County I’ve really wanted to check out.
We headed to Lawton to find Longship Brewing. The restaurant is on South Main Street just south of Union Street. When we were there, and for the last several months, Main Street/M-40 has been closed for a major reconstruction project which essentially shut down access to the entire town. That’s been cleared now and the road is back open.
The building has been in Lawton for a long time. It was originally built in the 1870’s as a tailor shop. It was a lot of things over the years until a brewery was opened in 1993. It’s operated as a brewery ever since with Larry Bell opening Old Hat Brewery in the late 90’s (we tried to go there once and didn’t have the greatest experience) followed by Barn Brewery and now Longship Brewing.
We walked in to the brewery a little before 4:00 on Saturday afternoon. We were ahead of the dinner rush so there was only one other group in the restaurant.
The brewery isn’t very big but it’s pretty much what you’d expect from a 150 year old. Exposed brick walls. Harwood floors. Just a really cool vibe.
We noticed on the way out there’s also a pretty nice patio off the back entrance. We walked around to the front because….you know….dad has to take pictures for his blog. There’s an entrance off the ally and parking lot area. We left that way because we actually parked on the street behind the building.
I really miss trying new beers at breweries. I was really excited to grab the drink menu as soon as we sat down.
The menu had a Nitro Stout but the waitress said they had just run out of that one. Bummer. I ordered Jammin’ instead. This was the only IPA on the menu but it was really more on the fruity side. The flavors are lemon, peach, pineapple, mango and passion fruit. I wish there was something a little more hoppy but this was a pretty refreshing IPA
J picked one of the ciders. I was kinda hoping she would pick the fire cider but she picked Skadi. This cider is a spiced cider. The description says it’s an apple base with strong pomegranate cranberry plus cloves and cinnamon. It’s a good, comforting fall cider.
There was also a fun drink menu for the kids.
L was boring and just stuck to water. B ordered the Blue Tornado. This mocktail is a lemonade with blue raspberry syrup, brew glitter which they say “creates a shimmering swirl” and topped with a rainbow sour candy. He was going to order the Superhero Elixir because it’s finished with a gold sugar rim…but they didn’t have the gold sugar. He was happy with the Blue Tornado and probably spent too much time swirling the glitter.
We must have still been there at lunch time because we got the lunch menus. It worked out great for J but there was a sandwich off the dinner menu I wanted to try.
Since the Cuban wasn’t available, I went with the Longship Build Your Own Burger. I kept it simple just adding cheese and bacon (both for extra costs). The sandwich is a 1/3 lb smash burger on a grilled brioche bun. This a pretty classic cheeseburger. Every piece of it is good. The cheese is melty. The bacon is crispy. The burger patty is juicy. The sandwich came with delicious house made fries. These are my favorite kind of fries. They’re a little greasy but somehow still have a crunch to them. I could eat these all day.
J wanted the Gourmet Grilled Cheese but was also looking at soup. Since we had the lunch menu, she was able to do the Pick Two which is half a sandwich and a side. She picked the Half Grilled Cheese and a cup of Tomato Bisque. This was exactly what she wanted and portioned perfectly. The grilled cheese is gruyere and fontina on a grain sunflower seed bun. She said both were delicious and she was really happy the Pick 2 was an option.
B was being a pain. He’s really the reason we can’t eat out. Before we got there, he was already asking when we could go home. The boy has no chill. He complained about everything on the menu so we just made him order the kid’s hamburger and guess what, he really liked it. We added cheese to it and he devoured it. He stopped complaining for a couple of minutes and actually ate. His sandwich came with fries on the side. We kind of split them up around the table because he’s not a big fry guy but the burger was enough.
L got probably the coolest thing. She got the kids Char-cute-rie board. This scaled down version of an adult charcuterie board is cheddar cheese, season fruits and berries, crackers, and a lot of turkey and ham. That part isn’t actually on the menu and she’s not a big sliced meat person but I ended up eating most of it after I finished my meal. She loved the grapes, the crackers, and the cheese. The cheddar was like a smoked cheddar and it was really, really good. She would have preferred it to be more fruit/berry and less meat but she still said this unique offering was really tasty
Our bill for lunch, before tip, was a little under $65.
I really wish we could go out and find new places to eat like we used. This would have been a perfect lunch if it wasn’t for B constantly complaining about having to put his video games down for two hours.
The bar was pretty low but Longship Brewing Company was much, much better than our previous trip to this building (two breweries ago). The food was all delicious. I wish there was a few more beers but I was happy with the one I got. Very happy I was finally able to make the trip to Lawton…and really glad they survived the nightmare construction the town got stuck with this summer.