445 E. Chicago StreetColumbus to Kalamazoo is a pretty long drive. It’s easy, but it’s long.
We left Columbus around 2:00 after hanging out with some friends at North Market. That put us back in Michigan just before 6:00. As we were driving north along I-69, I saw a billboard for a BBQ place in Coldwater. We hadn’t eaten yet and I figured we probably should before we got all the way home….and you know how we like BBQ.
We pulled in to Dickey’s Barbecue Pit right around 6:00 on Sunday. There were no other cars parking lot for the small, stand alone building on the corner of East Chicago Street and Michigan Avenue just west of I-69.
We were totally unaware that Dickey’s was a chain restaurant when we pulled up. It’s not one either of us had heard of. The Dallas based chain has well over 500 restaurants in 43 states, but the only West Michigan location is in Coldwater. There are restaurants on the east side of the state, in Traverse City, and in Indiana, but nothing west of Coldwater in Southern and Western Michigan.
We were so relieved to see Dickey’s is a counter service restaurant and not a full sit down place. The kids were tired from being in the car the last couple of days and cooperation at meal time has not been something we’ve been getting.
Despite being a chain, all of the meat is smoked in house in Coldwater over hickory wood. They have pretty much all the meats you would want smoked and a number of homestyle sides.
We put in our order at the counter then J went to pay while I grabbed a high chair for B. There was one other couple in the restaurant when we got there so I let B run a little bit before confining him to the chair. The dining room is rather large and has a rustic, road house feel. There is a mixture of large communal tables as well as some booths along the walls.
When J sat down, I went to grab my drink from the fountain. They have Coke products and they give you an actual plastic cup that you can take home with you for your drinks. While I was doing that, I noticed some soup pots that were not filled with soup but with delicious BBQ sauce. I got us a few cups of the sweet sauce and headed back to the table.
Not long after sitting down, one of the employees started bringing out our trays of food. I ordered the beef brisket with two sides. I got a pretty large pile of tender, juicy, and salty beef brisket. I’ve talked a little recently about my love affair with Texas style brisket after my trip to Dallas last winter. This was not quite as salty as Lockhart’s Smoke House, but it still had a salty crust and it just fell apart when I picked it up.
No surprise on my sides choices. The first one I picked was the waffle fries. I was really surprised by the large portion size. It was much more than I needed and much more than I could actually eat. The fries were frozen, skin-on waffle fries that had a little too much salt on them, but actually tasted really good when I dipped them in the sweet sauce I didn’t use on my brisket.
My second side was the Mac & Cheese. We got two sides of this with the intention of sharing with the kids. J handed me the larger side after she gave some to B. It’s a pretty standard Mac & Cheese with macaroni pasta and a thick, creamy, cheesy sauce.
The meals also came with a soft, buttery roll. The bread is a nice dense roll with a buttery layer on the outside. It was good on it’s own, but even better when dipped in BBQ sauce.
J ordered the Pulled Pork Sandwich. The buttery, toasted bun came piled high with pulled pork. She added some of the sweet sauce to it because she likes sauce, but this meat was so tender on it’s own that it’s a pulled pork that I could have eaten without any sauce. She loved the way the bun was put together with butter on the inside before it was toasted and the top bun smashed down with a little toasting as well. Her sandwich came with two sides as well. She got the same two sides I did.
We weren’t going to get the kids anything. We were just going to have them eat our Mac & Cheese, but kids eat free on Sunday so we ordered each of them chicken nuggets and fries. The nuggets came four to a plate and they were simple breaded nuggets that had been deep fried. The kids were both being kind of a pain and didn’t eat too much.
One of the times that I went to fill up my drink, I noticed something next to the fountain machine.
Free ice cream? We used that to bribe the kids in to eating more……also, just out of curiosity, the negotiations at meals does stop at some point, right? Anyway, both kids ate enough that we let them go get a cone. They have sugar cones next to a machine that spits out soft serve vanilla ice cream. I was stuffed from finishing everyone’s meals, but J, L, and B all enjoyed the free treat to finish off dinner.
The bill for our meal was $27 and I have to admit, everytime I say I like a chain restaurant, I feel a little dirty. I mean, the whole point of this blog is to find the great local places, but every now and then, a chain really does it right. Dickey’s is one of those chains. This is BBQ the way it’s supposed to be done. Would they win in a fight with some of our great local places? Maybe. Maybe not. But they’d be in the fight.
