5076 Sports DriveFinding a table at a restaurant at 7 PM on a Friday night can be hard enough. Finding a table on a Friday night at 7 PM for nine people can be damn near impossible. Reservations aren’t a thing at most places anymore so it’s just a matter of showing up and preparing for a wait.
We had all of the grandparents in town plus my aunt for L’s performance at the Civic Auditorium. When the show ended, everyone wanted to go somewhere for dinner. The places they suggested I knew we had no chance of getting a table for that many people without a long wait. I knew we had to find a place with a large dining room and one place instantly came to mind.
The Old Burdick’s restaurants have been a staple in our dining out rotation since we moved to Kalamazoo nine years ago. Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill was one of the first restaurants we went to in town and Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill West in the old Holiday Inn was our go-to when we didn’t want to cook after moving to Oshtemo.
When the Oshtemo location closed, we had to move a little further west to Texas Township find our closest Burdick’s.
Burdick’s at Wings West is on Sports Drive just to the east of 9th Street near the Texas and Oshtemo Township line. As the name implies, it’s inside the Wings West ice skating rink. The restaurant gets the spot facing the road and the large parking lot for the complex.
If you park on the side, there’s also an entrance from the skating rink. My kids like to run around in this space while they’re waiting for dinner.
This restaurant quickly became one of our favorites because of the built in entertainment. Most of the time, there’s a hockey game going on in the ice rink directly next to the restaurant.
There are large windows that overlook the rink so we can usually grab one of those four tops and let the kids sit next to the windows. They will sit there in a trance watching the hockey games taking place right below us.
I picked Burdick’s at Wings West because they have a large dining room and, as long as there’s not an event going on, there’s usually plenty of seating. I was a little shocked when we walked in to see most tables full, but a waitress told us to just give her a minute and she’d put a couple of tables together for us.
The dining room is divided in to two spaces by a large bar in the middle. Burdick’s is a classic sports bar with a great tap list (they had both Founders KBS and CBS on tap among other things) and TV’s turned to a variety of sporting events all over the walls.
I passed on those big Founders beers for something more sippable. I had a rough day at work and wanted a big, easy drinking beer so I picked Old Nation’s M-43. It’s one of my favorite beers at the moment and tasted so good in this moment.
Most of the table got pop to drink with both of the kids getting a lemonade.
I stuck to what I always do for dinner. A burger. I ordered the Western Burger. This burger is topped with cheddar cheese, jalapenos, a honey-chipotle BBQ sauce, smoked bacon, and red onion. The sandwiches are nine ounce burger patties that are hand formed and grilled to order. I asked for my medium and came out a little more medium well. Not a huge deal because it was still a tasty….and spicy burger.
The sandwich comes with fries, but I upgraded to the truffle fries for an extra two bucks. The extra money is worth it. These hand cut truffle fries are the reason I keep coming back to Burdick’s. The fries on their own are so good but then add in some truffle oil and cheese? Amazing.
J ordered some kind of grilled cheese. I don’t see it on the online menu but she can correct me and I’ll correct this. The sandwich was an amazing grilled flatbread filled with cheddar cheese and bacon. We had never seen this on the menu before and J was so excited about it she made me take a piece and try it. It was quite tasty and the kind of grilled cheese that could almost make me order something other than a burger.
The kids each wanted something different so we got them each their own meal. They actually have quite a few choices on the kids menu and quite a few good choices.
B wanted the grilled cheese and fries. He was very specific when I was ordering for him that he wanted fries and told the waitress himself several times. The grilled cheese is simple but well done with cheddar cheese between two slices of very well toasted bread. He ate half and used the fries to get more ketchup in his mouth which is pretty standard these days.
L asked for the mac and cheese and fries. We get hesitant with mac and cheese with her because for a while she would only eat Kraft at restaurants. This not Kraft. It’s a delicious house made mac and cheese and L licked the bowl clean. She was hungry. She also got fries which she also destroyed.
We all kept our bill separate so our family’s came out to a little over $60 before the tip.
I have always loved the Old Burdick’s restaurants and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. There are very few places in town that we go back to on a regular basis but this has always been one of them. I still miss the one just down the road from us at the Holiday Inn, but Old Burdick’s at Wings West isn’t that far away and worth the extra few minutes it takes us to get there.