1101 S. Centreville RoadLabor Day weekend has always meant a trip to the beach. Things changed this year though. Nana and Grandpa moved to Michigan and have a house on a lake. We traded in the big lake for Nana and Grandpa’s lake. The kids noticed at first but in the end, they probably had a lot more fun with the sunset cruises than they would sitting in the sand being forced to wait for sunset over the lighthouse.
My weekend was pretty messed up. I worked 12 hours on Thursday, 14 hours on Friday then had to get up at 2:30 AM to fill in for a 3:30 AM shift in Grand Rapids on Saturday. J and the kids went to Sturgis without me on Friday. That was the plan anyway because I also had to work on Labor Day so I was just going to meet them out there on Saturday morning.
Needless to say, I was exhausted on Saturday getting only about two hours of sleep the night before. I took a short nap when I got there then we spent the day hanging out by the lake. J’s mom had just seen an advertisement for a new(er) restaurant in Sturgis and asked if we wanted to go there for dinner.
Burgers & Brews is inside Sturgis Bowl on South Centreville Road (M-66) south of South Street on the southside of Sturgis. The bowling area has been in Sturgis for quite a long time but this restaurant looks like it’s just been around a couple of years.
IT’s possible to get to the restaurant from the bowling alley but there is also an entrance from the parking lot. We chose that entrance to try and keep the kids from wanting to go bowling. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work)
The restaurant looks new. There’s a sign right in the door to seat yourself. We were pretty early for dinner on a holiday weekend so the only other patrons were at the bar so we had our choice of tables.
The space is pretty large with a giant L-Shaped bar wrapping around the wall next to the bowling alley. All the furniture and decor looks and feels brand new. They stayed with a pretty safe design option using a lot of greys and natural wood colors. The floor looks like wood or tile planks but it appears to be peel and stick tile. There were spots in the floor is was warped a little already and felt too soft to be tile. It looks really nice though and adds an elegant look to a bowling alley restaurant.
The restaurant has a sports bar vibe with TV’s on the walls. We stayed away from those and took put two tables together near the stage. We kind of screwed up and sat right under the air conditioner so we had to deal with kids telling us they were cold even though it was still plenty warm outside. The bartender followed us over with more menus and a few minutes to look them over.
The bartender asked for drinks as we were sitting down and we were all kind of excited because the name of the place is Burgers and Brews. That excitement quickly turned to disappointment when we asked for a drink menu. There wasn’t one. The bartender tried squinting back at the bar to see what the tap handles said to give us the rundown but we stopped her early. J and her mom both heard a beer they sounded good and I just gave up and ordered a Pepsi. Apparently there is a decent selection of bottles too but we didn’t get that far because the bartender was trying to do it all from memory.
The bartender came back with drinks and some color pages for the kids but they decided they were going to be awful through this meal and make everyone’s life difficult. The stage was calling their name and they had to go put on a show for everyone. I got them off the stage by walking in to the bowling alley hoping I could find some games or something but there was a birthday party going on and I didn’t want to disturb them. We sat and watched a couple people bowl and that caught there interest for a few minutes. The lanes at Sturgis Bowl look pretty nice and like they’ve been redone recently. It’s definitely not like the dark, smokey bowling ally’s I grew up in with my dad.
The menu is definitely sports bar-ish When someone puts burgers in the name of their restaurant, I’m going to try a burger. Hell, even if they don’t, I will likely get the burger.
I picked the Jalapeno Burger. This sandwich is a fresh black angus beef patty topped with pepperjack cheese and jalapenos on a brioche bun. The sandwich looked a little off when it was set down in front of me. There was no cheese. I already felt like we were being rude customers because of the way the kids were acting so I didn’t say anything and just ate it. The meat was nice and juicy with just a hint of a salty taste. The stack of jalapenos added a little bit of sweet alongside a little bit of heat. I got fries to go with my sandwich. They were pretty simple and out of a bag but they were enough to round on the meal.
J got the Stacked Grilled Cheese. The sandwich is a double decker grilled cheese with a slice of bread in between three slices of American cheese. The outer two pieces of bread had a perfect golden brown crust on them while the middle slice was soft and chewy. Her sandwich also came with fries and a little cup of ketchup to dip them in.
B also got a Grilled Cheese but his was off the kids menu. The sandwich was the same as J’s but without the third piece of bread in the middle. B actually did a decent job of eating. He got most of the middle of each triangle leaving only the crust.
We may as well have not ordered for L. She picked the Personal Pizza off the kids menu and got it with just plain cheese. She took one tiny bite and asked if she could be done. Of course that didn’t go well and there were tears and she and I ended up in the car while everyone else finished their meal. I don’t really get what the problem was because the pizza was quite tasty. They use a fresh dough and give it a nice golden brown color. The bread is topped with a sweet sauce and some stringy mozzarella cheese. I ended up eating most of her leftovers for breakfast the next day.
I can’t tell you what dinner cost or what my in-laws ate because I was dealing with difficult kids through most of the meal.
Burgers & Brews has a good concept. There were some missteps with my burger and not having a draft list was incredibly frustrating, but the food was delicious. This is a great spot for a meal either before or after a few games on the lanes next door