Offbeat Eats

When we’re visiting relatives in Livonia, I like to use it as an opportunity to visit an old favorite of mine, Bates Hamburgers. You see, in one of those odd sort of time capsule manners, the Detroit area still has a strong presence of locally-owned hamburger joints, a good number of them selling “sliders”. Yeah, those sliders, the small hamburgers cooked over onions and served on small greasy buns. Yeah, those. While in most of the country the few proper sliders (vs just small sandwiches with that name) come from either White Castle (northern latitudes) or Krystal (southern latitudes), but in Detroit, various independent operators and small chains are still the reigning kings of classic sliders. Bates Hamburgers is one of my favorites, and I try to visit it every time I’m in town. I last reviewed Bates back in… wow, 2006, in one of the oldest reviews here on Offbeat Eats (yes, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years now…), and I figured that this, time, camera and French fry-craving nieces in tow, that we’d head on over to Bates for lunch and do one of Offbeat Eats’ patented “Health Check” re-visits.

I’ve gone on a rather large number of backpacking trips in Arizona over the years, and I’ve got a tradition that goes back a surprisingly long time (to the 1980s, in fact). Towards the end of every longer trip, you start to tire of backpacking food, and one of the more frequent trail conversations is food cravings for when we get back to civilization, and inevitably the exact same food item comes up: a cheese burger. Specifically, a green chile cheeseburger. It’s the perfect antidote to several days of trail food. Back in the day, this was usually the saloon at Tortilla Flats, but I haven’t been up that way for a few years (the Arizona Trail was out of commission for several years, which made Tortilla Flats a bit of an out-and-back experience not terribly close to most of the trailheads I use in the Superstitions). For some of the more recent trips, this has been Joe’s Farm Grill (which is getting ripe for a re-visit) or Fate Brewing (which between a logistically-good location, has an awesome Hatch chile lager to enjoy with your burger). So, after wrapping up our week hiking in the Grand Canyon, we decided that we needed cheeseburgers, and I know there was just the place for this in Flagstaff: Diablo Burger.

After a week spent on Santa Cruz Island (part of Channel Islands National Park, we arrived back in Ventura, CA, looking for a nice dinner to celebrate our trip before wading back into LA-area traffic getting back to Hermosa Beach. Ventura has quite a vibrant dining scene, but since we were fairly scruffy (and somewhat smelly) folks literally fresh off the boat, I was hoping for a spot with good outdoor seating, and that led us to Bright Spark Brewing.

Prior to the pandemic, I had a pair of sister restaurants in downtown Manchester, Republic Café and Campo Enoteca, that I enjoyed for light dinners when around Manchester. The former served up “European” food, mostly with a French influence, and the latter served up Italian food. Unfortunately, the pandemic severely stressed both restaurants economically; for a while they were operating in a combined manner as “Republic of Campo”, but in 2022 the operation drew to a close. Republic Café closed permanently, and Campo Enoteca sold to new owners (who continue to operate it today, as of 2025). But this wasn’t the complete end for “Republic”. In 2024, two locals, Pete Maconehas and Mike Brown, decided to open a new brewery on Old Granite Street next to Hometown Coffee Roasters, where Mike is an owner. Pete was formerly with both Republic Cafe and Campo Enoteca Restaurants, so they decided (with the blessing and support of the former owners) to reinvigorate the old Republic name, christening the new brewery Republic Brewing Company.

One of the things I love about Northern New England in the summer is that many of the small towns have all sorts of seasonal “snack bars” along the side of the road that serve up a variety of burgers, hot dogs, fries, and ice cream. And sometimes even the occasional lobster roll as well. On my very first road trip (to Long Trail Brewing in Bridgewater, VT), I stopped at one such snack bar that remains a favorite of mine, the White Cottage Snack Bar in Woodstock, VT.

With many frequent trips to SE NH or Boston, we often find ourselves looking for dinner options around the greater Manchester, NH area. Manchester has a lot of great options, but a recent favorite of ours is actually brewery that’s been around a while, but only recently known as Candia Road Brewing Company.

Before the Covid pandemic hit, we had a handful of favorite restaurants around the small Town of Warner, NH. Halfway between the Upper Valley and the Concord area, this made it a nice place to either take a break from the drive, or for meeting up if Carol and I were on separate itineraries. Two of our favorites were The Foothills and

My second night staying in El Segundo, I took the short drive down to Manhattan Beach for dinner. The next town south from El Segundo, it’s got a decent downtown, a nice beach and wharf, and a good cross-section of restaurants from fine dining all the way down to dive bar. In fact, that’s what brought me to Manhattan Beach, I wanted to revisit an old favorite from previous visits: Ercole’s.

Several times a year, we end up traveling just north of Middlebury, VT to pick up wine from Lincoln Peak Vineyard. As I mentioned a while back in our review of The Cluckin’ Cafe, that gives us a nice excuse to check out a few of the sights and restaurants in Western VT. In this case, we had seen a lot of good online reviews for a bakery in downtown Middlebury next to the river: The Haymaker Bun Co.

(Closed) As mentioned in the previous post, a few weekends ago I was hiking with my friend Alex on Wantastiquet Mountain, located in Hinsdale across the river from Brattleboro. After a pleasant hike, we went back across the river to revisit a SE Vermont favorite of mine, Whetstone Station.