Thursday, July 13, 2017

A Quick Visit to Grand Rapids

Downtown Market
Despite being born and raised in the Detroit area, I somehow never visited Grand Rapids before. I didn't have anything against Grand Rapids. Instead, I found it too easy to keep visiting the places in Michigan that I already knew.

I have been wanting to visit for some time, and my work luckily took me to Grand Rapids on Monday. Since I had a meeting at 1 p.m. downtown, I left my home early enough so I could have two meals and see as much of the city as possible during my visit.

Argos Book Shop
Besides tasting a new city's food and beer, I always try to visit its independent bookstores, so my first stop was Argos Book Shop in the Eastown neighborhood. Argos specializes in used books, and it has a comic book section that looked impressive to this non-collector. The store has two rooms full of used books covering many genres. I could have spent more than an hour searching the shelves, but I had to eat lunch before my meeting.

The bar at the Green Well
For lunch, I chose The Green Well Gastropub in the East Hills neighborhood. The neighborhood was quiet because it was 11 on Monday morning, but I'm guessing it is bustling later in the day since it features several shops and restaurants, and one of Grand Rapids' many breweries, Brewery Vivant.