Knitters at Smashburger!

A few weeks ago, I received this mysterious email via Urbanspoon Kalamazoo, a local restaurant review site where I occasionally post. The email was from Katie Hallin, of SmashVenture, inviting me to a "social media lunch" at the new Smashburger restaurant. It was a "soft opening", scheduled the day before Smashburger officially opened, designed to give the new staff some early practice.
Smashburger is the newest franchise restaurant in town, and is owned by Terry and Jean Henderson, longtime Kalamazoo restauranteurs. This Smashburger is the only one in Michigan, and the Hendersons are planning to expand in other Michigan locations.

After a few emails back and forth, I told them I was coming, with friends - knitting friends, all ready to test out the new menu and give their opinions.

Here we are, just before lunch arrives - Kay, Val, Karel, Becky and me.

(Note the knitting on the table!)

Five of us arrived, and after ordering, we took a look around. The restaurant isn't large, but still manages to handle a good-sized number of people. About 20 people were joining us for lunch initially, and others came a bit later. There's both booth and table seating. We happened to discover that the bench seating we were using needed a bit of adjustment - the one end kept sliding downwards, making for uncomfortable seating. We mentioned it to the staff, who quickly responded.

We also checked out the ladies room. It's clean, neat, spacious, functional.

Then we ordered. Amongst us, there were several who are diet-conscious, but Smashburger can handle it. Not only could we order salads as a main course, but some of us custom-ordered our sandwiches, picking and choosing ingredients that specifically suited our dietary requirements.

The sandwiches were rated well, with everyone liking their choices. One of the top-rated sandwiches was the Avocado Chicken Club sandwich, which included chicken you can have your chicken crispy or grilled. The apple-smoked bacon was generous, and added much flavor. Now if they could add just a teensy bit more avocado, it would be a perfect sandwich!

Friends Karel and Val testing the onion rings.

I ordered the sweet potato fries to share with the table, and they were fabulous. Not greasy at all, with good yammy flavor - I'll eat them anytime! On the other hand, the Haystack onion rings were nice, very thinly sliced and served with a dipping sauce, but a bit too salty.

For fun, we tried the fried pickles, and found them to be quite different - dill pickle slices deep fried, so definitely not diet food, but very tasty. I probably won't order a whole order again - the serving was very generous, but if they add a smaller portion serving, I can be tempted.

Although they weren't ready to offer full servings of their shakes, several of us tried the test portions of Smashburger's Michigan cherry shake. We all gave that one two thumbs up. Great cherry flavor, very natural tasting (unlike some restaurants that use a cherry syrup flavor that is artificial tasting). That's going to be on my list for my next trip.

Smashburger owners Jean and Terry Henderson, with Marketing Manager Katie Hallin.

Thanks, Smashburger, for inviting us - you've found five new customers, and there's more knitters from where we came from!

Yarn Storming at Bronson Park, Kalamazoo

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Our first yarnstorm, and right off the bat we meet the police.

Kalamazoo's Finest were on bike patrol in Bronson Park, and even though it's large park, somehow they just happened to sit at a picnic table right in the middle of where we were installing yarn.



The three of them watched us for a while, somewhat bemused at these ladies of the yarn, and then finally asked Sheila and Becky very politely, "Whatcha doin'?"



I suddenly realized that Becky was explaining our purpose to them, and quickly shot the above photo from quite a distance away. Sheila never batted an eye, and never stopped hanging yarn balls from the tree. Becky told them that we were installing Yarn Art for the upcoming weekend's Kalamazoo Institute of Art's annual Art Fair. One of the officers responded, "Art Fair?????" They just smiled, got on their bikes, and rode off to catch bad guys. Guess we just didn't fit the bill.

So we continued on, laughing and giggling our way through trees big and small, benches, trash cans, statues of children in the fountain, a picnic table, the Abraham Lincoln historical sign, parking meters, and the railings to the band shell.




Terri wrapped a huge sycamore with a giant tree cozy, and Val placed a little yarn bracelet on one of the children in the fountain. She and Terri also installed gorgeous hats and scarves on the children as people nearby watched us in curiosity.




We hung bright pink laminated tags on many of the works, in hopes that folks might recognize them as art and leave them alone. However, we all knew that most likely our yarn art wouldn't be there long, and it was okay with us if they were liberated.





We even brought a ladder, knowing that we'd probably have something to hang high. Except that I got the tree shawl stuck on a branch, and couldn't straighten it out of it's lop-sided drape. Terri tried too, with help from her yarnfriends, but it was very definitely stuck. We all finally agreed that it looked best lopsided.








When we finished, we snagged a passerby and asked that he take our photo in front of the beautiful children. Nice guy - snapped our shot, and didn't even ask why we wanted a photo of us in an empty fountain with yarned-up children statues. Call us crazy, but by the end of our adventure, we were beaming.



Before we left, we noticed folks walking up to our yarn art and reading the tags. That really made us smile. Even if he was carrying a beer bottle.

But best of all was this hand-written note that Sheila left on one of her felted tree ornaments.

Yes, it was a good day for friends and laughter, and most of all - we are now officially GUERILLA KNITTERS!