Michigan’s Best Local Eats: Get the chicken Wellington and a giant piece of cake at this Goodrich eatery
5 min readGOODRICH, MI — A restaurant in Genesee County attracts its loyal customers with its variety of seafood dishes, giant slices of cake and cranberry-inspired creations.
Cranberries Café, owned by Patty Plant, has been serving the community with its delicious food and welcoming presence for nearly 30 years.
The café located at 10250 Hegel Road in Goodrich features a lunch and dinner menu with dishes such as nachos, chili, calamari fingers, Italian pasta with sausage, chicken Wellington, planked whitefish and many others.
There are of course some menu ideas dedicated to the restaurant’s namesake like the cranberry spinach salad, cranberry vinaigrette, cranberry honey mustard and cranberry bread pudding.
Plant highlighted the fish and chicken Wellington among the meals that customers love best.
The planked whitefish is cooked on a maple board with potatoes and broiled tomatoes. The meal includes a soup or salad. Customers can purchase it for $19.
The chicken Wellington is made with chicken breast wrapped in filo dough with cream cheese and cranberries and then topped with a white and cranberry glaze and candied almonds.
Customers can pair their food with the eatery’s selection of Michigan beers on draft and its extensive martini menu.
To top off the meal, desserts are available too, like the giant pieces of chocolate or carrot cake, which serve three to four people. Both pieces can be indulged for $12 each.
In addition to the food, the restaurant also features live music on Thursday nights, five-course wine dinners, martini nights with free appetizers and Murder Mystery dinners.
The next Murder Mystery event is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 13. The 16th annual Australia Day, celebrating all things Down Under, begins at 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29 and includes food, drink and musical performance from 6-8 p.m. by Riley McLincha.
While the food gets the customer in the door at Cranberries, the welcoming and kind presence within the business is another reason they keep coming back.
“Cranberries is more than just a restaurant. We touch a lot of hearts,” Plant said with emotion. “There’s been a lot of people through the years that have come through our doors that have become our friends and it’s reciprocated that we are their friends when they need us and they’re our friends when we need them.”
Plant recounted a Christmas Eve night when the bar was open, there was free soup, a game of Euchre was being played and gift certificates were being given out.
An older couple came in that night looking for food, and the restaurant didn’t have its regular menu available, so it offered the free soup.
The couple stayed and had soup and played cards for two hours. It was an unforgettable night for them.
“When they left they hugged us and said it was one of the best days they’d ever had. Just weird things like that happen,” Plant said. “Not sure why. I don’t want to belittle the fact that we’re a restaurant, but we touch a lot of people somehow or another.”
The hours of operation for the business are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for lunch 4 to 9 p.m. for dinner Tuesday through Saturday.
To learn more about this restaurant, visit its Facebook page here.
Would you like MLive to feature your restaurant in Michigan’s Best Local Eats? Send the details, including business name, address and most popular menu item, to Isis Simpson-Mersha at [email protected].
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