Mark and Matt's Chili Trek
Subscribe!
Chili Trek RSS Feed!


Restaurant NameWoody's Cafe
Address235 N Pontiac Trail
City, State ZIPWalled Lake, MI 48390
Phone248 624 4379
Website
GPS Coordinates LAT 42.5325 LONG -83.4489

Restaurant AtmosphereDown and dirty sit-in diner
Chili HeatLittle Zip
Chili FlavorTasty
Chili TextureThick
Chili PricesOn the expensive side. A bowl will run you about $3.25 with cheese and onion upgrade costing you $.75 additional.
Chili Fixin'sSubpar cracker collection (come on, only one package of crackers for two bowls of chili).

Comments by Matt Fuerst
Rating: 5
Woody's has been the biggest tease thus far of the Chili Trek. Their chili is so filled with possibilites, yet I was smacked dab in the face with disappointment so many times.

Me and Everest were driving around "Wal-tucky" when he mentioned we should try this shack named Woody's. We did the "check it out driveby" and right there on their crappy plastic sign out front they were hyping their "Homemade Chili". Pretty exciting stuff.

We arrived for our lunch and luckily I was thurough in reading the daily specials to see that the special of the day was chili in a breadbowl. The pain of the Tim Horton's breadbowl disappointment is still fresh in my mind, but any chance for hot goodness in a breadbowl I'm going to take it. I was slightly taken aback at the cash outlay that was expected of me, the chili in the breadbowl with the cheese and onion upgrade was going to set me back over 5 bones... but I perservered. And of course, since life hates me, they were out of bread bowls for the day (nice daily special, out of bread bowls by noon).

Anyway, fast forward (understandably a long time due to the difficult and complex nature of scooping chili from a vat into a smaller vat and walking it the 16 1/2 feet to our table) to the chili arrival. Not bad. The chili itself was served piping hot, which unfortunately is not the norm and worthy of a mention. Good flavor is present and some bigger chunks were floating around in the vat. This chili definetly was more reliant on beans and meat than veggies, not a whole lot of vegetables were floating around in there (no celery, some small tomato chunks). The chili was good, but there are a lot of hurdles that Woody's has to overcome...

Yes, the chili is better than Wendy's, the Fuersty baseline, but it's also 4X the cost with half the service. I'm sorry, but I'm miserly and I have to fact that into the Fuersty-Happiness-Factor (FHF as I call it for short). I forsee another Woody's trip in our future just to see if this one visit was an abhorration or the norm. But for now I'm going to have to give Woody's a 5 and see if I need to adjust upwards at a later date...
Comments by Mark Everest
Rating: 8
I was really excited to try Woody's because they advertise homemade chili right out front on a marquee. Also, Hammy mocked us for include popular restaurants like Burger King. He wanted more 'grease spoon diners'. I believe Woody's fits the bill.

I'm glad we checked beforehand, because Woody's doesn't accept credit cards. It must have looked funny to see us scurrying across the street to the nearest ATM.

Woody's reminds me of a little diner way up north in rural Michigan. Everything in the place was old. I felt like I should smoke just to fit in the place.

The 'Specials' menu offered chili in a bread bowl. Oh my. This could be the place. The regular menu described it as 'Terry's Chili'. If someone is willing to put their name on it, it ought to be good. Things are looking good.

Matt and I ordered of course, the chili bread bowl with onions and cheese. Several minutes later the waitress came back and said they were out of bread bowls. I could have cried. She plopped down two menus and started to head off as if we couldn't possibly want the chili in a regular bowl. We had to wait quite a while before we got our chili. I started to think that they had to warm it up in the microwave like they did at the Elephant Bar.

No microwaving here. The chili temperature was piping hot! A first. The cheese was already melting when we got it. The chili was thick enough that I didn't add crackers. It had pretty good flavor, chunks, and beans. No surprises in the spicy heat department, however. Overall, it was a really good bowl of chili.

Matt asked the woman who came from the kitchen to ring us up, if she was the Terry of Terry's chili. She said "Oh no. And besides Mark has been making the chili lately". I found that to be pretty interesting but I'm not sure why.

I will definitely come back to try the chili in a bread bowl.


Visitor Comments on Woody's Cafe
laminate flooringThe laminate flooring guide is the A to Z of laminate flooring. Covering topics such as laminate flooring board construction, benefits of laminate flooring .Shuffleboard tables from 9 to 22 . Shuffleboard supplies, including waxes, shuffleboard pucks, weights, silicone, Grumpies billiard table;Gives information about billiard table and more. A billiards table or billiard table is a bounded table on which billiards-type games are played.


Add a comment on Woody's Cafe
Name (mandatory)
E-Mail (optional)
Comment


Back to the Chili Trek...