By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Foodies will find their idea of heaven right here in Grand Rapids: specialty burgers on home baked Kaiser rolls, a traditional soda fountain serving hand-dipped malt cups, sundaes and banana splits, and all of it just one step away from a store filled with homemade chocolates. The place? Bobby J’s Cheshire Restaurant at 2162 Plainfield NE.
The 4,100-square-foot storefront used to be the home of The Cheshire Restaurant until it moved to a larger space nearby. Now Bob Johnson—owner of Bobby J’s Downtown—is busy updating the interior with a style that keeps the family-friendly atmosphere and preserves a customer favorite: the connecting doorway to the Sweetland Candy store.
Johnson kept the soda fountain’s original black and white checkerboard floor and the soda fountain stools. He added triangle-shaped openings in a wall that divides the two main dining rooms to give the space a more open feel, and rearranged some seating to create more floor space.
“It has an inviting, homey atmosphere,” Johnson says about the $500,000 renovation. “It's a very eclectic, cool area of town and we wanted to play into that. We want it to be a neighborhood diner fun kind of place.”
The restaurant opens on July 9.
Source: Bob Johnson, Bobby J’s Cheshire Restaurant
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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