444 S. Lake StreetI wasn’t planning on going to my daughter’s figure skating competition this past weekend, but life just works out in funny ways.
My wife and daughter had been planning for competition at the Ladybug Competition in Flossmoor, IL. It’s one I don’t usually plan on going to because it’s only on Thursday and Friday. She only competes in Solo Dance and not in the free skate. Since I only have so many PTO days, I typically skip this one.
That was the plan this year…until that changed.
My aunt passed away a couple of months ago. We held the funeral on a Friday night but her wishes were to be cremated then buried. Since that’s not something that can be done overnight, we would come back for the final burial later.
Schedules are hard to work out. My mom had originally wanted to do it in May but that didn’t work for her sister. My family is the only “out of town” family that would need to come in for it so they tried to work around my schedule. My mom proposed this last weekend. We had nothing on Sunday since L’s competition was Thursday and Friday.
Instead of taking two days off, I chose just to take Friday off. I rented a car so we wouldn’t have two cars in Illinois. B and I took off Friday morning to watch L skate then hang out with my family on Friday evening before the service Saturday morning.
B and I got on the road around 6:30 AM on Friday so we could get to the rink to see L’s first event at about 9:30 AM. I stopped before we left Kalamazoo to get him Dunkin’ but I found a place closer to the rink I wanted to stop at it.
I had searched for bagel shops near Flossmoor, IL and I got a bunch of Great American Bagel stores. That would have been fine but one also popped up in nearby Gary, IN with great reviews. It wasn’t that far out of the way so we made a little detour.
Clutch Bagels and Spreads is on Lake Street near 4th Avenue in the Miller Beach Neighborhood of Gary, IN. The GPS directions actually took me to the alley behind the shop for some reason and I was really confused. I did see a van with their logo on it so I knew I was in the right place. I assumed if I went around to Lake Street I’d find the entrance.
We parked on Lake Street in front of a wood entryway with a banner for Clutch Bagels and Spreads attached to the wall. I still didn’t see a building or any signs that would indicate they were open. I told B we were going to get out of the car an investigate but this might be a bust.
We walked through what used to be outdoor dining for the café that was on this spot to find what almost looked like a house at the end of a paver sidewalk. Still not a lot of signage and nothing to indicate we were open. We were the only ones parked on the street so I was hesitant but turned the door handle to see if we were going to get some bagels.
The door knob turned and I pushed the door open to find an open dining room with an order counter right at the door. A man came out of the kitchen and said “Good morning.” They were open.
The menu was on a piece of paper on the counter. I ordered the Breakfast Sandwich for myself then ordered an Everything Bagel with plain cream cheese and a Plain Bagel with plain cream cheese to bring to the rink with me. It’s always a damned if I do, damned if I don’t situation. I bring breakfast with me but then no one eats it…I don’t bring breakfast with me, everyone gets mad.
There was only one person working and he said it would be 5-10 minutes to put everything together. I made B was the restroom while we were there then we took a seat at a table and waited. The dining room is quite large and some nice solid wood furniture. There is a lot of natural light that comes in through the windows giving the space a bright, warm feeling.
The three bagels were boxed up in individual to-go containers. I grabbed the bag and headed to the car to continue our journey to Flossmoor.
I wasn’t going to wait until I got to the rink to eat. I was hungry.
The Breakfast Sandwich comes on a bagel (I picked the Everything Bagel) with cheddar cheese and fried egg. You also get the choice of bacon, house made sausage, turkey, ham, or roasted red pepper. I chose the bacon. The bagel by itself was delicious and I would have been fine if that’s all I had, but turning this bagel into a sandwich just ups the level. I should have asked for some roasted jalapeno or roasted garlic cream cheese to take this to another level but I didn’t. The sandwich was delicious without it mostly relying on how good the bagel was.
For the other two bagels, I kept it pretty simple. I got one Everything Bagel with plain cream cheese because I didn’t know who was going to eat it. Turns out, my mom (who met us at the rink) and I shared it. J and L had already gotten breakfast from Dunkin’ and weren’t really interested. I really didn’t want that delicious Everything Bagel to go to waste so I ate it before we went to lunch for the day. If I had known it was going to be me eating it, I would have went with a different cream cheese but the plain was still good and this was still an amazingly delicious bagel.
The other bagel I got was the plain bagel with plain cream cheese. My mom ended up taking this one home with her. It was a case of we knew it was too good to throw away but we weren’t hungry at the time. My mom had a cooler to keep the cream cheese good so she tossed it in there and ate it for breakfast the next morning.
Clutch Bagels and Spreads was a good detour on our way to the Chicago area. I had never heard of this place before and just got lucky finding it while doing a Google search in the area. I was a little worried that it wasn’t open when we got there but it was and boy, am I glad it was. We got delicious bagels and a delicious bagel sandwich. Great way to start a very long day at the rink.
