Live, from Peoria, Illinois, it’s Saturday Night, starring this week’s host, Mike’s Tavern and featuring special guest stars, Amber and Joe!
Now, please welcome this week’s Saturday Night host all the way from West Peoria, Mike’s Tavern!
Here we are at Mike’s Tavern, one of my favorite Peoria destinations and it’s a special place for this blog, as you’ll see if you keep on scrolling down!
I think I see a couple of familiar faces over there at the bar…
It’s my friends Amber and Joe, always great to see them and Amber’s sporting an “Obligatory MBIP” t-shirt, in honor of tonight. This will all be made clear towards the end of this post, for now, let’s just keep moving along here!
Mike’s is under new ownership and they have a tasty menu with some delicious offerings for a Saturday night dinner!
Bartender, Haiden took our order and there he is ringing it up. While it’s being prepared, we’ll take some photos in here.
There’s a longshot from where I’m seated and a photo of the beers on tap behind the bar.
Those desks have been lining the wall opposite the bar for decades and I think Mike’s is the only bar in Peoria to have a cigarette machine. What a fun throwback item!
There’s Mike’s Merch behind the bar and there’s so much fun and interesting items on the walls in here!
There’s a back room with tables opposite the bar, a pay phone from back in the day and a board with drink specials are on the wall back here.
There’s also a state-of-the-art dart board and behind that is a discreet room filled with gaming machines for all the gamblers out there!
Meanwhile, back at the bar…
Our Saturday night dinner is served! It looks and smells delicious!
I got an appetizer order of chicken wings and they were so delicious.
I got the hot wings and they were, plump, juicy, lightly breaded and had just the right amount of spice and heat!
I got the “Baby Mike” burger. This is a four ounce hamburger patty and I got it topped off with Pepperjack Cheese.
It looks fantastic!
I added some mustard and black pepper and check out the toasted bun!
Let’s dig in to this fabulous looking cheeseburger!
Wow, this is one tasty burger! The burger is savory, juicy and so flavorful! There’s diced onions on it and the bun is bakery fresh. I find that the four ounce burger is a perfect snack-sized burger and a real Saturday night treat!
This was a delicious dinner and a real treat for this special night at Mike’s Tavern. Let me explain…
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Meanwhile, Somehow A Decade Has Gone By…
These were the first photos published on the MBIP blog ten years ago on this date from December 10th, 2012. From the top, there’s Mike’s Tavern, Jessica behind the bar, Moon, Roy and Bob “The Whale” Miller. These were the first photos celebrating the birth of MBIP!
On October 18th, 2012 I moved back to my hometown of Peoria, Illinois after living in New York City for 19 years (1993 to 2012.)
I had lost my night job in New York City and realized that I had accomplished every thing I wanted to do there, so I decided to move back to Peoria, where the living is a little easier and a lot less expensive.
So I moved back, got a second-shift job and starting designing and plotting out a blog that would be based out of Peoria, Illinois. I decided to call it, “Meanwhile, Back In Peoria…”
I had produced and published some successful blogs durning my last few years in New York City and the name was a play on the fact that I’d now be blogging about running around in and around Peoria, Illinois.
I started working on the blog immediately and stockpiling ideas for places to go and things to do. I set up the template for the blog and on December 10, 2012, I hit “Publish” on my very first blog post and wondered what the reaction to the blog would be.
My personal hope was that it would last at least one year and that I could build a decent and loyal following for my efforts. Thankfully, the response and feedback were almost all positive and immediately the blog was getting nice comments and follows on facecrack.
Doing a daily blog kind of causes your life to go into a hyperactive blur. Every day is a new deadline and every afternoon and evening is a new search for the next day’s blog post. It can wear you out, but it can also become addictive if it works and you know that people are reading it!
So how would I describe this last decade of Meanwhile, Back in Peoria? Uh…I’d love to expand on that thought, but I’ve got to work on tomorrow’s post. That morning deadline will be here before you know it.
I sincerely want to thank all of you for reading and being part of this on and off line community know as, “Meanwhile, Back In Peoria…”
You’ve made the last ten years a dream come true for me and I can’t thank you all enough for that! I wish I could put that into words, but there’s no words to describe what this journey has meant to me.
For one of the few times in my life I’m speechless.
I guess we’ll have to settle for these common but sincere words: “Thanks so much for reading and being a part of this journey through life. It means more to me than you’ll ever know and I’m grateful and I love each and every one of you!”
And my favorite words to put on this blog are: “We’ll see you all tomorrow, thanks so much for tuning in!”
Mike’s Tavern, ten years later in 2022: Haiden, Joe, Amber and Max are holding signs commemorating ten years of blogging and it’s an honor to spend this 10th anniversary in Mike’s Tavern! I give all of you my heartfelt thanks for tuning in every day!
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628 N. Cedar Avenue
West Peoria
309-674-1860
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Related Posts: Saturday Night @: Loaded Mediterranean And More!, The Publik House and Oliver’s Pizza & Pub North.