Things to Do
Romantic things to do in Grand Rapids: the Japanese garden at Meijer Gardens, Wealthy Street dinners, the Ecliptic ice rink and a Saugatuck day off.
UnsplashA weekend for two in Grand Rapids works, but not for the reasons a travel brochure would give. There is no old quarter. There is no waterfront promenade to walk hand in hand along, because the river is a construction site while the rapids are rebuilt. There is no view worth driving to inside the city limits. What there is instead is a very high density of good, small, specific things within a fifteen-minute radius, and an almost complete absence of the crowds that make the same things unpleasant elsewhere.
Start by accepting the geography. The hotels are downtown. The restaurants worth your evening are a mile east and up a slope, on Wealthy Street and in East Hills, where a run of independent kitchens, wine rooms and cocktail bars occupy buildings that used to be something else. That mile is the single most useful thing to know about eating here as a couple, and it is why so many conference visitors leave thinking the city has no food.
The best two hours available to two adults are in the Richard and Helen DeVos Japanese Garden at Meijer Gardens, eight acres laid out by the Japanese designer Hoichi Kurisu and opened in 2015. It is separate enough from the rest of the site to feel like a different institution, it is quiet on a weekday, and in the second half of October the maples do something the rest of the city cannot match. Go late in the day when the school groups have gone.
The second best thing is seasonal and free. From roughly December the rink at Rosa Parks Circle opens, and the lights set into the ice map the stars that stood over this city at midnight on the first of January 2000. Maya Lin designed it. Skating on a constellation in the middle of a Midwestern downtown is a stranger and better evening than any restaurant will give you.
And when you want a landscape, drive west. Lake Michigan is the region's one romantic asset and it is thirty miles away: a west-facing coast where the sun sets over open water, which is not true of any Atlantic beach in the country.
Downtown Grand Rapids was built for offices, an arena and hotels, and it feeds accordingly: capable, busy, unremarkable. The kitchens people are genuinely enthusiastic about sit outside that ring.
Wealthy Street, running east from the edge of downtown through East Hills into Eastown, is the spine. It went through a long decline and a longer recovery, and what came back was a string of owner-operated restaurants, a repertory cinema, bakeries and bars in narrow storefronts. It is about a mile from the hotel cluster, which is twenty minutes on foot uphill or five in a car.
Monroe North, on the east bank north of the arena, is the other direction: warehouse buildings, taprooms, a handful of restaurants, and a shorter walk from downtown.
The West Side, across the river along Bridge Street, is the third option and the least polished, which some couples will prefer.
Two practical notes. Reservations matter more here than the city's size suggests, because the good rooms are small — thirty or forty covers is common. And a Van Andel Arena night reshapes availability across the whole downtown, so check what is on before you assume a table.
UnsplashWhen to go
The Richard and Helen DeVos Japanese Garden opened in June 2015 on about eight acres at the eastern end of the Meijer Gardens site, designed by Hoichi Kurisu, who trained in Japan and has built gardens across the United States. It holds a waterfall, a pond, a tea house and a boulder-set hillside, with contemporary sculpture placed sparingly among the planting rather than displayed in it.
The reason it belongs on a page for couples is pace. The rest of Meijer Gardens is a busy public attraction. This section asks you to walk slowly and mostly succeeds in making people do it, and on a weekday afternoon you will have long stretches of path to yourselves.
Time it properly. The last two hours before closing are the quietest of the day. Late October is the peak, and the maples here are chosen for exactly that. A still morning after a frost in early November is the connoisseur's version. In deep winter the garden is stripped and structural, which is its own thing and far better than it sounds.
Combine it with the tropical conservatory rather than the sculpture park if you only have two hours, and eat afterwards in the city rather than on site. The drive back downtown is about twenty minutes.
Heritage Hill, on an autumn afternoon. Three blocks uphill from the office towers, around thirteen hundred historic houses stand across roughly a square mile — the oldest from the 1840s, the grandest built with furniture money in the decades after the city made its name at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. More than sixty architectural styles are represented, and the neighbourhood exists at all because residents fought off a 1960s clearance plan. It is a proper hour of walking with something to look at on every block, and in the second half of October the street trees make it the best free thing in the city.
The bridges, at dusk. The riverwalk itself is patchy while the rapids restoration proceeds, but the pedestrian bridges are open and the crossing between the east-bank museums and the Ford Museum grounds takes five minutes. Do it as the lights come on. You will be looking at a working river being physically rebuilt, which is a more interesting view than a tidy one.
Neither walk costs anything. Both take under an hour. Both are better than the thing most visitors do instead, which is drive between two ticketed attractions and eat in a hotel.
Local tips
How they compare
| Evening | Season | What it costs | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skating at Rosa Parks Circle, dinner up the hill | December to February | Rink fee plus skate hire, then dinner | The lights under the ice map the sky over this city on 1 January 2000. Nowhere else has that |
| Concert on the lawn at Meijer Gardens | Summer | Ticketed, varies | An outdoor amphitheatre inside a sculpture park, with the gardens open before the show |
| ArtPrize after dark | Mid-September to early October | Free | Venues stay open into the evening and the downtown crowd is the event as much as the art |
| Symphony, opera or a touring show downtown | Autumn to spring | Theatre pricing | The performance halls are a short walk from the hotels, which makes a wet January night easy |
The summer concert series is the one that surprises people: the amphitheatre sits inside the garden grounds, gates open early enough to walk the sculpture beforehand, and audiences bring blankets. Line-ups are published well ahead and good nights sell out.
If you have only one evening and no fixed plan, the default is dinner on Wealthy Street followed by a cocktail bar on the same street. It is not adventurous. It is reliably good, and it is ten minutes from where you are sleeping.
On the ground
Every place below has its own page — hours, parking, what it costs and what to expect when you get there.
Park
A grocery fortune turned into 158 acres of Rodin, Oldenburg and orchids, plus the one glasshouse in Michigan that fills up in February.
2.5–5 hoursAround $20–25 per adult, with lower rates for seniors, children and members
Park
Eight acres by Hoichi Kurisu, with four waterfalls, a teahouse built in Japan and a Zhang Huan head sitting in the moss.
1–1.5 hoursIncluded in general admission to Meijer Gardens; there is no separate Japanese Garden ticket
Neighbourhood
Thirteen hundred buildings on a hill above downtown, saved in 1968 by 125 neighbours who refused to let the bulldozers in.
0.5–1.5 hoursFree to walk; the annual Tour of Homes in May is ticketed
Beach
A hand-cranked ferry across the Kalamazoo River, 302 steps up a dune to a Cold War radar dome, and a beach on the far side.
5–10 hoursThe town is free to walk; the ferry, beach parking and the state park each charge separately.
Beach
Forty minutes west of the city: two red lights on a pier, a boardwalk along the channel and a fountain that plays to music after dark.
4–10 hoursThe town, boardwalk, pier and fountain are free. The state park charges vehicle entry.
Landmark
A Maya Lin artwork you are allowed to walk on, and from December a public ice rink with the night sky under the ice.
0.5–2 hoursThe plaza is free at all times. Winter skating sessions carry a small charge.
Neighbourhood
A mile of restored storefronts in East Hills, restarted by a 1911 theatre that spent twenty-five years boarded up.
1–3 hoursFree to walk. Everything on it costs whatever it costs.
Straight answers
It works if you want good food and good art rather than scenery. The city has no view and, while the rapids restoration continues, no waterfront walk worth the name. What it has is a very high concentration of small independent restaurants a mile east of the hotels, an eight-acre Japanese garden, a Maya Lin ice rink downtown, and a Great Lake coast thirty miles west where the sun sets over open water. Crowds are minimal.
Not downtown, mostly. The kitchens people are enthusiastic about sit on Wealthy Street and in East Hills, about a mile east of the hotel cluster and up a slope, with a second cluster in Monroe North and a third on the West Side along Bridge Street. Rooms are small — thirty or forty covers is common — so reserve. Check whether there is an arena event on, because that reshapes availability across the whole downtown.
The Richard and Helen DeVos Japanese Garden, about eight acres at the eastern end of the site, designed by Hoichi Kurisu and opened in June 2015. It holds a waterfall, a pond, a tea house and contemporary sculpture placed sparingly among the planting. It is the quietest part of the region's busiest attraction, and the best time to walk it is the last two hours before closing, ideally in the second half of October.
Yes, at Rosa Parks Circle, from roughly December into late winter. The rink is part of Ecliptic, a public artwork by Maya Lin: the fibre-optic lights set beneath the surface are arranged to match the stars that stood over Grand Rapids at midnight on 1 January 2000. Skate hire is available on site and sessions are cheap. In summer the same bowl becomes an amphitheatre for free concerts.
More than a city this size usually offers, concentrated in three places. Downtown has the arena, the performance halls and the hotel bars. Wealthy Street and East Hills have the restaurants and cocktail bars. Monroe North and the West Side have the taprooms. During ArtPrize in late September and early October the downtown venues stay open into the evening and the streets themselves become the event, which is the best night of the year to be here.
On the Lake Michigan shore, thirty to forty-five minutes west. Because this is a west-facing coast, the sun goes down over open water — Grand Haven's pier and lighthouse is the classic vantage point, with Holland and Saugatuck close behind. Inside the city there is no comparable view; the river runs between buildings and the riverwalk is intermittent while the rapids restoration works continue. Plan the sunset as part of a lakeshore day.
For a couple, yes — it is the most rewarding of the three lakeshore day trips. Forty to fifty minutes south-west, it trades beach infrastructure for galleries, a working harbour, dunes and restaurants that take themselves seriously. A hand-cranked chain ferry crosses the river in season. Go on a weekday if you can; the roads west fill both ways on a summer Saturday, and much of the town runs a reduced season from November to March.
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