Bites · Harbor Country · Autumn 2026

Where we eat.

Eight tables, from the harbor to Buchanan: where we go for coffee, for a long lunch, for a night that needs marking, and the hour we would go.

NBD · Autumn 2026

Watercolor of a table laid out on a lawn at the end of a summer evening: a board of bread, pears in a bowl, a green bottle and two glasses of rosé on a pale cloth, rows of orchard trees beyond, and the lake under a peach sky — Plate IA table left out after supper, orchard rows running down toward the lake. Watercolor.

Harbor Country eats the way it farms: close to the ground and by the season. The orchards and fields a few miles inland are the reason a small lake town can cook the way it does, and several of the kitchens below are built around them. What follows is not a ranking. It is where we go — for coffee before a walk, for a long lunch, for a night that needs marking — listed from the harbor east, each with the hour we would choose. Hours here shift with the season, sometimes from week to week, so check before you drive.

From the harbor to Buchanan

Four are downtown in New Buffalo, a few blocks apart. The other four are a drive inland, as far as the St. Joseph River.

Plate IIThe lake shore at New Buffalo, US-12 inland, and the St. Joseph at Buchanan. Watercolor.

Plate IIIDowntown New Buffalo, drawn as a plan rather than to scale. Watercolor.

II.

Eight tables

No.PlaceGo at

01 Terrace RoomHarbor Grand · 111 W Water St The Terrace Room is the dining room of the Harbor Grand, the hotel on Water Street, and it looks out over the harbor, which is what you would want a harbor dining room to do. The kitchen, under chef Jonathan Leichliter, is Italian, with pasta made by hand at the center of the menu and seasonal antipasti and secondi built from what the local farms are sending in. On a cool evening there is a fire going on the terrace. It serves dinner only, and it is the one on this list we would choose for an occasion — a birthday, a last night — without anyone needing to say that is what it is. Afterward, walk down to the harbor mouth; the light will still be doing something.¹ Dinner only · Reservations recommended Go at · Dinner, as the light goes

02 Brewster’s11 W Merchant St Brewster’s is the downtown place that is simply open: breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas, which in a summer town is its own kind of generosity. It is locally owned and Italian at the root. The dish we would point you to is the cacio e pepe — pasta, pecorino and black pepper, with nothing to hide behind — and there are sourdough pizzas on the specials, which change. It is a small room on Merchant Street, a few steps off Whittaker, and there is no large waiting area, so on a Saturday in July put your name down and take a walk around the block. On a Tuesday in February you will likely sit straight down.² Open daily, year-round · No large waiting area Go at · A late breakfast, off-season

03 Starbucks116 N Whittaker St We will be plain about this one. It is a Starbucks, and you know what it serves. It is on the list because on an early morning, with a walk ahead of you and a long day after it, it is coffee you don’t have to think about, and because it sits on Whittaker Street among the downtown storefronts rather than out by the highway. It is a licensed store, not one of the chain’s own, with a mural and seats in the back, away from the counter. It is also a short walk from the Amtrak station, which makes it the natural first stop if you have come in on the train. Take the cup down to the beach, and save the long breakfast for Brewster’s.³ Check hours; they shift with the season Go at · Early, before the walk

04 Postboy207 N Whittaker St Postboy opened on the first of November 2024, a few steps from the Amtrak station, which tells you something about who it hopes will walk in: people off the train, and people who live here in November. Ben Holland started it with chef James Galbraith. The cooking borrows from all over — global flavors through a local lens, is how they put it — while the ingredients come from close by, from nearly forty farmers, makers, wineries and breweries in the area. There are tables inside and out. The name, the story goes, belongs to the schooner Post Boy, whose captain, Whittaker, was wrecked south of here in a storm in 1834; the crew wintered on this shore, stayed, and founded the town. It is a local legend, and a good one to eat under.⁴ Reservations accepted · Closed Tuesdays Go at · A weeknight in November

05 Farmette18439 US-12 · New Buffalo Farmette is careful to say that it is not a restaurant, and it means it: there are no reservations, and nobody will bring you a menu. It is a small farm on US-12 with a market, a bakery and a cafe attached, and the greens, herbs and flowers are grown on the ground around you. The sourdough is baked in the house. Take a coffee and a slice outside, sit by the farm, and eat looking at the thing that made lunch. The Marquette Greenway trail runs past the front, so it is an easy place to arrive by bicycle. Its founder, Katie Burdett, ran the farm side at Granor before opening her own place in 2024, so the two are, loosely, related.⁵ Not a restaurant · No reservations Go at · Mid-morning, by bicycle

06 Journeyman & Staymaker109 Generations Dr · Three Oaks In Three Oaks the distillery is in the factory, and the factory is the reason the town looks the way it does. Journeyman makes its spirits grain to bottle, from organic Midwest grain, inside the refurbished Featherbone works, where for eight decades people from Three Oaks turned turkey quills into stays for corsets, until the company moved to Georgia in 1956. We tell that story in The coast in February. Staymaker, the restaurant, seats 165 in the old industrial building, cooks with local ingredients where it can, and serves brunch on weekends. It suits a group, and it suits a cold day, when a long lunch fifteen minutes from the lake is the whole plan. Let someone else drive back.⁶ Weekend brunch at Staymaker · Check hours Go at · A cold Saturday

07 Granor FarmWarren Woods Rd · Three Oaks Granor began in 2006 as ten acres and is now about four hundred, all of it certified organic, on Warren Woods Road, the same road that leads to the old beeches of Warren Woods. The dinners are what people drive for: several courses, served in a glass greenhouse on the farm and cooked by Abra Berens, who was named a James Beard Award semifinalist among Great Lakes chefs in 2023. The food comes off the farm around you, which is the point. Seats are sold as tickets, in advance, so this is a plan rather than a whim. If you can’t get one, the farm store is open on Fridays and Saturdays, and a bag of what the farm is growing is its own kind of supper.⁷ Tickets in advance · Farm store Fridays and Saturdays Go at · Late summer, booked well ahead

08 Thistledown & Row103 Days Ave · Buchanan Buchanan is further east than most of this journal goes, a river town on the St. Joseph rather than a lake town, and Thistledown & Row is our reason to make the drive. It opened on New Year’s Day 2025 in a restored building, part of it in the Redden Block, which dates from the late nineteenth century. The drinks are local in the literal sense: ciders from southwest Michigan apples, Michigan wines, and house sodas they call fizzers, while produce for the kitchen comes from Flatwater Farms. Row is the bar, hung with old rowing oars. Thistledown comes from a poem about the river the town sits on, Ben F. King’s “The River St. Joe.” Come for the afternoon; the lake will still be there when you get back.⁸ Check hours; they shift with the season Go at · A long autumn afternoon

Notes and sources

Terrace Room, Terrace Room and Location; Harbor Grand, Dining.
Brewster’s, Brewster’s and Contact; OpenTable listing.
StoresInfo, Starbucks, 116 N Whittaker St; The Third Coast, Starbucks.
Postboy, About us; Michiana Life, on Postboy’s opening (January 2025). Both tell the Post Boy story as local tradition.
Farmette, About; Voyage Michigan, “Meet Katie Burdett of Farmette”; Dunes Diva, on Farmette (June 2025).
Journeyman Distillery, The Featherbone factory and Staymaker; Michigan Historical Marker, Three Oaks.
Granor Farm, Farm dinners and Book; Chicago Tribune, on farm dinners within a drive of Chicago (August 18, 2025).
Thistledown & Row, Our story; Visit Southwest Michigan, Thistledown & Row; Harbor Country News, on Buchanan kitchens and local farms.

The house

Where we stay.

We come home from these suppers to a house we keep in New Buffalo, a two-minute walk from the lake. It is open to guests for part of each year.

See the house

More from the journal

All essays

Essay · Warren Dunes · 9 minThe view from Tower Hill

Field note · New Buffalo · 5 minEvening at the harbor mouth

Essay · Winter · 11 minThe coast in February