Earlier this year, Tim Harrison, our editor, returned to his hometown of Zeeland, Michigan. Naturally, he was there to visit his mother Dorothy and other family members, but he was also intrigued by a new business that had recently opened up.
What excited our editor was the name of the business. Although that area of Michigan is known for its famous lighthouses, especially Holland’s Big Red Lighthouse, Zeeland is still a distance from the water. When he heard that the Lighthouse Restaurant had opened in his hometown of Zeeland, he knew he just had to bring them something from the east coast to show how beautiful the lighthouses are in New England.
Harrison recalled his younger days when he would often eat in the former Boschs’s Restaurant that had operated for more than 60 years in his hometown. Then, over five years ago, it went out of business. But earlier this year, it reopened as the Lighthouse Restaurant under the new ownership of Terry Molitor. Molitor, who also owns a restaurant in Holland called the Schooner II just
happens to like lighthouses, so much so that he chose a nautical décor to complement his fondness for lighthouses.
Harrison said he knew from conversations with his mother that the restaurant’s logo featured Michigan’s White Shoals Lighthouse. Other Great Lakes lighthouses adorn the walls of the restaurant. Harrison said, “I was so excited that a restaurant with a lighthouse theme had opened in my home town I just needed to visit, but, I wanted to present them with something from the east coast where I now live. So, I picked this beautiful framed painting, which features a collage of New England lighthouses to give to them as a ‘restaurant warming’ present. The painting now hangs in the restaurant.
So, the next time you’re in western lower Michigan, be sure to visit the Lighthouse Restaurant, right on Main Street, in beautiful downtown Zeeland.
This story appeared in the
November 2004 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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