Check Out Meredith Sherrod’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Meredith Sherrod.

Hi Meredith, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The Lodge is a women owned business that opened June 20, 2021. The ladies who own The Lodge have worked in the service industry in South Haven for 33 years combined and have lived most of their lives there. We knew South Haven needed more year round restaurants. Our objective was to open a place that would stay open year round, 7 days a week, for lunch and dinner, to feed the community and employ locals. It was important to find the right location and 10336 Blue Star Hwy had the perfect amount of history, it had been a bar / restaurant in town since 1940. We couldn’t wait to bring life back to a South Haven staple. The project was huge, literally the only thing now that’s original to the building are the hardwood floors, we literally ripped the roof off. Doing a major remodel during covid was a wild ride, but thanks to the local companies and workers we prevailed. Every contractor that worked on our project was local. From the General contractor down we were able to keep local people employed through the entire pandemic. Plumber, electrician, excavators, HVAC, painters, you name it they were local. Even our tables were made locally. The Lodge was literally built by locals for the locals.

Now that we are open we do a ton for the community. We host networking events for the South Haven Chamber of Commerce. We sponsor SHAES, south haven steel headers, and work with the visitors bureau and chamber to help sponsor just about every festival In town. We Work hand in hand with we care to fundraiser through out the year . We also sponsor families for thanksgiving and Christmas. We Donate regularly to Al Van. Sponsor the high school athletic boosters and keep the restaurant open late for families and players after games. We feed the local sports teams several times a year after practice. We are open 7 days a week year round for lunch and dinner therefore we employe all local people and we’re able to give them full time hours year round, which most other places can’t and won’t do.

We also source as many local products and ingredients as we can. We work directly with Degrandchamp Blueberry farms, Bardens farm, Bobs processing, Brushs farm just to name a few. We get all of our beef from Bobs processing, it’s ground fresh twice a week for us and delivered right after they grind it. It doesn’t get any fresher or more local than that. We pride ourselves on giving the best customer service around. Our staff is made up of almost all “lifetime servers” we everyone takes a lot of pride in what they do. Feel free to check our Google, Yelp or Facebook reviews to read how much people love our food, staff and everything we’ve built.

Going forward our focus is on sustainable growth, we have several potential projects in mind to grow our business and increase what we offer to the community. We will continue to evolve as a business and be as involved as we can be to help our community grow.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The roughest part for us was getting the major remodel completed on the building during COVID. Although we were lucky and had our build planned out and our supplies ordered before the pandemic struck it was still a wild ride getting it all dialed in. Everything took longer because of COVID, and that was very unavoidable. Other than that it’s been a pretty smooth road, of course evolving and making changes to improve the whole way!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I started in the service industry when I was 14 years old and never looked back. I worked at a pizza place though out highschool and learned many things that surprisingly I still use every day in my career. For example, that job has taught me how to properly execute take out orders from beginning to end to ensure the order comes out perfect and the customer is happy.

From there I moved to Michigan and got my first serving job when I was a freshman in college. I never looked back. Serving and bartending was my calling. I managed a very high volume restaurant on the water all while being the main bartender and server, as well as the kitchen manager. I guess the best way to learn is to wear every hat in the building.

All the while my favorite hobby was to cook, so when I wasn’t at work in the kitchen I was at home in my personal kitchen Whipping up scratch made meals for friends and family. This is where I developed many of my signature recipes including salmon dip, caramelized onion dip and award winning white chicken chili. I learned quickly that the masses loved my cooking, and we decided it was time to share that food with South Haven!

Combine the years of experience and the deep passion for cooking and that’s how we got where we are today. When we were slammed at the waterfront restaurant my business partner and I would always joke that one day we needed to buy “the curve inn” (now the lodge). That joke became a reality in 2020 and it was time to pour all of our years of practice/ experience into our own restaurant.

We took all those recipes and built a beautiful menu that has a little something for everyone . From genuine Broaster chicken to healthier options, our goal was to have a restaurant that everyone could find something they liked on the menu, from the health nut to the hungover bachelorette party, we needed to feed everyone!

I am most proud of the fact that I took a vegetarian chili recipe that I worked on during COVID and was able to tweak it enough to make it a meat eaters chili that has now won us 1st place in the Ice Breaker Chili Cook off contest 4 years running. We haven’t lost since we opened our doors. Our white chicken chili is a top seller year round (yes even when it’s hot out). We make a batch every other day and sell around 35/50 gallons a week! I had no idea it would be so popular, but boy am I glad I perfected that recipe!

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Luck has definitely played a part in my life / our business.

The first stroke of luck for me was getting hired at the first bar I applied at in college. It was right on campus, but little did I know that they had a sister restaurant in South Haven that they would immediately send me out to. As soon as I pulled into South Haven that first day I knew I was home. Thank god I applied for that job!

The only bad luck we ran into was that we thought we would be able to open wiht covid restrictions (seating at half capacity etc) and we thought it would be a great way for our staff to learn at a slower pace. Well one week before we unlocked our doors the state of Michigan lifted all COVID regulations. I don’t know if it’s necessarily bad luck, but it definitely helps us learn the ropes of the lodge very quickly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.thelodgesouthhavenmi.com
• Instagram: @thelodgesouthhaven
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1QMKXZo1rZ/?mibextid=wwXIfr