Tony's I75 Restaurant — Restaurant in Birch Run Township

So this one is a really unique place. Sort of has the look of a a roadside diner meets truck stop from the road, and the place itself is nothing fancy to look at. It's clean and gets the job done, but the place is known for a pound of bacon, not for architecture.

Tony's has been busy every time we've gone. Not the kind of busy where you go onto a list for 6 hours and people pop up tents and roll out sleeping bags in the front lobby. But sometimes we are seated right away in a mostly full restaurant, other times we've waited in a line for seating about 15 minutes at most. But there's always a crowd. It's also right off the interstate, so think about timing - probably avoid when I-75 is super busy. Like when there might be a lot of people going back and forth to "up north". I am not from Michigan so I have no clue what it means when people keep saying the world is going "up north" and back, but maybe you do. Probably don't go then.

So the BLT, it is in fact a pound of bacon. What people never mentioned to us is they put it on this really great french bread that's partly grilled or something... And i think coated in butter, or even more likely, bacon fat. Who knows. And then for some drama, they stab the thing through with a knife to hold it together.

But everything there is huge: Turkey Club - Probably one pound of turkey and a half pound of bacon. Burrito - Size of adult forearm Spaghetti - Recipe starts with one box spaghetti and one pound sausage. Strawberry Shortcake - One gallon ice cream + 1 giant biscuit.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, but in the way you really wanted when you decided to go here in the first place. One popular item is a "side of bacon". It's only like $6 or something like that. We see tables order this all the time. Picture a wax paper lined basket filled with one pound of bacon. One time, we saw a table of two order the basket and eat the whole pound as an appetizer dipping it in ranch dressing. Yes indeed, fried bacon dipped in ranch dressing.

They also have this sign above the register that just shows you that they are the real deal. They aren't serving up all this greasy nonsense to make it onto HGTV or some poser tactic like that... nope. They've had a long legacy of serving quality giant food, and they have never veered from it. So the sign... It's like this "Hunters Special" because we are in rural Michigan heading "up north" whatever that means. And Tony's has been prepping hunters for their mornings for probably decades with quality giant food really big.

So the "Hunters Special" is about $50 or something like that. I'm sure I got that wrong but we'll never order it so i don't care enough to check. But it's made up of this:

Couple of loaves of french bread A gallon of chili and a gallon of beef stew. OK, i picture this actually being served in like a gallon milk jug. I know it's probably not. It's probably in some gallon container with lid, but it's so fun to picture pouring a coffee cup of chili out of a gallon jug. It's so weird. I don't know One giant meat stick - I can't remember what it was but it was like gallon jugs of liquid meat foods, bread and meat stick. Yeah, just bizarre stuff right.

Look, Tony's deserves 5 Stars. If it gets less than 5 Stars then you clearly had no idea what you were signing up for. I mean why did you even waste their time and go to Tony's in the first place? You want giant bacon, and you want to make your server scoop out like a whole gallon of ice cream with dessert. Seriously, I don't know what this place says about where we are all headed as a civilization, but I say that there's nothing quite like Tony's so try it if this is the kind of thing you like. And a lot of people like bacon and ice cream and meals that have a lot of value. Some people even dip bacon in ranch dressing and eat it like fries. I mean, I'm never going to get over that. Not ever. I might even be on my death bed thinking about it one day. It makes that much of an impression. Bacon dipped in ranch,...

Terrible experience! They brought us our bill and it was obviously too high. I raised the concern with the waitress who went to double check and she came back and confidently said "Yep, it's right." then proceeded to tell us we could confirm it with the cashier. I went up to the cashier and asked for a menu so I could confirm the prices. She refused and instead printed out a copy of the register receipt. I asked again for the menu and she insisted "This is how we do it here."; I told her that I'd like to verify the numbers she is printing out against the menu, and had to ask a fourth time before she finally agreed to get a menu to compare against the receipt. I then clarified that I am perfectly capable of doing math and she ignored me to walk me through the printed receipt as if it were the be all, end all of the situation. Once she was done with her pointless reading of the "Receipt Item, Price on Receipt" drawing a pen line from item to price as if I had never read a receipt before in my life, I then took the menu and calculated our meal price based on the menu price, then added Michigan tax, then added the Restaurant's 3.5% credit card surcharge; then having confirmed it to be 19% lower than the price on the bill I reviewed the receipt line-by-line to find the discrepancies. The price charged for adding cheese to a burger was 99¢, the price listed on the receipt was $1.98; we were charged for drinks we didn't purchase, and I quickly saw the price represented on the receipt was in fact inaccurate to our order. I asked for a manager and the cashier (who appeared to have seniority but was clearly not a manager) refused and insisted she would help us. I went through the whole list so she tried to plug it into her system. She came up with a third number entirely, so I had to walk her item-by-item through our order. She had input the wrong burger (cheaper than what we ordered, but we wanted to pay the right amount so I made her fix that), she had missed the appetizer, it was a whole mess. Once she had the order in the computer accurate the price was still wrong. I asked if the computer was automatically adding the 3.5% surcharge prior to the subtotal of the itemized order, she said "No, that's not it. I'll print the receipt and we can step aside so the line can move along." (Not an unreasonable request, but I found it annoying after all the headache so far.) She walked around the counter and we stepped over to a table, I had her use a calculator instead of her computer and miracle of miracles, her numbers matched my own. It turns out the receipt had, in fact, added the surcharge before subtotaling the receipt. Once you add in tax our Out-The-Door total was nearly 8% lower than our previous pre-tax subtotal.

Also, the portion sizes were good, but the bacon was too crispy (almost burnt).

TL;DR Portions are large—but so are the errors; be sure to double-check...

We saw Tony's down the street from the hotel we were staying, and stopped for lunch after visiting the local zoo/refuge and the putt-putt course. It was a hot summer day and exhausted and tired, I was looking for something LIGHT, and we came to the wrong place!

The menu was pretty affordably priced, and although no wraps and limited salads, had a decent selection of sandwiches and subs. I'm not a wrap or salad guy honestly, but like I said, after being outside half the day in the sun in 90 degree weather, was hoping for something on the lighter side.

I saw a BLT, and thought "that sounds good! Cooked bacon, with some nice cool lettuce and tomato, that should hit the spot!" But in reading the menu, it advises the BLT comes with a pound of bacon, so thinking I was being clever and not wanting such a beast of a sandwich, I ordered the turkey club instead, and as you can see, it was still gigantic.

At the end of the day (and after taking off nearly a handful of bacon), the sandwich was delicious, toasted bread, fresh lettuce and tomato, and the turkey was tasty. I only ate half of it, and it was actually a pretty good value. Plus the hotel room had a fridge so I saved the other half and ate it cold for dinner.

We drove home the next day, and although I still have nearly a pound of cooked bacon in the styrofoam container in our fridge, we do have an air fryer, so I won't complain.

If you're looking for a "fill your stomach" meal, you've found the place. If your not all that hungry, either go somewhere else, or better yet, share a sandwich with someone. Going in blind I had no idea how big the sandwiches were, especially at the prices offered, and I'm still just glad I didn't order the side...