Lunch at Zehnder's in Frankenmuth, MI

On this first day of November my hubby and I drove to Frankenmuth, MI for one of Zehnder's famous chicken dinners, and it didn't disappoint.  We made plans about two weeks ago to go with some friends, and when they weren't able to go we decided to go by ourselves.  It's about a 90 mile, 1 1/2 hour drive from our house, and since the construction on I-75 is all completed it was a pleasant drive.

As you can see, some of the trees were still holding onto their fall colored leaves.  

          

The long colonial porch of the restaurant.

Entrance to the dining room where we ate, but there are several dining room in the restaurant.

The entire restaurant was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

We didn't order the family style 'all you can eat' dinner including soup - too much food!  We ordered the chicken dinner off the menu, and it was more than enough.  Our waitress brought the coleslaw, cranberry-orange relish, stolen bread & jam, and our drinks first.  Instead of hot tea, I opted for hot cider.  'Tis the season for it!

Mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, and two pieces of chicken [white meat], and a side of  yummy noodles.

I was too full for dessert, but Jerry ordered a slice of chocolate torte...and wished afterwards that he would have gotten pumpkin pie instead.  The torte was good, but so rich after a big meal.

After we ate, we browsed in the shops downstairs.  I took a few photos of their Christmas decorations in the lobby.  Going to Frankenmuth before Thanksgiving is a nice way to kick-off the holiday season for us.

Isn't this a cute Christmas teapot?

The weather was partly cloudy but dry, so we decided to walk off our meal by visiting the shops on Main Street. Workers were busily transitioning fall decorations to Christmas ones.  I took a photo of the fall wagon [below] from across the street, but a lady offered to take our picture in front of it while we were walking on that side of the street.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the cute Halloween decoration below that hadn't been taken down yet.

In the Michigan-made shop was some locally blended tea, so Jerry purchased Cherry Blossom green [sencha] tea.  I'll give it a try tomorrow.

Even though the temperatures were only in the 40's, it didn't seem cold and we enjoyed our walk.  When we finished the shops on Main Street, we got our car and drove the short distance to River Place to browse those shops.

I bought a hat in Girl Talk Sassy Boutique [tomorrow's post], and thought these teapots on one of their shelves was cute.  I loved the middle one - "Wherever we are it's our friends who make our world."

The Enchanted Garden shop sold all kinds of fairy garden merchandise.  There were several fairy gardens outside their shop too.  Two of them are pictured below.

By now it was 4:30 in the afternoon, so we decided to forego stopping at Bronner's Christmas Shop, and save it for another visit.   We headed for home and concluded it was a very enjoyable day.