Four verified places to eat within a short drive of Sears — in Evart, Marion, and Reed City, with the closed days that will trip you up.
Dinner is a drive. Sears is a crossroads with an old rail line behind it and not much of a kitchen to call its own, which means the closest hot meal to your rental is a short drive in one of three directions. West to Evart, four and a half miles. That is the close one. North up M-66 to Marion, maybe fifteen minutes if the road is clear, and west out US-10 the long way to Reed City. None of it is a haul, but all of it is worth pinning down before you are hungry at seven on a Monday — half the county has the lights off.
Start with Evart, because it is closest and it holds two places you will use.
Sixth & Main Bar and Grill — 202 N Main St, Evart
The building was a hotel once, one of the oldest in town, up since 1883. It reopened as a bar and grill in October 2018, so the bar and the booths are newer than the brick around them. Order the olive burger. If that is not your thing, the wet burrito and the French dip get named over and over in the reviews. Here is the part that trips people up. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday through Saturday for lunch and dinner, Sunday afternoon into the early evening, dark the first two days of the week. Live music some nights, and the room gets loud when there is. Plan around the closed days, not the other way.
Pompeii’s Pizza — 660 W 7th St, Evart
The other Evart option, open every day of the week. Pizza, strombolis, subs, and a thing they call a Pomazone. Weeknights it runs to ten. Later on Friday and Saturday, and there is gluten-free crust if you need it. This is the fallback for the night Sixth & Main is dark and nobody wants to get back in the car. Order a specialty pie, add a stromboli, stop deliberating. The smell reaches the parking lot before you do.
The Dream Diner — 117 E Main St, Marion
For breakfast you go north. The Dream Diner sits in Marion, maybe fifteen minutes up M-66, and it is the reason to make that drive. Six in the morning to three in the afternoon, seven days a week. Breakfast and lunch, homemade specials, baked goods in the case by the register. The sausage gravy is the thing. Go early. A diner that shuts at three does its real business at eight — the coffee already on, the griddle already loud.
Buckboard Bar and Grille — 108 W Upton Ave, Reed City
The last one is a longer drive, west to Reed City, and it is a bar first. Downtown, on Upton. Burgers on real beef, wet burritos, a meatloaf special with mashed potatoes and gravy, pool tables, karaoke on the nights it runs. The Mushroom and Swiss gets called out by name. Two warnings, both from the people who actually eat there — the hours drift and it is closed Sunday through Tuesday. Call before you point the car west.
Know before you go
Sixth & Main is closed Monday and Tuesday. Buckboard is closed Sunday through Tuesday, and its posted hours are more suggestion than contract, so phone ahead. The Dream Diner closes at three, which makes breakfast the move. Pompeii’s is the only one of the four you can count on any day.
The rhythm sorts itself out if you are staying the week. Diner mornings in Marion. Pizza nights in Evart, the nights nobody wants the car. The bar in Reed City for the one time you want a burger and a game of pool. The rest of the week you are cooking, because Sears is not a town you eat out in every night.
The Sears guide has the rest of what is around here. A rental close to Evart puts the run to dinner at nothing.
Fill the tank. Check the posted hours twice before you go. Call first.