Still looking for a place to have dinner with your valentine this weekend?  The Rock House in Houghton is offering some dinner specials: In addition to filet mignon there’s a chicken breast stuffed with spinach, artichoke hearts and a blend of cheeses.  If you want to add some surf to that turf, they’ll be happy to give you shrimp in lemon butter as an add-on to any meal.

Probably not the lowest-fat dishes ever concocted, but Valentine’s Day only comes once a year, right?  Besides, once you’re done you can go next door to the Mine Shaft and work it off with a few frames of bowling.

It’s nice to see some new options on the Houghton dining menu, perhaps enough to tide us over until De La Terre French bistro opens in Lake Linden in the spring.

Update: We did actually eat dinner there tonight, though none of the three people in our group ended up having the Valentine specials.  Two of us had dishes that featured flat iron steak (one a salad with candied walnuts, gorgonzola, romaine and roasted tomatoes, the other a more standard steak with veggies and rice).  The third person had a cheeseburger.  In every case the meals were fine, even pleasant, about what you’d expect from a restaurant attached to a bowling alley and arcade.

What wasn’t pleasant was the wait – it took about 30 minutes to get our three meals, and of course by that time they were no longer completely hot.  True, the restaurant was busy (as was the Mine Shaft), which is absolutely great to see, but it’s the kind of thing that will drive Houghton diners away if not corrected.  We get very used to not having to wait for anything around here, it’s one of the advantages of small town living.  The Rock House can do better; we’ll check back soon to see whether the timing issues have been resolved.

It’s official, the Mine Shaft and Rock House Grill & Tavern in Houghton are open again, complete with go karts, mini golf and more (from the Web site):

• 18 state-of-the-art bowling lanes
• Over 40 interactive video and prize games
• 18-hole putting golf course
• Go-kart racing on the Huron Creek Speedway
• Private party/meeting room
• Leading-edge audio/video system, featuring 25 widescreen TVs

Initial reviews for the complex are great, and early concerns that the updated Rock House’s menu wouldn’t match up to the restaurant’s previous version also turn out to be premature, at least based on what they’re offering.    There’s even some pretty good wine on the list at the high end, and a full selection of cocktails.

The Mine Shaft’s Web site says the facility’s grand opening is planned for Sept. 18-20.  That’s a busy weekend in Houghton, with the annual Parade of Nations and the Michigan Tech football team’s first home game so there should be plenty of people around town to make the event a success .

Despite the slight delay on the grand opening, reservations are being taken now for parties at the Mine Shaft, “the largest bowling center in the Northwestern U.P.” (a pretty singular distinction, if ever there was one) and they’ve announced the addition of tailgate parties, bowling leagues, and the like.

It’s great to see the Mine Shaft back, now go patronize it!

The Mine Shaft under renovation

If the traffic on this blog is any indication there’s a huge amount of interest around the Keweenaw in the report in June of the planned reopening of the Mine Shaft entertainment complex in Houghton by the end of the summer.  Now it looks like it may only be a matter of days before the arcade comes back to life in all its noisy glory.

Here’s the evidence:

1) For weeks there’s been a “Coming Soon” sign on the outside of the building, but today that sign is gone and the parking lot is filled with pickups and other cars that presumably belong to construction workers inside.

2) A look at the Web site of the Trifecta Management Group, which is taking over the operation, lists the logos of the Mine Shaft and its companion Rock House Grill and Tavern as being “Now Open,” (scroll down on the page), although the corresponding links to the Mine Shaft and Rock House Grill & Tavern Web sites are not yet live (Update: As of August 25th both sites are live, though the link from the Trifecta Web site to the Rock House page is not working.).

3) There was some news in the Houghton Mining Gazette last week that the Mine Shaft’s permit was transferred from the previous owners to a new company, KMPD, Inc., and some small updates have trickled out over the summer with respect to signage and a liquor license for the business.

4) In probably the biggest development, a sign on the Mine Shaft’s door today notes that interviews are being conducted all week for new staff (great news for the Houghton Hancock area).

Despite all of this apparently good news we haven’t heard an official update since the initial announcement in early June.  How about it, Trifecta, can we have an update on the timeline?  I know a lot of kids who are ready to get out there and play minigolf before the snow flies.

What do you think?  Is the return of the Mine Shaft to Houghton a good thing?  What will it take for it to succeed this time around.   Leave a comment here and give us your thoughts.

UPDATE: WLUC, the NBC affiliate for the Upper Peninsula, reports  that the Mine Shaft will reopen August 24.  Changes being made to the facility include updated furniture for a trendier look and removing a dance area from the restaurant so it’s exclusively for dining.

Great news!!