Our team lives in the community, works in the community, sells real estate in the community, and absolutely loves showing it off. We thought we’d bring you some good Grand Rapids date ideas, things to think about, plans for the future, and maybe even some last-minute ideas.

Winter Date Ideas in Grand Rapids 

Date Night Downtown Grand Rapids

The first thing we have to mention is a dinner downtown. There are so many great options, whether it’s Friday, Saturday, or during the week, we highly recommend a nice cozy dinner downtown. There are so many great options, including Chop House, restaurants in the Amway, Tupelo Honey, and the list goes on and on. After dinner, cruise over to Rosa Park Circle for a little bit of ice skating. You’ll walk down the path and enjoy an hour under the lights. There is so much good energy and the winter fun, seasonal spirit. Anyway, eventually, you might get tired, so then you can take off the skates and you end your night over at the Lumber Baron inside the Amway for a nightcap, a mocktail, or whatever beverage might be for you. It’s a super cozy environment, a little bit darker, and surrounded by beautiful wood. It’s a small, small venue and just a perfect way to end the night.

Day Date on Wealthy Ave

Your second winter date idea is going to send you across town to cruise down Wealthy Avenue. Consider this to be your day date or lunch date plan. We’ll start with lunch at Winchester on Wealthy Avenue, which is super cozy in the winter and overall a really nice environment. After lunch, you’ll walk just a block away to the Outside Coffee Company, to grab a coffee, and maybe sit in an igloo to relax for a bit. If you can’t get an igloo, typically they also have little bonfires going. Just imagine a snowy afternoon, a cozy lunch at Winchester, then a coffee and igloo to make up another great idea for you.

Date idea in Cascade

Your third winter date idea could be lunch or dinner, but we’ll head to the east side of the town into Cascade, to snuggle up in the Cascade Roadhouse. This is another super cozy environment. They do have an indoor section available and outdoors it has a very historic feel, with fires going, and a little courtyard. After you eat lunch or dinner, you’ll go across the parking lot and do some Fowling. Fowling came to Grand Rapids about five or six years ago and it’s a super fun way to end a date, throw the football around, grab some food and drinks, and generally just have a lot of fun. You can do this as a big group date or a small date

Spring Ideas in Grand Rapids 

Frederik Meijer Gardens Date

Moving on to spring date ideas in Grand Rapids. West Michigan in the spring means the sun comes out, everybody’s excited, the snow is melting, and we’re all looking for ways to get out and enjoy the area. And what better way to enjoy the spring weather than by a trip to the Frederik Meijer Gardens? You can easily spend a whole afternoon or even a whole day here. The Japanese Gardens are an amazing place to walk, have some really good conversations, then cruise through the sculpture parks, and see some cool sculptures before heading inside where there are always some cool exhibits going on. There’s the Tropical Conservatory with butterflies and birds flying around. There are plenty of options in the Frederik Meijer Gardens. Furthermore, if it happens to fall during their spring-summer concert series, maybe you can sneak in a concert too!

Heritage Hill Self-Guided Walking Tour

Another great date option is a Heritage Hill historical, self-guided walking tour. This is really cool way to have some really good conversations while walking the streets of this historic neighborhood. What you want to do to set up this self-guided piece is go to heritagehillweb.org and click the link for a self-guided tour. This will point out some of the historical homes in the area and as you walk past them, you can learn the history. Especially in the springtime, with the flowers blooming, it’s one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Grand Rapids to walk and take notice of the architecture. Maybe you add a stop for coffee at the Wealthy Street Bakery, grab a pastry, and some soup, and head out on a self-guided walking tour.

Summer Dates in Grand Rapids

Farmer’s Market Morning Date

Moving into the summer season, let’s start with waking up on a Saturday morning and hitting the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market. Before we get to the Farmer’s Market, you may want to stop and grab some coffee and hang out at Madcap, which is just a block away. You can grab a coffee and walk down to the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market. The energy’s going to be great with plenty of local farmers to support and really great food. You can buy poultry, vegetables, and anything you want at the Fulton Street Market. If you want to take this another step further, with your coffee in hand and your rounds of the Farmer’s Market complete, you can have a little picnic at Lookout Park, which is essentially looking over Grand Rapids in the Belknap area, or head over to East Grand Rapids to John Collins Park, sitting overlooking Reeds Lake.

Dinner and a Movie on a Rooftop

Grand Rapids is known for some really cool rooftop bars in the downtown area so another great option for a Saturday night or any night during the week is heading to a rooftop bar, having dinner, and then heading to Studio Park for a movie.  A couple of rooftop options would be IDC at the Amway Grand, Knoop on top of the Canopy Hotel, and Mertens Rooftop Bar on top of the new Mertens restaurant. Each of those would be a really good option for rooftop dinner, food, hang out, and then Studio Park right downtown. Studio Park has been in operation for a couple of years and they have a really cool courtyard. You can grab a drink, hang out in the courtyard before the show, then go in for the movie, and that’ll be a great way to end a nice summer night.

Fall Date Ideas in Grand Rapids

U-Pick Apples in the Fall

We’ll wrap things up with some fall date ideas for you. Keep in mind that a lot of the stuff we’re talking about, can certainly be mixed and matched, of course, but let’s move into some u-pick fruit ideas. Most people probably know what u-pick fruit is, but you can find an orchard, for example, Ed Dunneback Farms, and depending on the season, you can spend a couple of hours picking apples, strawberries, raspberries, or whatever may be in season. It’s a great way to have a great conversation and a great time. The weather is beautiful in the summer and fall, so it makes for something fun and different to do. 

Adventuring Date Idea

Another cool idea in the fall is scrambling through the trees of TreeRunner Adventure Park on the northeast side. You may want to start by going out for lunch. There are plenty of places in the area on the northeast side, like HopCat, which would then let you walk across the parking lot to Treetop Adventure Park. All ages are welcome here and if you’re scared of heights, you might not want to go too high but it’s a cool, fun thing to do, and it’s certainly different and pushing your boundaries. You go up in the trees, catapulting down, zip-lining around, and laughing a lot.

Date Night Cooking Class

Another idea that can really be done any time of year is cooking classes. You could do this with your spouse, partner, somebody you’re just going on a date with, friends, family, or whoever you may like. There are plenty of places around Grand Rapids that you can try, but one we suggest is The Local Epicurean on Wealthy Avenue. They have a lot of different classes, group classes, and private classes, so definitely check that out.

We hope that you’ve got some new date ideas here. These are all things that we’ve tried for the most part in our community and absolutely think it’s great. Now we’d love to hear what your favorite date ideas are in Grand Rapids. Make sure to connect with our team and comment below to let us know!