Wishes

Desmond Chambers, Owner

LOCATION
1216 Kalamazoo Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49507

Your wish is his command. Des put that promise in the name over the door, and then he built a restaurant that actually keeps it.

There's a catch worth knowing before you go, though. You can't get it delivered. Not DoorDash, not Uber Eats, not any app on your phone. If you want what people around here call the best burger in Grand Rapids, you have to walk in and get in line like everybody else, which is exactly how Des wants it. He'd rather hand you the food himself than send it out the door to sit in somebody's back seat.

A long way from where he started

That instinct to put something directly into your hands goes back a lot further than the restaurant.

Des grew up in Jamaica without electricity and without a television, so when he came to America the lights hit him first. Not one lamp in a window, but a whole city of them, all at once, all night. Everything else about the move was harder than that. New country, new pace, and a thick accent that turned every conversation into more work than it should have been, which meant connecting with people didn't come easy for a kid who'd just landed.

Everybody loves candy

What he did understand was that everybody loves candy.

So he started selling it in middle school, and he sold so much to so many kids that the school eventually had to decide what to do about all the traffic he was causing. They let him run a store instead, open through all three lunch cycles. He'd found the thing he could offer that made the accent stop mattering.

From a corner store to a kitchen

Grand Rapids came later, and so did a corner store of his own, which he's now been running for decades. Candy and ice cream sodas came first, then more, and eventually the whole place became a working restaurant with a grill at the center. The kid who couldn't always find the words had found something better to hand across a counter, and he's still doing it.

What he won't do

Cut corners, mainly. Fries are made to order instead of pulled from a warmer. Burgers come out juicy and fully loaded, built on the spices and seasoning and timing he learned back in Jamaica, which is why one from Wishes doesn't taste like one from anywhere else in town. Nothing sits waiting on a driver, because there is no driver.

What people say

Best burger in Grand Rapids. Best-kept secret in Boston Square. Both of those are compliments, and one of them is a problem, because a man who cooks like this shouldn't have to be found by accident.

So find him on purpose.
Boston Square. Get in line. Make your wish.

STAY CONNECTED
Visit us at 1216 Kalamazoo Ave. SE