New Buffalo for generations. But with the opening of the Four Winds Casino Resort, the luxurious gambling complex near Lake Michigan and the Indiana border, the general public now knows about the area as well.
"It gives people more options at the gateway of Michigan to enjoy themselves even more when they come to the New Buffalo area," said Jerry Welsh, owner of Garden Grove Bed and Breakfast.
The new 3,000- slot casino , in Berrien County's New Buffalo Township, has 165 hotel rooms and suites starting at $299 per night. That contrasts with the $114 basic room rate at the Blue Chip Casino Hotel in nearby Michigan City, Ind., and the $129 rate at the Little River Casino Resort in Manistee, about a three-hour drive up the coast of Lake Michigan.
Four Winds also features six restaurants and 3,400 parking spaces, said John Miller, tribal chairman of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, the Dowagiac-based tribe that owns the casino.
The casino is the first in southwestern Michigan, but it is not without competition, with Blue Chip only about 10 miles away. Still, during Welsh's eight years as owner of Garden Grove, he doesn't recall many of his lodgers expressing an interest in going to the Michigan City casino.
Conversely, an increasing number in recent months have mentioned plans to visit Four Winds, he said.
"It's something else to do on a rainy day for our clientele," Welsh said. "They're here mostly just to decompress from corporate America."
Travelers have many options to get to the casino . Amtrak recently reached an agreement with the city of New Buffalo to build a passenger station beside the railroad's high-speed line at the lakefront. Starting sometime this summer, riders will be offered four daily nonstop hourlong trips to and from downtown Chicago.
Starlight Tours and Travel in Battle Creek offers weekly bus tours to Four Winds since it opened Aug. 2, said owner Denise Kendall.
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