How To Plan a Couples Day Date To Springfield, IL

This past spring, Rob and I took a day trip down to Springfield, IL, originally because we’d heard such great things about Cooper’s Hawk Winery, but we found several other neat spots in the city we’ll definitely be going back to.

When we think of Springfield, we remember our childhoods of taking school trips to the Lincoln museum (with all the creepy wax figures we’ll never forget), and in our minds, that was really all there was to do in Springfield. Turns out there’s more than just the museum and Lincoln’s golden nose statue. Check out what we did during our day trip:

Flow Midwest Yoga and Meditation

Morning activities can be difficult to find in some cities, but we discovered this adorable yoga studio and booked an hour class to start out our day. Different instructors cycle through the studio weekend to weekend, but we had our Flow class with Betsy Calvin. We’re semi-novices when it comes to yoga, but this class was perfect for us, and we were both sore after. A great workout to start the day before indulging in some fantastic food.

Bunn Gourmet

After yoga, we checked out Bunn Gourmet, a little store/cafe with everything you could want in a sweet shop. When you walk in the door, a giant crystal chandelier welcomes you in, along with a long glass case of fresh truffles along the back wall. They have a gift shop with boxes of chocolates and snacks, but if you pop over to the right side of the shop, you’ll find a bakery/coffee/cocktail bar you can order breakfast at. We ordered the fresh cinnamon roll to split and enjoyed the cozy seating and fireplace. Truthfully, we could’ve hung out there all day if we didn’t didn’t have anything better to do.

Scheels

Scheels is a monster of a store with a straight-up Ferris wheel inside of it. It has two floors, a glass ceiling, and all the outdoor merchandise you could ever want or need. Imagine a mall-version of Bass Pro Shop, with alcoves for outdoorwear, ammo, hunting equipment, workout gear, country bling, shoes, and more. We had a great time poking around the shops and enjoying the sunshine. We didn’t buy anything (prices are pretty expensive) but it was definitely a sight to see since we’d never been.

Cooper’s Hawk Winery

Man, oh man, were we pleased with our visit to Cooper’s Hawk Winery. It certainly lived up to its reputation and we had a blast. We started with a wine tasting at the door, which was surprisingly cheap, and their selection is super broad from sweet to dry, and very unique. We found several that we loved, including the Lux Chardonnay and the Blueberry Açaí Bubbly Sangria.

After our tasting, we stayed for lunch. We learned that if it’s your first time at the winery, your server will offer a complementary wine tasting of three of their wines at the table, as well. For lunch, we ordered Dana’s Parmesan Crusted Chicken and The Prime. Cooper’s Hawk uses fresh ingredients, and the portion sizes are perfect. They also bring fresh bread to the table to munch on while you sip your wine. We had a wonderful time!

The Gin Mill

We didn’t have the best experience at The Gin Mill, however, but we’ll still include it here because we believe the concept of the bar was still great. They don’t serve food though, so don’t expect dinner or snacks with your drinks. We both ordered Aviation cocktails (what else should you order at bar named after gin?) — but we were disappointed that they weren’t great. The dining area was fairly empty when we were there (around 8pm), but we could imagine it’d be a pretty cool atmosphere if there were more people. There’s a pool table off in the back room, too. Despite the bad cocktail, we’d probably still go back to give it another shot! Try it for yourself and let us know what you think.