Businesses adjust to boil order hitting nearly all of Kalamazoo

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — This weekend’s boil water advisory affects nearly the entire city of Kalamazoo and parts of Portage as well.

It has put tens of thousands of people and hundreds of businesses in 19 of Kalamazoo’s 22 neighborhoods in a bind.

The city took a routine water sample Friday along Miller Road and discovered the dangerous bacteria E. coli.

Kalamazoo water customers are being told to boil water for two minutes before drinking it or using it to brush their teeth or prepare food.

The advisory put a strain on food establishments, some of whom decided to shut down Sunday instead.

“Because we couldn’t get any answers, we decided to close down,” Sarkozy Bakery co-owner Alec Wells said.

He wasn’t sure how to wash their dishes during the advisory and says he didn’t receive any response from local or federal health officials.

After consulting with the state, he plans to open Monday with some major changes.

“Loads of precautions,” he said. “More sanitizing stations for after handwashing. Various departments in our bakery are going to just have to shut down.”

A soda fountain machine at Maggie’s Cafe in Kalamazoo, September 20, 2026. Maggie’s and many other restaurants in the city adjusted their menus during a boil water advisory. (Colin Roose/WWMT)

Maggie’s on Stadium Drive remained open Sunday, but stopped serving any cold drinks.

“No soda, no juice,” she said. “No cold water. And so we’ve gone mainly to hot coffee, hot chocolate, prepackaged milk, stuff like that.”

Kalamazoo Public Services Director James Baker says the city is now working with the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

So far they haven’t found any bacteria in groundwater.

“It looks like this would be something that’s either completely isolated or some sort of sampling interference, say, the sample tap may have been dirty or something like that.”

When we asked if Kalamazoo would provide water for customers, he said the advisory would likely be over by the time the city could mobilize its resources for all 30,000 homes affected.

Baker says the water samples take 24 hours to test, so far samples analyzed Sunday morning showed no detections of E. coli or coliform.

“What we’re looking for is two simultaneous samples where there was no detection,” he said. “And that takes 48 hours to get there.”

Baker says if the next sample comes back clean Monday morning, the advisory will be lifted.