Brent Anderson, forty-six, knows pizza. He started out in the business at age sixteen, putting in stints at Domino’s and Pizza Hut as well as owning three Cottage Inn franchises along the way.
Marco’s Pizza may know pizza, too, but Anderson, who managed the Marco’s on Packard near Stadium, says they don’t know Ann Arbor. That’s why his boss closed the franchise last winter and why Anderson, after flirting with the idea of buying the franchise himself, decided to go out on his own. He didn’t travel far–he opened Ann Arbor Pizza & Subs in the former Marco’s space last spring.
Anderson, an Ann Arbor native, says he knew from customer feedback that Marco’s wasn’t offering a lot of things his customers wanted, like side salads, pizza by the slice, and a wider selection of vegetable toppings that included broccoli, artichokes, and spinach. He’s also replaced Marco’s canned button mushrooms with fresh ones, with shiitakes and portobellos as options. He’s also an adamant proponent of gluten-free pies, which he makes following a sort of clean-room protocol to minimize cross-contamination.
Pizzas start at $6.45 for a small cheese. Signature pizzas, starting at $10.45, include “Pepperoni to the 3rd Power,” featuring three kinds of pepperoni, and the “Sweet Hawaiian,” with extra honey-cured smoked ham, pineapple, and bacon. They also offer a selection of subs and salads, deliver, and have two booths for customers who want to dine in. The walls are painted maize and blue, and the sign outside’s the same color: “You can’t say Ann Arbor better than maize and blue,” Anderson says.
Ann Arbor Pizza & Subs, 2111 Packard. 213-9000. Mon.-Thurs. 10 a.m.- midnight, Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m.-1 a.m., Sun. noon-10 p.m.
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Michelle Moenssen moved her apparel and textile design studio Nonpareil from a house on Ashley to a second-floor loft on Fourth Avenue in late August. “The space on Ashley was very charming,” she says, but because it was a house, the space was chopped up into four little rooms. “You wind up with a lot of wasted square footage, and it doesn’t work as well as you hoped it would.”
Moenssen specializes in creating hand-dyed jackets, scarves, and tops from elegant materials like silk chiffon or merino wool. She also does tailoring and teaches sewing classes, which is the main reason she needed a big room: “Sewing classes require room to spread out, unroll bolts of cloth, cut fabrics, and lay out patterns.”
She estimates the sewing classes now make up 30 percent of her business. “This is a whole lot of fun for me,” Moenssen says. “Tailoring is very solitary, and I’m a very social person. It’s fun to share my knowledge.”
The day we stopped in, she was wearing an eye-catching blouse, its gray fabric shot through with swirls and stripes of bold red and black, matched with a simple black, knee-length skirt with ruffles at the hem. Asked if she’d made the shirt, she said no. Then she did an ironic pirouette and added, “I made the skirt!” She laughed and said, “I sew for so many people, I have limited time to sew for myself.”
Nonpareil, 2081/2 S. Fourth Ave. (above the Asian Martial Arts Studio). 327-1837. Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sun. nonpareilstudioa2.com
