When it comes to making pizza, Rich Runles is into precision and balance. You might even call him obsessive about it. Runles opened Rich’s CountrySide Pizza in early January, taking over the space formerly occupied by My Supper Shop, inside but independent of the Country Market grocery store. (My Supper Shop closed in the fall; the owners could not be reached.)
“I’m kind of a perfectionist. I want my pizzas to taste good and look good,” says Runles as he meticulously arranges the toppings on one of his specialty hand-tossed pizzas–a fourteen-inch pie with barbecue chicken, onions, and bacon. His final test for pizza-perfect symmetry is his own invention: He locks the thumbs and index fingers of his hands together to make a circular viewfinder of sorts. Peering through it, he slowly scans the pizza, clockwise and then counterclockwise, like a filmmaker scrutinizing a scene. “I’m scanning for balance,” says Runles. After adjusting the bacon in one quadrant, he slides the pizza into the oven.
Runles, who is forty and lives in Dundee with his wife and two children, has been making pizzas since he was fourteen. He’s worked for “mom and pops” and chains, and he ran his own pizzeria, Maw Sally’s in Ida, for eight years.
CountrySide Pizza offers a wide selection of standard and specialty pizzas and subs as well as pizza rolls, bread sticks, and chicken wings for pickup or dining at one of the restaurant’s five tables. Among the specialty pizzas and subs are the steak or chicken fajita and the Hawaiian, with ham and pineapple. He also offers veggie pizzas and subs.
A part-time magician, Runles used to regularly do parlor and stage magic at birthday parties and schools. If he isn’t too busy baking pizzas, he may wander over to your table and do a card trick or a coin trick.
Runles offers the “Ultimate Pizza Guarantee.” If you aren’t satisfied with a pizza from a competitor, bring in the uneaten portion, and Runles will make you one of his for free. He’ll also taste your bad pizza to analyze what went wrong–is it undercooked? are the ingredients poor quality? If you find yourself served a bland, unbalanced pizza, Runles invites you to call him immediately.
Rich’s CountrySide Pizza, 1335 E. Michigan (inside Country Market), Saline. 429-2600. Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Closed Sun. www.countrysidepizza.com
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Ceci Cafe has a new name and a new emphasis. Now called Sweet Kiss Bakery, the cafe still offers a wide selection of organic imported fair trade teas, coffees, savory panini, and bao buns, but its main emphasis is now on cupcakes. In an effort to boost sales, owner Okja Chang took advice from her L.A.-based entrepreneurial daughter, Saeyoung Vu. Vu spent a month last fall visiting Saline and helping her mom fine-tune and expand the shop’s niche. A part-time Hollywood fashion designer, Vu opened Sweet Kiss as a cupcake catering business in Los Angeles. “It’s the sister shop to my mother’s bakery,” says Vu. Inspired by cupcakes she tasted from well-known New York City bakeries like Magnolia Bakery and Billy’s Bakeshop, Vu spent five years testing and perfecting her recipes. She shared those with her mother and helped train the Saline staff, Heather Kilvington and Grace Kwon.
Kilvington, the Sweet Kiss Bakery manager and an EMU senior studying earth science and urban planning, loves baking. “Growing up, I was a long time 4-H leader and specialized in cooking and cake decorating,” she says. She bakes the shop’s muffins, scones, cookies, biscotti, brioche, and brownies. Kwon bakes the cupcakes, but Kilvington makes the icing. The bakery offers more than twenty-five different cupcake varieties. They usually have at least four on hand daily but welcome special orders. Call ahead for orders of more than two dozen.
Sweet Kiss Bakery, 7025 E. Michigan, Saline. 944-4455. Mon.-Fri. 7:30 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sun.
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Baker’s Nook is no longer a nook, it’s a palace. Since opening in 1994 in the 2,400-square-foot space now occupied by Ed’s Bread, the baking supply and cake-making shop has twice doubled in size. In 1999, it moved down the street and added another 2,400 square feet. Now, it’s built an addition that adds 5,000 more square feet, making it one of Saline’s biggest stores.
The added space allows room to display every baking item imaginable–edible food markers, pastry couplers and a host of tips to fit them, three-pound tubs of baby blue icing for baby showers, special brownie pans, more than 300 colors of sprinkles. All the seasonal ware is now displayed year round–so if you feel like having a Halloween-themed party in April or a Christmas candy-making extravaganza in July, you’re covered, with everything from neon-colored fondant gum paste to Christmas tree-shaped candy molds.
When owners Brian and Anne Shockey launched a website in August 2006, orders skyrocketed–and not just from loyal local customers. “We get orders from all over the country and the world,” says Brian. That’s what fueled the expansion.
The addition includes a beautifully appointed wedding consultation room, replete with a marble dining table and six comfortable leather chairs. “Whether you plan to order a $200 cake or a $5,000 cake, we give our customers the royal treatment,” says Shockey. That means they set the table with fine linens, china, and fresh-cut flowers. Couples may sample from a variety of specially baked sample-sized wedding cakes, decorated and displayed on tiny glass cake stands.
Baker’s Nook, 901 W. Michigan, Saline. 429-1320. Tues., Thurs., & Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Wed. 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Closed Sun. www.shopbakersnook.com
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A third restaurant recently joined Wings-Pizza-N-Things and Leo’s Coney Island in the State Road strip mall in front of Walmart. New China, owned by Bao Chen, opened early in February and serves both lunch and dinner, offering a wide selection of Hunan, Szechuan, and Mandarin cuisine. It’s mostly for takeout, but if you’d like to dine in, Chen does have three tables.
New China, 6889 State Rd., suite D, Saline. 429-7288. Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m-10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Sun. noon-9:30 p.m.
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The new year wasn’t kind to several Saline businesses. The independently owned franchise of the Medicine Shoppe closed its doors in January.
Even more abrupt and rather mysterious was the recent closing of Caffe Dolce on East Michigan Avenue. It has been just over a year since the owners moved from their previous location of eight years in the Country Creek Plaza to a new location about 100 yards east on Michigan Avenue. The new spot, custom built with a drive-through window, was open for business as usual one week in mid-January but empty the next. The owners could not be reached for comment.
The Signature Grille on East Michigan Avenue is also closed. Its owners also were unreachable.
