“We’re moving across the courtyard,” says Mike Grob, owner of Pictures Plus in Westgate. His neighbor Sun & Snow has already vacated (see above). The adjacent AADL West Branch will be quadrupling its space, using the space from both stores. Scheduled to close November 20, it will reopen next summer, says AADL director Josie Parker.
Grob is the guy you want on your team if anyone ever invents a Trivial Pursuit Westgate edition. Except for its tenants, few people know the inside corner of the mall is called the “courtyard.” His new space will be next to the Old Siam restaurant.
He also points out that the addresses on one side of the “L” are on Jackson and the other are on Stadium. That means they’re on different postal delivery routes, so moving around the corner is going to give Pictures Plus a new mail carrier. Want more trivia? Westgate’s TJ Maxx is one of the top-performing TJs in the country. “TJ Maxx classes their stores A, B, and C. The ‘A’ stores [like this one] get better stuff and more of it,” though that’s slightly dated information. “I probably got that from Don Van Curler,” he says; the mall’s former owner died in 2010.
Grob loves Westgate. “When I was growing up in Chelsea, this was a happening place. It still is,” he quickly amends.
He and his wife, Nancy, run a full-service frame shop, with a wall of those beautiful elbows of frame samples–called “moldings” in the trade–as well as ready-made frames and photo albums. They also sell pottery: Nancy is a member of the Ann Arbor Potters Guild, and they usually have several of its potters on exhibit, as well as exhibits of the Ann Arbor Camera Club that change quarterly.
Ever wonder about those moldings, where they all come from? Grob says there are “about thirty or forty companies in the country that make them–this store deals with about ten or twelve.” They’re not to be confused with crown molding and the like that you’d buy at Fingerle’s. “Moldings for houses are a completely different deal, made by completely different companies,” he says, trying to suppress his shock at the comparison. One of the new entrants to the frame-molding field is local Paul Hickman of Urban Ashes, who makes art from downed trees. “Look at that. Solid walnut,” Grob says as his hand lingers admiringly on a piece of Hickman craftsmanship.
Pictures Plus is now a three-generation business, with son Scott Godwin and grandson Andrew Godwin also working there. “That’s something,” he says, “but Mast [shoes] is working on four generations now.”
Grob says the move should be complete before the holidays.
Pictures Plus, 2507 Jackson Ave. (Westgate). 741-1900. Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m. picturesplusonline.com
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Possibly inspired by Grob’s mastery of Westgate marginalia, when we stopped for a cupcake at Just Baked we noted that it had changed its name to JB Sweets & Treats. Owner Debbie Baxter sighs, “It was just easier.” When the Just Baked cupcake chain crashed and she took her store independent, her reading of the contract suggested she could keep the name, but she was eventually persuaded otherwise. For awhile the Just Baked bakery continued to operate as her supplier, but now she’s getting most of her cupcakes from Be My Bakery in Westland, which rose from the ashes of the defunct Just Baked chain. The cupcakes are pretty much the same though–Be My Bakery was started by Just Baked’s head baker Kay Seeney and decorator Melissa Lindsay.
JB Sweets & Treats, 2463 W. Stadium (Westgate), 585-5354. Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Closed Sundays.
