Papa’s Coming Home
It’s been more than six years since Papa Johns closed its last Ann Arbor store. It ranks fourth among pizza chains in U.S. locations, but stores on W. Stadium, E. Huron St., and Plymouth Rd. are all long gone.
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Marketplace Closings | December 2025
The aptly named Makeshift Gallery will punctuate its three-year run with an open house party on December 28, its last day at 407 E. Liberty.
Read MoreNovember 2025 Ann Arbor Home Sales
You build me up: This month saw an unusual number of sales—at least five—of homes that were either rebuilt or so substantially renovated as to qualify as new construction.
Read MoreMercedes Migrates
Luxury car dealership Mercedes-Benz of Ann Arbor has completed its short-distance move from Auto Mall Dr. to a newly redeveloped site on Jackson Rd. in Scio Township.
Read MoreThe Resurgence of Briarwood Mall Continues
J&S Jewelers offers gold, silver, diamonds, and other gemstones in all their fine forms, polyester is pervasive at Just Cozy, Sip Coffee Cafe is now in business, and Hollister Co. is back in Briarwood after a twelve-year absence.
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Squeezed Out
The Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation 2025 Washtenaw County Housing Study revealed what Ann Arbor’s working class has long known: if you make less than $50,000, you can’t afford to live here.
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Cluck Wild, Six Days a Week
Since her last job as a marketing executive a year ago, Joyce Mueller has been working as a part-time team member at Chick-fil-A in Taylor, she says, “because anything I ask my team to do—clean the bathrooms, fry the chicken, clean up, whatever—I want to say I’ve absolutely done that. I know how to do it. I’m not above doing it. I’m good with anything. I like to get my hands dirty.”
Read MoreTikTok-Famous Candy at Briarwood
Featuring candy, chips, cookies, drinks, and frozen treats from forty different countries, Exotic Snack Guys “became famous from TikTok,” according to Felisha Madison, manager of their Briarwood Mall outpost.
Read MoreKorean and Karaoke Come to Main Street
Bori Korean Kitchen & Bar General Manager Chyna Blu says the reimagined second-floor space above Jolly Pumpkin provides a “very casual, laid-back atmosphere, but the food that you get feels like it’s fine dining.”
It’s a partnership between Mission Restaurant Group and the family of Korean-born chef James Park of Ann Arbor. Blu, who manages both Bori and Jolly Pumpkin, says Park dreamed of featuring his traditional cuisine in his adopted hometown, and Mission’s Jon Carlson “was someone to help make that dream come true.”
Read MoreShawarma Shop Scales Up
The first tangible sign of the major Arbor South redevelopment is apparent with the recent closure of the Shell gas station at S. State and E. Eisenhower. Its neighboring business, the Mediterranean takeout joint Shawarma Shop, has been invited into a bigger space nearby, the lobby of the 777 Building.
Read MoreSpringin’ Up Like Mushrooms
Observant Marketplace Changes readers have surely detected the recent emergence of a few local trends: Yemeni coffeehouses, chicken chains, and mushroom shops.
Mush Love, which opened in October, is the fifth business we’ve noted this year offering dried mushrooms and various preparations for use cases ranging from psychedelic exploration to alternatives to Big Pharma. They’re also available from delivery services and at other stores that have added such product lines since the city essentially decriminalized entheogenic plants and fungi in 2020.
Read MoreBriarwood Mall Shuffle
Native clothing and gift store NTVES and its adjacent INTY.M Gallery got bumped from Briarwood Mall in September, but the Muenala family says they’ll be back in time for holiday shopping.
Read MoreTim Hortons Returns to Ann Arbor–Saline Rd.
Tim Hortons is back at Abraham Ajrouch’s property at the corner of Ann Arbor–Saline Rd. and W. Eisenhower that also hosts a Shell gas station, Chillbox convenience and liquor store, and a Taystee’s Burgers outlet.
Read MorePackard Gets a New Coffee Shop
“There’s a lot of really great staples on Packard in Ann Arbor,” Hailey Polidori Caragay says. “I’m excited to be a part of that.”
She and her husband, Bryan Caragay, both twenty-nine, have bootstrapped Hazel Coffee Co from a pandemic-era espresso machine into a full-fledged coffee shop fronting the new Packard Row Apartments building.
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Two Vietnamese Spots on E. Liberty
Twelve years ago, Vietnam native Sonca Luu was a single mother with only $18,000 on hand when she navigated the paperwork for an SBA-backed loan to start BeeQ Salon & Spa on W. Stadium. She now owns three Ann Arbor beauty-related establishments, two restaurants, and a café. The latest additions are Saigon Social House and Block & Brew Cafe, formerly operating as Taste Kitchen and Red Lotus in the Michigan Theater building (Marketplace Changes, August).
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Slows Bar BQ Comes to A2
“It’s been a pretty open secret that we wanted to be here,” says Terry Perrone of Slows Bar BQ, a Detroit destination for two decades. For years they’ve catered local events, hosted food truck tailgates, and served lunch weekly at University and Mott Children’s hospitals. Now they have a permanent presence in downtown Ann Arbor.
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HERD Mentality
“I’m so glad you asked about HERD,” Ann Arbor’s Home Energy Rating Disclosure Ordinance, says Julie Roth, energy manager for the city’s Office of Sustainability and Innovations. “It’s safe to say that Ann Arbor has one of the most robust residential consumer protection programs in the country.”
Read MoreOctober 2025 Ann Arbor Home Sales
A star builder sells his prototype for $1.25M: In 2004, up-and-coming developer-architect Tom Fitzsimmons bought a pre-WWII house at 637 N. Fourth Ave. for $299,000 and demolished it. In its place he put up a two-unit two-story Colonial-style duplex with ground-floor parking and garage elevators to each spacious, full-floor condo.
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A Riad on S. Main
Abdu Saad says he designed his first restaurant to resemble a Moroccan riad, a villa alternative to conventional hotels, typically featuring courtyard oases with fountains, greenery, and ornate elegance.
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Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
“I couldn’t have imagined that as a kid, I would have grown up here, and this would have been something my mom created and that I was able to take over. So I’m really proud of that. Not a lot of businesses make it this long.”
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