Marketplace

Ruth Ehman, proprietor of Firesign Family Farm near Whitmore Lake, has a number of farming irons in the fire: animal, vegetable, and hospitable (she runs a B&B with or without a kind of dude ranch experience). But here...

The Glassbox Cafe is one of many new businesses springing up around the Landmark high rise on the corner of South U and Forest, but it may be the greatest retail land grab of the year. “It was a bit of random luck”...

Kelly Hadin, a former classical ballet dancer who performed around the country, has opened Shine on Fourth Avenue. This is the second Shine–she opened the first in Royal Oak six years ago. Though she doesn’t own the...

It’s a weekday morning at Chelsea Alehouse Brewery, and the smell of hot malted wheat wafts through the expansive warehouse-size pub. Across the bar and through some windows, associate brewer Eric Schroeder can be seen...

“I get up at 2 a.m. to load the ribs into the smoker so they’ll be ready for lunch. There’s no cheatin’ if you want ’em done right. I’ve heard some people put ribs in the oven with a little...

Anchored by the Country Market, Dexter Crossing is the older of the two strip malls on Dexter’s eastern border, and it’s hard not to notice the number of vacancies. But lately a few new lights have come on there.In...

The washed-out, leafless, biting cold days of winter in southeast Michigan–not even remotely tropical–can set us to combing the Internet for travel deals that take us south. Cancun! Take me away! In the meantime,...

Naked Furniture has finally completed its move a block east to its new home across from Arborland. For months, neon-colored signs screamed that a move was imminent and a sale in progress. Now equally loud signage in the new...

The name of the Mocha Monkey Cafe is a reference to owner Jamal Abusway’s past. The Mocha Monkey was a favorite coffee drink at the Shaky Ground, a now-defunct coffee shop near San Francisco’s Chinatown where he...

“We started the store because we wanted to see a kitchen store in Kerrytown,” Tom Hollander recalls. The kitchen was already in there, courtesy of Mary Campbell’s short-lived experimental...

Great Shanghai in the Westgate Shopping Center closed. “They were at the end of their lease,” says co-owner and leasing agent Jim Chaconas. “They were nice people, but they weren’t making any money. They...

According to Jessica Hammond, a lot of people say, “I like your gimmick,” when they see the ladder, pole, sledgehammer, and fire hose nozzles on the wall at Firehouse Subs.”But it’s not a gimmick,”...

After spending five tumultuous months in Sweden as an au pair for what she describes as a “crazy, dysfunctional family,” Natalie Burg knew her experience would make a great book, but she wasn’t sure how to get...

Literati may be the sentimental favorite, but it’s only one of many changes on the street. Washington, which has always seemed like a back alley to Liberty, is suddenly looking like the new Main Street. Mark’s Carts,...

On March 31, Easter Sunday, “We flipped the ‘open’ sign at noon, and as soon as we did, we had three people,” says Mike Gustafson, who with his fiance, Hilary Lowe, owns the Literati bookstore. “By...