Marketplace

India Cafe Opens

India Cafe opened in March in the back of the Foods of India grocery store on Broadway, tucked away behind a big wall of Bollywood DVDs.When Sapan Goel opened Foods of India thirteen years ago, he installed a small kitchen in...

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Frita Batidos in the Works

Let us be the first to report the true spelling of Eve Aronoff’s new Cuban-inspired restaurant, Frita Batidos, which is due to open around July 1 in the former Cafe du Jour. Her Facebook announcement gave the name as...

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Sheesh Reviewed

La Shish and I go back a long way–to the 1980s, when it was a single Dearborn lunch counter. After moving to Ann Arbor in ’93, I often trekked to the growing chain’s outlets in Canton or Livonia, frequently...

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Wolverine Brewing Company Plan

When a large sign appeared in the front window of the original, now vacant Big George’s on West Stadium announcing the entire building was for sale or lease, we wondered how that would affect the Wolverine Brewing Company....

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lab Opens

Tobias Wacker and Joanna Hong describe lab as a “coffee plus tea plus yogurt experience.” And because they both have master’s degrees in urban planning from the U-M, they hope their cafe in McKinley Towne...

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Pangea’s New Direction

“We’re trying to take the industry in a new direction,” says j.c.potts, owner of Pangea Piercing. “We’re trying to position ourselves to be the jewelry store of the twenty-first...

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From Bennigan’s to Red Robin

The Bennigan’s on South State that suddenly closed in January will reopen May 17 as a Red Robin. Like the burger chain’s first local location, on Carpenter Road, it’s owned by the Ansara Restaurant Group of...

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Blue House Opens

The bad news on the craft front is that Rainbow Creations, a paint-your-own-ceramics store and studio on Zeeb, and Scrapbook Haven, an enormous emporium of scrapbooking supplies, have closed. The business provided a quick...

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Liberty St. Merger

If it always confused you that 4 Seasons was the store that sold the perfume and sexy lingerie, while Allure was the one that sold the clothing that changed with the seasons, you can strike that conundrum from your list of...

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Big Changes at Kerrytown

At the end of March, V2V shrank from two stories to half of its second-floor space in the Kerrytown Market & Shops, and Elephant Ears migrated over to fill the void.”Sales were strong, but Kerrytown wanted to divide...

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Bright spot

Visits at various times result in vastly different dining experiences at many restaurants, and that’s certainly the case with the new Mercy’s at the Bell Tower Hotel. Thanks to its prime spot across from Hill...

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Korea via Hungary

Lin Cui, owner of Tianchu, a new Korean restaurant on William that opened March 2, came to Ann Arbor via Hungary. “After seven or eight years, I tire of a country. I like to travel, I like to move,” explains the...

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Silvio’s Expands

When Silvio’s Organic Pizza expanded next door into the former Beanie June boutique in February, Silvio Medoro more than doubled the seating at his five-year-old restaurant. He also has added table service, a whole new...

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Bottomless Tip Box

It sounds like a barista’s fondest dream, but it’s actually a security system. At the Starbucks at Main and Liberty, the staff remove the bottoms of their plastic tip boxes to keep them from being stolen.According to...

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The Packard Pub Opens

Kyle Miller thought he’d have the Packard Pub open in January, but things didn’t turn out the way he planned–and he says it’s driving his would-be customers crazy. “They’re dying,”...

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Corned Beef Contender

Lovers of Jewish delis, prepare to swoon, especially if you live on the east side. The Bread Basket Deli, Al Winkler’s vision of corned-beef heaven, has spawned an Ann Arbor outpost. Unlike the five Bread Baskets in the...

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Flowers on Felch

Lisa Waud knows exactly how much space she has to work with in her new flower shop in the former Ann Arbor Art Center Art Factory off Felch: 93.6 square feet. The building is zoned for industrial use, so only 10 percent of its...

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Two Restaurant Closings 2010

Paula Fader-Garff says it’s hard to pinpoint a single factor that led her to close Paula’s Place, her five-year-old ice cream and sandwich shop. It was mostly the economy, but “the lack of visibility...

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Two Worlds

A friend and I had two distinctly different experiences at Asia City, the huge new Chinese restaurant on Washtenaw just east of Golfside. My friend was born in southern China and knows the restaurant business in and out. She...

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Coffee and Sandwich Musical Chairs

It started when Tim and Tracy Horvath parted ways with Chelsea-based ­Bear­clawCoffee Co. and changed the name of their downtown Dexter Bearclaw franchise to the Corner Cup Café in January. Tracy says it was “a mutual...

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