Marketplace

Two prominent Marathon stations, Buddy’s Mini Mart at Packard and Platt and Washtenaw Mini Mart in front of Arborland, closed last fall. Is there something going on with Marathon? Or is this just the recession taking its...

As surely as a crocheted cupcake or a photo of a bear nuzzling with a kitten, Pilar’s Tamale Shop is calculated to charm. Everything about the compact storefront eatery, from its brightly colored walls to its smiling crew...

The west side is bulging with pharmacies. A derelict Kentucky Fried Chicken went under the wrecking ball in January (along with adjacent Schlotsky’s, vacant since 2003) to make room for a Walgreens. Walgreens will join...

Pam Turkin opened her first cupcake store by accident. “I overbaked,” she says.She’d been happily making cupcakes in her bakery in Livonia for resale to retailers for months–until the day she made too...

When Talal Chahine fled to Lebanon in 2005 to avoid charges of federal tax evasion and in 2006 was indicted for allegedly funneling money to terrorists, the La Shish Middle Eastern restaurant chain he’d founded went...

“No way am I going to eat four spinach salads,” Maureen Policella says emphatically–not when she can get the same nutrients by drinking a glass of freshly blended spinach juice. “Depending on what you...

For twenty-five years Ann Arbor had two running stores within a block of each other downtown. Running Fit, which traces its origins to 1984, now has a half dozen other locations, including a megastore that opened last year on...

Ann Arbor has hundreds of restaurants, but only one boasts an open-face cheese melt piled with fresh veggies (including alfalfa sprouts) that has been on the menu since the 1970s. At Seva, this guacamole-topped time machine is...

“I was just tired of seeing empty buildings,” says Joe Grammatico. The veteran local builder opened Westside Furniture Consignment Emporium last month in his Scio Town Center on Zeeb. After Kitchen Port closed last...

When Mercy Kasle was attending Cal State in the early seventies and needed a job, she answered an ad placed by a woman looking for someone to cook and do light housekeeping. During the interview, she recalls, the woman...

After nearly sixty years as Ann Arbor’s premier purveyor of fine china and crystal, and for decades the first stop for many Ann Arborites looking for the perfect, high-end gift, the John Leidy Shop planned to close its...