Marketplace

In early August, the Big Boy franchise on Zeeb Road was closed, eight months after the franchisee, Berry Brothers LLC, stopped paying rent. After an unsigned eviction notice was posted over the weekend, the restaurant was...

“I have a lot of people walk in here and say, ‘I’m sorry you’re going out of business,'” says Mosaic Sphere owner Yulia Hanansen. It was an easy mistake for shoppers to make: she had put everything...

Great Lakes Team Apparel on State Street is all about blue. Literally. When Bob and Mary Duerksen doubled the size of their eight-year-old clothing store by taking over the former Earl of Sandwich space next door in July, they...

In the rest of the world, a dessert that’s good for you is an oxymoron, but in the United States it’s a perennially reliable business plan. Frozen yogurt has come roaring back into the picture after a few decades of...

I hadn’t been to China Gate on South University since sometime last century. No matter. The decor hasn’t changed, but in fact I love this retro room: the dual rows of tiny lanterns, the comfortable booths, the...

The back-to-school season has me thinking again about campus-area eateries, which in more and more cases means Asian food. Of Ann Arbor’s more than seventy Asian restaurants, roughly half are within walking distance of...

The bubble tea battle that’s been quietly brewing on South University since Yogo Bliss opened across the street from Bubble Island this spring is coming to a boil now that Hsing-Chen “Angie” Tsai has entered...

Yoshi’s, the long-awaited successor of Dinersty, has finally opened. The nominal owner is twenty-nine-year-old Yasir Kaskorkis, an M.B.A. His benefactor is his father Aboud, a courteous, dapper man who speaks with a heavy...

David Myers has been roasting premium coffees on the city’s north side for three years. He’s perhaps best known for his “Obama Blend” of Kenyan, Indonesian, and Hawaiian beans. Now he’s opened...

This has been a notable year for Eve Aronoff and eve, her eponymous Kerrytown restaurant–and not just because she added lunch service in July. Already a culinary star in Ann Arbor, Aronoff had a brief and brutal stint as a...

The Georgetown Kroger, the last store standing at the decrepit Georgetown Mall on Packard, is scheduled to close September 12. One veteran cashier chokes up as she says: “It’s been my home for thirty-some years....

Last spring, Alain Benighil–whose tiny Tienda la Libertad was wedged between Faz’s Hello Pizza and Chan Garden and sold mainly packaged, nonperishable Latino food–took a deep breath and bought the...

A walk down Main Street on a Friday or Saturday night is proof that despite financial fears, Ann Arborites and weekend visitors are still going out to dinner. And at the Earle on West Washington, booked tables and a bustling...

A few years back, my mother mailed my wife, son, and me a gift for Hanukkah. It was the dead of winter, snow on the ground, so it made absolute sense to receive from her a three-pronged, battery-operated, rotating marshmallow...

Is it a sign of the times when a vintage bike repair shop replaces an auto detailing business? That’s what happened at Broadway and Moore, where Michael Firn and Joe Bollinger opened Sic Transit Cycles to refurbish and...