Framing artwork and memorabilia “doesn’t look hard, but it takes many years to really hone in and get a nice precision, quality craftsmanship,” says Matthew Findling, owner of Phoenix Custom Framing & Gallery. A thirty-year industry veteran, he opened in June in the tin-ceilinged former Rock Paper Scissors storefront on W. Michigan Ave. It’s “a beautiful space,” he says. “I fell in love with it pretty much right off the bat.”
Read MoreChelsea Alehouse Brewery closed in May after eleven years in business. Nevermore Decor Store, Amanda and Briston Bamm’s gift and home decor store on E. Middle that opened last November, closed in February.
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Case Kittel and his brother, Ross, were in the middle of the Au Sable River when Ross turned thirty-two. It was midnight and they were competing in the 2023 AuSable Canoe Marathon, a grueling, 120-mile canoe race that starts in Grayling and ends the next day in Oscoda. At midnight, Case says, he started singing “Happy Birthday.” There was another canoe near them; the folks in that boat “were like, ‘What?!,’” but they joined in the singing, too.
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An expert in Detroit-style pizza and a veteran restaurateur are collaborating on a full-service and takeout business they expect to appeal to both Saline locals and destination diners. Joe Maino and Jason Branham’s DropTop Pizza includes a vivid dining room and bar along Saline’s main drag, with a back entrance for takeout orders and grab-and-go food and drinks.
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Early one morning two years ago, Gail Kuhnlein left her beloved home in Pittsfield Township’s Hidden Creek subdivision for heart surgery and almost didn’t return. Kuhnlein, now sixty, suffered complications during the scheduled repair of a congenital defect in her mitral valve, and was in a medically induced coma for weeks before she recovered. When she returned two months later to the home she shares with her husband, Tim, it was with a new perspective on life. “This,” she says, “is all bonus time.”
Read MoreLynnea Harris spent three years playing professional volleyball overseas. “My job in Italy was to perform or I didn’t get paid,” she says. “I was drinking like one or two [protein] shakes a day. I was in the best shape of my entire life.”
Read MoreWhitetail, Mary Baude’s design, home, and lifestyle shop on S. Main, closed in April. She’d launched her business in Dexter in 2016, and moved it to Chelsea in 2022; in March 2024, she announced her retirement on Instagram. Chelsea Home, interior designer Kitty Golding’s boutique, is set to open by November 8 in Whitetail’s former space.
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“This whole store is me,” beams Amanda Debek from a deep U-shaped booth upholstered in pink velvet and topped with a rich arrangement of artificial flowers at her new House of Chimney Cakes Café.
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University Flower Shop has expanded from Nickels Arcade to the west side with a second, much larger production and sales site. The 4,000-square-foot facility on S. Wagner Rd. provides ample space for creating custom floral arrangements and planning events, as well as free, on-site parking for drop-in or pickup customers.
Read MorePROCAM Photo & Video Gear has soft-opened its fourth retail store, offering a range of imaging products and services for hobbyists, students, and professionals alike.
Read MoreCiting rising overhead costs and fewer customers dining out, the McDevitt family is closing Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders Oct. 12 after thirty years on the far west side.
Read MoreFive houses sold for under $200K: You read that right—and one distressed 867-square-footer at 2110 Champagne Dr. in Bryant-Pattengill went for just $100,000.
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In the end, even Julie Welch accepted the inevitable. Back in June 2023, she defiantly told MLive that she hoped never to sell 730 S. Division St., a 1,064-square-foot Cape Cod built in 1901. Her parents bought it in 1962 as a student rental, and she said, as far as she was concerned, “Build around me, and let’s coexist in peace.”
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What do a British telephone booth, pillar post box, park bench, and two signposts with Chinese and English flags behind the Hot Pot Chen restaurant have in common? Does the Chinese signage on the shipping container behind the objects hold a clue? And why is everything pink?
Read MoreTwenty-one-year-old culinary artist Leslie Tejada has come a long way from the Dominican Republic, where she spent her first ten years. Briarwood Mall was impressed enough with her cupcakes—and her Instagram presence—to lease her space for The Plates of Joyy, which opened September 20.
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The nation’s first retail milk vending machine is now open in Lodi Twp. It’s part of a longtime family farm’s strategy to sustain its operation for another generation.
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Shortly after 6 a.m. on Feb. 19, residents of the West Side were jolted awake by the sound of an explosion, followed by the wail of fire and police sirens. A small house at 701 S. Seventh St. had blown up.
Read MoreSchool construction program buys three lots, Veridian sells its first three units, and a rebuild sells for more than three times its purchase price.
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His Bouma Group, Realtors had listed a very rare commodity: two nearly one-acre house lots at 2751 and 2731 Washtenaw Ave., just east of the Stadium fork. “But getting access to the land was the problem,” he says. “We found out that no buyer wanted to move forward on that property because they didn’t have access to it.”
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DeRosa began offering improv classes and performances in February. He’s now ready to open the brewpub, which operates separately from the ticketed shows. Outside the theater room are the taphouse, a front patio with firepit tables and heated seating, a beer garden for yard games and live music, and their food truck kitchen serving what he describes as “upscale carnival food,” including smashburgers, chicken tenders, Belgian frites, and corn dogs.
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