“This is a massive chasm, massive,” says Downtown Home & Garden owner Kelly Vore. “It’s heavy, on every level.” A decade after buying the iconic Ashley St. emporium from longtime proprietor Mark Hodesh, who retains its historic real estate, Vore announced that financial conditions will prompt its closure on Christmas Eve.
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On Hamilton Pl., just a few blocks west of U-M’s central campus, it’s standard to wake up to the familiar sounds of the city: passing cars, roommates, construction. However, at Tri Sug—a house shared by U-M students that doubles as an underground music venue—their morning starts instead with a loud meow from just outside the window.
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The Harts’ home, a “school bus yellow” Cape Cod with a huge garden, was the second one built by high schoolers in the Ann Arbor Student Building Industry Program, an experiential learning initiative. The first was on nearby Yellowstone Dr., and the third, says Donna, “is right around the corner, on Carl Ct.”
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Marilyn Kirking says that the first time she and her husband, Duane, saw their future home in the Abbot neighborhood, “we didn’t even bring our checkbook.”
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I could’ve written another version of this essay and blown the entire word count just describing how the canopy of trees changes from season to season, or the way the maple leaves scatter sunlight across our chalky sidewalks in bouncing dapples.
Read MoreSpores Cafe has no seating but offers a range of to-go coffee drinks sourced from Caribbean Roasters of Trinidad & Tobago, where Kasgorgis lived for about a decade. Infusion with mushroom extracts is optional.
Read MoreFive years ago, LaFontaine Automotive Group bought the large parcel at the northwest corner of Wagner and Jackson “without a clear plan of how we were going to activate it,” according to Max Muncey, its director of corporate communications.
Read MoreStaffed entirely by relatives, Rotisserie King features traditional Middle Eastern preparations that may seem like everyday fare here, but even the basmati rice—cooked with tomatoes, onions, and garlic seasonings—is special-occasion food back home, Ebrahim says.
Read MoreA new owner is planning a more casual and affordable Vietnamese restaurant called Saigon Social House, he says. It will combine Taste Kitchen with Van’s adjacent plant-based offshoot Red Lotus (Marketplace Changes, January), which he’ll continue to operate until the new venture is closer to launch.
Read MoreA century-old building near Kerrytown has its first tenant since undergoing major renovations. Bayt Almocha is now the area’s fifth Yemeni coffee shop to open within the past few years. The name translates as “Mocha House,” and it’s not just an allusion to the beverage: founder Abdulla Alysofi and operating partner Rafed Al-Serri grew up near Mocha, the Red Sea port whose coffee exports gave mocha its name.
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Taybor Pepper knows that the National Football League’s initials can also mean “not for long,” so he’s diversifying his career beyond special teams into specialty retail.
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Ji Hye Kim’s upscale Korean restaurant, Miss Kim, has become hard to patronize without making a reservation. The chef-owner wants Little Kim to be “more approachable in both flavor and price point. I just wanted to serve more people.”
Read MoreEven the headless unclad mannequins are 60 percent off at Briarwood Mall’s Eddie Bauer, which will close July 29.
Read MoreThere are more than 270 sales charted here, and we wish we could say the market is suddenly roaring. In truth, that crowd of triangles and circles reflects the assessors of Scio and Superior townships catching up after not uploading their sales to the state’s online database for months.
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Inspired by a trip to Turkey in 2023, Eddie Alasad of Sterling Heights branched out from several Leo’s Coney Islands he owns to launch Turkish Village Cuisine in Dearborn last year. Now he’s customizing the concept for a college town with an all-day, every-day combination of full-service and fast-casual fare.
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“I always missed Ann Arbor—the slower pace of life, seeing familiar faces around town, being close to my family and friends of fifteen-plus years,” Carter says. She enjoys “going back to all of the wonderful restaurants, shops, museums, libraries, parks, and events that I loved growing up and now getting to share that with my family.”
Read MoreThey allege their parents were coerced with high-pressure sales tactics to purchase wildly overpriced skin care products and devices. One man, who asked not to be identified, said his father, an Ann Arborite with dementia and sciatica, paid them more than $42,000 while walking in the mall for exercise between mid-December and mid-February.
Read MoreOffering mostly vintage fashions plucked from estate sales and the like, Torn and Frayed (its name evoking a deep cut from the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St.) took the spot long occupied by Stadium Pharmacy.
Read MoreThe departure of one longtime merchant from Kerrytown Market & Shops has made room for two newer businesses to grow.
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