Sweets for Main Street
“For years people have been telling me they can’t get dessert like this anywhere else,” says Glee Havens, a pastry chef and Munith resident who’s been working out of her home for about twenty years,...
Read More2011 October
A Taxing Development
Ask developers what their business is really about, and they’ll give you an assortment of answers. For some it’s simply a revenue game; for others it’s about historic preservation or community building or job...
Read MoreCathy Swan Adds a Second Store
Home Store owner Cathy Swan has opened a new home accessories store with partner Laura Telesco just a few doors down Main Street in the former Dexter Card Shop. The elegant-sounding name, Nichols and Stafford, combines...
Read MoreAnn Arbor on the Run
Fair-weather runners sprout each spring the way plants shoot from moist soil in warm sunshine. Out of their winter caves, they squint and stretch and toe out tentatively, jogging in Gallup and sprinting in Buhr, tightrope...
Read MoreCatching the Early Birds
Terry Thompson is used to getting up early—4 a.m. “I can’t help it,” says Thompson, sitting down for a break after cooking breakfast for a slew of other early birds at his new restaurant, the Downtown Diner, in...
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The Godfather of Main Street
Restaurateur Dennis Serras has springy, iron-gray hair, deep-set eyes, and a bristling moustache that makes him look a little formidable when he’s not smiling. He often is smiling, though, and his toothy grin removes some...
Read MoreHearsin’ Around
Mark Culp’s neighbor in Scio Farms didn’t appreciate his hearse.”First thing I see every morning is a hearse, and I know it’s just for me,” Culp recalls his neighbor grumbling–not...
Read MoreTang’s Touchdown
“It was like watching the countdown of my single life,” says U-M alum Kevin Tang (Engineering, 2003). At last month’s Michigan-Western Michigan football game, Tang stared at the scoreboard as the clock ticked...
Read MoreReba from Aruba
Last spring, Jennifer Vangelatos took her kids and her dad to Aruba. One of the wild dogs that roam the island’s streets quickly adopted them–sitting on the porch chairs, eating cookout scraps, even running with the...
Read MoreDewing it!
Dashing between Ypsilanti, Detroit, and Bloomfield Hills, three young U-M grads spent a hectic week in September shooting three ads for Mountain Dew.Marty Stano, Debashis Mazumder, and Natalie Condon landed the plum commission,...
Read MoreOut of Ireland, Kasoa
Trade Center Drive is mainly a warehouse district, but retail businesses occasionally pop up. Off the beaten path is putting it mildly–it makes Airport Blvd. look like Main Street. But if you can find the lane that snakes...
Read MoreDeb Gordon-Gurfinkel
Deb Gordon-Gurfinkel addresses a dozen children, ages six to eight, in the community center at Carrot Way, a low-income housing complex off Dhu Varren Rd. A compelling, pixie-like figure with a British accent, she wears a...
Read MoreMarcano’s pulls the plug
Elisabeth Marcano-Kennedy closed Marcano’s Takeout on Packard in August, less than a year after she opened. “It was doing okay but it wasn’t picking up the way I was expecting,” Marcano-Kennedy says....
Read MoreDexter’s Marketplace
Loreen McCalla opened Loreen’s Village Cafe in the former Lighthouse Cafe space on Main Street in June. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say she reopened her business for the second time. McCalla opened the first...
Read MoreBivouac Birthday
“In the closet, I had a mattress and TV,” says Ed Davidson. “The rest was army surplus.” The year was 1971, and even as American campuses boiled over with antiwar protests, students wanted to look like...
Read MoreSkateboarder suspense
“We hope to break ground next year,” says Scott Rosencrans of the Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark, “and we have several serious deadlines to encourage us.”Very serious deadlines. The city’s...
Read MoreLa Marsa Moves In
Ann Arbor may be sixth in line to get a La Marsa Mediterranean Cuisine, but manager Aziz Muflahi says the company’s founders have long had the city in mind. He says its new spot in the heart of U-M’s campus–in...
Read MoreShabby Chic, Chelsea Treehouse
When Kris Vermilye’s favorite consignment shop, the Resale Boutique, left Chelsea for Saline a few years ago, Vermilye continued to visit–even taking an occasional afternoon off work to indulge in her passion for...
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