Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and see the world’s longest lizard species! Witness Lawan, the deadly eighteen-foot reticulated python!Both are on display at the World of Discovery and Reptile Zoo on Jackson Rd. But...
Read MoreTo get into the Union Hall Kitchen, I go up the alley behind Downtown Home & Garden, rap on the door, and give the one-time-only secret password: “Phillis sent me.”Inside, humid air is filled with the ravishing...
Read MoreThe last decade wasn’t kind to Saline. “Property tax revenues have gone down about 22 percent,” says mayor Gretchen Driskell. “And revenue sharing from the state has been going down since 2002, and it now...
Read MoreIf it’s an August day too hot for pie and if you’ve got a thing for frozen-confection flavors crazy as they come, head around the corner from Grand Traverse on Liberty to Iorio’s Gelateria on William. The...
Read MoreTransition Rack, which specializes in triathlon bikes, moved around the corner to the former O’Hair Salon on Fourth Ave. and closer to Running Fit, a partner in the triathlon biz. The owner, twenty-six-year-old Will...
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It’s a “scary, exciting time” at the Weather Underground, says co-founder Jeff Masters. In July, the seventeen-year-old U-M spinoff announced its sale to the Weather Channel, a longtime suitor....
Read MoreIn May, Hearst Magazines announced that Road & Track was moving to Ann Arbor–and that Larry Webster, a forty-two-year-old Ann Arborite, would be the magazine’s new editor. The promotion capped a swift rise....
Read MoreOn the two-wheeled automotive front, Current Motor Company, developer of an electric scooter that it says will go sixty-five mph and fifty miles on a charge, has outgrown its showroom-factory-headquarters in a big tin can of a...
Read MoreMack Buick GMC is now LaFontaine Buick GMC. Former owner Mack Johnson says he had second thoughts soon after buying the former Jim Bradley dealership in 2010 and moving it to his nearby Saturn store: “I came to GM and...
Read MoreStudying Ann Arborites’ relationship to their “urban forest” after the emerald ash borer outbreak, U-M natural resources prof MaryCarol Hunter became captivated by the gardens people planted in the easement...
Read MoreJohn Roumanis and his new partner, son Peter Roumanis, have started work on their Main Street restaurant, which as of early July still didn’t have a name. Peter graduated from Cornell’s School of Hotel...
Read MoreOne column of the blond-wood dining room displays a photo triptych of a three-leaf, three-petal trillium moving from woodsy bud to lovely bloom. Other walls have landscape shots of flowering cherry orchards, baskets of the...
Read MoreOne beautiful afternoon last summer I decided to ride my bike down a shady lane.In truth it’s just a street, but Shady Lane is also a remarkable neighborhood. The entrance off Packard is guarded by a towering, lush,...
Read MoreQ. What’s the story with the covered sign in the parking lot in front of the Quarter Bistro–last used, if memory serves, when the space was Rio Bravo? A. City code limits commercial signage to two times business...
Read MoreNina Juergens closed Acme Mercantile on June 30. Housed in one of W. Liberty’s classic brick storefronts, Acme carried a blend of practical items, steam punk, and eco-sustainable clothing. As someone said on Yelp in 2005,...
Read MoreOn opening day at Costco, Jim Dolgas from marketing was making his way down the long line of customers who had queued up to buy memberships. He and several assistants were handing out applications and clipboards and extolling...
Read More“We have fifty to eighty Hibachi Grills,” says Selina Chen, of the recently opened mega-buffet on Washtenaw. Chen talks fast and isn’t concerned with details like whether the number is closer to fifty or...
Read MoreThe Ben Miller Band is a versatile blues-rock Americana trio that hails from Joplin, Missouri, and has built a cultlike following in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area ever since performing at the 2010 Michigan Roots Jamboree. Led by...
Read More“Is it an espresso drink?” Jenny Song, co-owner of the Songbird Cafe, asks her counter person, who affirms what a customer has ordered. “Just a minute. I don’t have a barista on duty.” Song...
Read More“I started having trouble with my hips eighteen months ago,” says pastor and blues guitarist Mike Brooks. “First I walked with a limp, then with a cane, then with two canes, then I couldn’t walk at all....
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