Somalia, perched on the edge of the Horn of Africa, has absorbed many of the trade and historical currents that have flowed through it–foods and spices from India and farther east, Islam from Arabia, colonizers from Italy...
Read MoreSaid Namari owns several Subway and Domino’s franchises in the Detroit area, but Hommus Express is his first Middle Eastern restaurant. Namari, who’s Palestinian, bought the former La Pita Fresh from Kasey Chammout...
Read MoreInstead of creating more density near downtown, a study may end up limiting it.Talk about awkward. City staff were to present a report to the twelve members of the R4C/R2A Zoning District Study Advisory Committee that was...
Read MoreLately, a de facto Latino-town has sprung up around the corner of Liberty and Stadium. Tienda La Libertad launched an in-store eatery called Taco King, former DDA manager Adrian Iraola opened Chela’s around the corner on...
Read More“It started last spring when I was backing out of my driveway and I was almost hit by a car,” says Marilyn Tower.Tower, who lives on the 1700 block of Covington on the city’s southwest side, estimates the car...
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I recently watched Stand By Me, Rob Reiner’s film based on a Stephen King novella, and experienced a sense of deja vu. I couldn’t figure out why until a few days later, when I needed to turn around on Wagner Road....
Read More“Someone told me he was a crossing guard.””I heard he’s a professor, or used to be. I don’t think he knows anyone in the band.””I thought he was a former band member.”For the past...
Read MoreQ. In September, trees were being removed by the dozens at the empty site just north of the Broadway bridges. It sure changes the feel of Argo Cascades! What is happening?A. That area has a long history of industrial use. The...
Read More“In ten years, you won’t even see it, because it’ll be so baked into the environment.”That’s Phil Callihan, spokesperson for the Robotics Technology Consortium and executive director of the National...
Read More“If you meet a Patel, generally speaking they’re from Gujarat,” the westernmost province of India, says Swetang Patel, explaining that though he’s unrelated to his business partner, Rutul Patel, their...
Read MoreYou can park for up to two weeks in the Fourth-William parking structure for $2. Not $2 a day, but $2. That’s the sweet deal if you take the AirRide bus to Metro airport ($11 one way). The AirRide–a contracted...
Read MoreWhen chefs audition for jobs, they cook. When Gabriel Vera cooked for a group of five owners and investors of what was then just a rough idea for a Latin American-themed dinner restaurant, “I started with broiled sardines...
Read More“I guess my revelation was that I would never have to decide what I wanted to be if I went into computers,” Dan Atkins says. As an undergrad at Bucknell University in the early sixties, he worked with a computer...
Read MoreI grew up in suburban Detroit, and there was an odd sort of stagnancy to my childhood. Growing up in a place where people bragged they hadn’t been to downtown Detroit in decades made me feel the defining feature of the...
Read MoreThe Best French Bread in Town disappeared in late June, when baker Jeff Renner underwent treatment for prostate cancer. The good news is that the disease was entirely contained, and Renner’s prognosis is excellent. For...
Read MoreA few years ago Bich Nguyen had a remarkable debut as a writer. Her memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner–which was, among other things, her story about growing up as a Vietnamese immigrant in Grand Rapids–won some...
Read MoreBefore you even walk into the gallery housing the African Art and the Shape of Time exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, you hear the driving drumbeat and techno music and sounds of the street. That drumbeat...
Read More“‘The light-producing dance of annihilation,'” mused Mark Kennedy, physics department employee, on September’s clue. “Easy! It is a sculpture by a friend of mine, Jens Zorn,” U-M emeritus...
Read More“You guys are getting trickier with hiding the names,” wrote Fake Adder Nathaniel Gittlen this month. “This month’s Fake Ad is the Brown Bag Catering ad on page 70. If the concept weren’t absurd, I...
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