2013 May

Ruth Ehman, proprietor of Firesign Family Farm near Whitmore Lake, has a number of farming irons in the fire: animal, vegetable, and hospitable (she runs a B&B with or without a kind of dude ranch experience). But here...

Kelly Hadin, a former classical ballet dancer who performed around the country, has opened Shine on Fourth Avenue. This is the second Shine–she opened the first in Royal Oak six years ago. Though she doesn’t own the...

The Glassbox Cafe is one of many new businesses springing up around the Landmark high rise on the corner of South U and Forest, but it may be the greatest retail land grab of the year. “It was a bit of random luck”...

The washed-out, leafless, biting cold days of winter in southeast Michigan–not even remotely tropical–can set us to combing the Internet for travel deals that take us south. Cancun! Take me away! In the meantime,...

Anchored by the Country Market, Dexter Crossing is the older of the two strip malls on Dexter’s eastern border, and it’s hard not to notice the number of vacancies. But lately a few new lights have come on there.In...

“I get up at 2 a.m. to load the ribs into the smoker so they’ll be ready for lunch. There’s no cheatin’ if you want ’em done right. I’ve heard some people put ribs in the oven with a little...

It’s a weekday morning at Chelsea Alehouse Brewery, and the smell of hot malted wheat wafts through the expansive warehouse-size pub. Across the bar and through some windows, associate brewer Eric Schroeder can be seen...

Naked Furniture has finally completed its move a block east to its new home across from Arborland. For months, neon-colored signs screamed that a move was imminent and a sale in progress. Now equally loud signage in the new...

The name of the Mocha Monkey Cafe is a reference to owner Jamal Abusway’s past. The Mocha Monkey was a favorite coffee drink at the Shaky Ground, a now-defunct coffee shop near San Francisco’s Chinatown where he...