The closing of The Arena marks the end of an interesting chapter in the downtown restaurant scene. In July, owner Brian Michael Flore was sentenced to two to five years in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution...
Read MoreOkay, I’ll put this on the table right up front: I’m not fond of restaurant buffets. The whole concept is off-putting to me–more food than you really want to eat, usually sitting too long at temperatures too...
Read MoreDowntown businesses are finding poems on their windows and doors. Written and delivered anonymously, the personalized tributes are signed “The Sonnet-Bomber.” Since August, more than sixty restaurants, retailers,...
Read MoreSouth U Pizza began in 2009 in the tiny hole carved out between Rendezvous Hookah Lounge and Oasis Grill. Now the little-guy pizza upstart is a full-size restaurant. It’s moved next door, and the menu, says manager Midu...
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The website for the twenty-six-story Tower Plaza condo on E. William at Maynard lists among its nearby amenities “hundreds of unique shopping and delicious dining experiences.” The closest of them is also the newest:...
Read MoreYes, I admit it. I went all wide-eyed and weak-kneed when the U-M Museum of Art used lures like Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt in the previews for its current exhibit, Europe on Paper. I wasn’t this excited or rubbery in...
Read More“I wasn’t doing it to get rich,” says Alison Mackie of her Chelsea Underground Art Gallery, which she closed at the end of the summer after two years. It took its name from its original location in a basement...
Read MoreDetroit’s famous Slows BBQ has made forays into Ann Arbor, but they have mainly been exclusive or fleeting: catering for sports team dinners, a booth at the art fair, a tailgating stand on Hoover before home football...
Read MoreThere’s more than one way to discover the new Westside Barbecue on E. Madison near Fingerle Lumber. Maybe while waiting at the intersection on S. Main you spot the distinctive low brick-red building tight alongside the...
Read MoreFree parking in front is one thing McCabe Ash relishes about the new location of the Art Spot (also known as Graphic Art Wholesalers). It’s in Baxter’s Plaza, the little strip mall at Zeeb and I-94 with Grand...
Read MoreThe expanded Westgate branch of the Ann Arbor District Library reopened in September with an attached Sweetwaters. The cafe’s tables flow like an estuary into the library proper, with no real boundary, making it the first...
Read MoreThere exist magnificent concertos for classical guitar and full orchestra, and players who are up to the task of projecting–without amplification–to the back of Hill Auditorium. (I still vividly recall the stunning...
Read MoreWe took a trip in the way back machine for the fake ad in the Fall Community Observer. The ad, for perennial political candidate Ed Nimby, appeared on page 43 of the issue.Several veteran Fake Adders recognized Nimby’s...
Read MoreDo people really wake up from drunken one-night stands wrapped in sheets?Or was this trope conjured up in some long-ago decade to slip a bedroom scene past the censor, or to get a classier brand of actress to sign on? When a...
Read MoreAnn Arbor natives Dave Fichera and Steve Kleinschmidt attended elementary, middle, and high school together at Eberwhite, Slauson, and Pioneer. They stayed in touch while Dave and his brother Chris built Stucchi’s ice...
Read MoreLast month’s Fake Ad for Classic Video appeared on page 81 of the October issue. Like all our Fake Ads, it featured the name of the previous winner somewhere in the ad. In this case, the name was...
Read MoreThe series of unfortunate events that led me to feel prematurely old began the week before Christmas last year, when I bit down too hard on a Kalamata olive (hence those ubiquitous warnings: “May contain pits”!)....
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