A New Nu2U Again
Nu2U Again, the Saline thrift store with a mission to employ and serve people with disabilities, is adding an Ann Arbor location at Carpenter and Packard.
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2024 August
Booksweet’s Owners Find Their Buyers
Three years after taking over the Courtyard Shops storefront and much of the inventory of Bookbound Bookstore, the couple cited family considerations in choosing to pass the torch—not necessarily to the highest bidder, but as “a values-based decision of what we think will be sustainable,” Render says. Rather than “just rich people making stuff for rich people, we wanted to make sure first-time business owners could do this.”
Read MoreBrandy Melville Arrives
The international company established in Italy has about forty-two stores and 3.1 million Instagram followers in the U.S.
Read MoreFrom Blaze to Fuel’d
A fast-casual Asian eatery offering stir-fries, poké, salads, and smoothies recently opened in the former Blaze Pizza storefront at Cranbrook Village.
Read MoreSamba Bowls Takes Vogel’s Spot
Named to invoke one of Brazil’s most recognizable cultural elements, Samba Bowls brings a taste of the country’s rich food traditions to downtown Ann Arbor. Jamille and Lucas Chamon’s first culinary enterprise offers an array of tropical bowls and smoothies from a refreshed storefront on W. Washington St. that long held Vogel’s Lock & Safe.
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Banh Mi Is Back at the Courtyard Shops
Korean-born pharmacometrician Sunny Chapel started two businesses last year, a clinical pharmacology consultancy called A2-Ai, and Banh Mi Street Food in the Courtyard Shops. The consulting business has taken off and already has seventy employees. That made it difficult for Chapel to devote enough attention to assuring the restaurant’s quality, so she put it on indefinite hiatus.
Read MoreRite Aid Exits, Pierre Paul Closes
Rite Aid, the Philadelphia-based drugstore chain currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is closing all three of its Ann Arbor locations amid hard times for the nation’s big retail pharmacies.
Read More30 homes sold for more than $1 million… and one sold for $150k
A $150,000 sale on Hemlock Dr., Dusty May’s $2.2M Barton Hills pad, and a big month for $1M+ sales, sort of.
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Under Interrogation
They sat me down in a room with a table and a bunch of chairs and actually tilted a desk lamp so it shone directly into my eyes. One man did the questioning while other officers rotated in and out of the room. My interrogator was precise and seemingly emotionless. The other officers had lips drawn tight and glared. He asked who I was, where I’d come from, what route I had followed, whether I had seen anyone, had stopped, and had anything happened along the way.
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Ron Warhurst Goes to Paris
Ron Warhurst was a U-M coach for thirty-six years—cross-country and track. He was Big Ten coach of the year four times, won nine conference championships, and coached 129 All-Americans, multiple Olympians, and a winner of the Boston Marathon.
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The West Side in the 1950s
My formative years, from grade school through twelfth grade, were spent in a house my grandfather built on Miner St. I can’t imagine a better place to get started in life.
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Market Inflation
Grocery prices have climbed 25 percent since the beginning of the pandemic, and farmers like Robertello aren’t immune.
Read MoreClerk Contenders
Larry Kestenbaum was first elected clerk in 2004 by defeating the Republican incumbent, and he’s defeated every challenger, Democrat or Republican, since then.
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The Next State Rep
Felicia Brabec, who represents Michigan House District 33, is stepping down after two terms to prepare to run for state senate in 2026. That leaves the district encompassing southern Ann Arbor, the city of Saline, and all or portions of Pittsfield, Saline, Lodi, York, Bridgewater, and Scio townships open for a new representative.
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Election Switcheroo
By waiting until after the deadline to withdraw, McClary ensured that Lamelle-Sharp will be unopposed in the August 6 primary—and, given the heavily Democratic makeup of the county’s electorate, is all but certain to win the office.
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GMA Doughnuts
On July 3, hundreds of people thronged the intersection of S. Ashley and W. Liberty to watch a live segment from Good Morning America. But only one local business had a presence in GMA’s studio back in New York City.
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Selfie Studio
Similar photo booth businesses have been growing rapidly in South Korea over the last decade, according to Sean Lee, one of four partners in the company. They have four other locations, all in California, but their goal is to open Potobox shops in every state.
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The Observer Observed
That’s the title of an exhibit on the second floor of the downtown library. Subtitled “45 Years of Pages from the Ann Arbor Observer,” it covers five large walls with reproductions of 500 pages published in the magazine between 1976 and 2022.
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Moon Winks Adds a Tavern
the latest owners of the longstanding Moon Winks Café have expanded into full-service dinner and drinks with Moon Winks Tavern. The new adjacent tavern features Cox and McCardell’s own handiwork, including a twelve-seat bar planed from live edge slabs of honey locust.
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