A Coffee Hobbyist Goes Pro
“I’m passionate about teaching and learning, and I want to share the journey that I’ve had through coffee,” says Mike Bawden. He’s turned what had been a hobby into a new career with Curious Coffee.
Read More2025 March
Doomsday Planning
“We’re dealing with an insane amount of mental health issues and anxiety from our residents,” says Derrick Miller, executive director of the Community Action Network. CAN’s seven community centers provide everything from after-school programs to housing support and emergency food pantries, and its clients are reeling from the Trump administration’s budget cuts.
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Rose Valley Nursery
This month, Janine Shahinian was drawn as our Fake Ad winner for a
record-breaking third time. Her response, while delighted, was also selfless.
Sugar Shanty
After dusk on a cold, starry night, guests can easily follow the enticing aromas of a wood fire and a sweet treat across patches of snow to Elsi and Bob Sly’s sugar shanty. Open the door, and a fog of evaporating sap and an array of hot dogs, baked beans, and salads promise a one-of-a-kind winter picnic.
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17 Blocks
A Community High and U-M grad, Rothbart has worked as a ticket scalper and pizza delivery driver, created a magazine, and won an Emmy. This year, a Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship brought his family—wife Margaret Box and their kids, Desi, six, and Birdie, three—to a rented house on the Old West Side. And this month, he’s reuniting with his second family—the one featured in his documentary 17 Blocks—in an event at the Michigan Theater.
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Marty Somberg
On Sunday nights, Conor O’Neill’s Irish Pub reverberates with the sounds of guitars, flutes, fiddles, bodhráns, harps, accordions, harmonicas, whistles, bouzoukis, and uilleann pipes. Often, the toe-tapping, soul-searching tunes are led by Marty Somberg on the Irish fiddle.
Read MoreTen Thousand Villages Will Close on March 30
March 30 will be its last day, according to Ten Thousand Villages of Huron Valley, the local organization that has operated the S. Main storefront since its 2004 launch.
Read MoreNew Owners at Wicked Mary’s
For half a century, a small standalone building on Packard has served southeast-siders as a takeout joint for chicken and seafood.
Read MoreThe Korean Fried Chicken Boom Continues
Korean cuisine is surging in popularity, with no fewer than four new restaurants added to the city’s mix since 2022. The latest is Bonchon, a fast-casual fried chicken franchise that opened in January in Woodland Plaza.
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Furniture as Art
Since establishing her Ann Arbor studio in 2016, the U-M art grad has won nineteen international design awards for the ingeniously styled furniture she builds at Maker Works, the nonprofit south-side workshop. Often custom made for her interior design clients—she also has an interior design degree from EMU—they include colorful wall-art Squiggles made from PVC, acrylic, and wood, and Bolts, wooden cocktail tables threaded on marble bases. “The furniture work has a monolithic nature that is somewhat serious and whimsical at the same time,” she says.
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Echelon’s Elemental Experience
Echelon Kitchen + Bar, the latest addition to downtown’s fine dining scene, took over two years from lease to launch. Its managing director calls that “a blessing in disguise.”
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It’s Bird Flu Season
In February, Shira Haderlein and a friend took a walk in Mary Beth Doyle Park to decompress. But as they approached the detention pond, they discovered the corpses of dozens of Canada geese.
“I mean, it was just littered,” she says. “It felt apocalyptic.”
The Michigan’s New Face
The best thing about Liberty St., one could argue, is the Michigan Theater. Along with hundreds of films every year, it hosts concerts, children’s theater, celebrity artists, and dozens of other major events. Its recreated historic sign is a landmark rivaled only by its sister theater a block away, the State. That streetscape—with the U-M’s Burton Tower rising in the background—inspired the Michigan Theater Foundation’s recent rebranding as Marquee Arts.
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Patricia Ruth (Jarrard) Levine
Patricia Ruth (Jarrard) Levine passed away on Friday, January 17, 2025 in Columbus, GA with family at her side. The city of Ann Arbor, where she spent close to 40 years, remained her home in her heart even after she moved to Pinckney, Florida, and, eventually, Georgia.
Read MoreOak Valley and Valley View Joanns Set to Close
The area’s two Joann Fabric and Crafts stores are among those slated for closure, according to the Hudson, Ohio–based company’s latest bankruptcy filing. Longtime stores in the Oak Valley and Valley View shopping centers (both anchored by Target) are among the thirty-three headed for closure statewide.
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La Raza: Arts and Media Collective, 1975–Today
At the height of El Movimiento—the Chicano/Latino labor and civil rights movement led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez—a group of mostly Mexican American U-M social work students founded Trabajadores de la Raza, intended to support underrepresented students and promote justice at the university. This group would evolve into the La Raza Arts and Media Collective, part of a vast network of grassroots organizations throughout the country. In UMMA’s glass-walled Stenn gallery, La Raza: Arts and Media Collective, 1975–Today celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.
Read MoreThe Old City Building
“This month’s I Spy is an imposing building on N. Fourth Ave. that was called the ‘City Building,’” writes Ken Koral. Built in 1893, it “housed city offices until city hall opened,” in 1907, shares Dyke McEwen.
Read MoreJanuary 2025 Home Sales
The return of a familiar name, timing is everything, and are older condos the new starter homes?
Read MoreHometown Pizza Opens on Jackson Rd.
A former golf pro and his partner have teamed to bring Hometown Pizza to Scio Twp. Later this year, the shop will include Under Par Simulators, allowing golfers to get in their swings in a realistic indoor environment.
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A Scammer Operating in Plain Sight
I had thought it strange that the phone number for “BT Wings” was an (810) area code instead of Ann Arbor’s (734). That was the first clue, right there. Then I searched the internet for “BT Wings,” and nothing came up. Like, nothing.
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