With some owners looking to retire or pursue other interests, and others feeling overextended or beset by changing circumstances, several notable restaurants are now for sale. All continue to operate while seeking buyers, and none have confirmed plans to close.
Joanne Williams, sixty-three, wants to spend more time being a grandma, so she’s looking for a smooth transition for Afternoon Delight, the venerable breakfast and lunch eatery at 251 E. Liberty.
“We’ve been here forty-eight years, so I really hope somebody wants to keep it going, because I hate to see another restaurant gone in Ann Arbor,” she says. “I plan on being here probably till the end of the year, so I’m waiting for somebody to give me an offer and sweep me off my feet. I don’t have a deadline really.”
Flashback: Table Talk: Afternoon Delight (July 2020)
Another downtown mainstay, Shalimar, at 307 S. Main, is listed at $1 million by Colliers Ann Arbor. Veteran broker Jim Chaconas says the Indian restaurant’s most recent partnership group is down to one owner-operator who feels overwhelmed—“Great spot, turnkey, [they] just put a new heat and cooling system in.”
Bløm Mead + Cider, at 100 S. Fourth Ave., is for sale via Swisher Commercial for $425,000, which includes brewing equipment, the taproom, licenses, intellectual property, and seller training and support. Lauren Bloom and Matt Ritchey launched the craft production and community space in 2018.
One block south, Amanda Debek says there’s been some interest in the House of Chimney Cakes Café she opened two years ago. She’s seeking $300,000 but knows that overhead costs and a competitive discretionary dessert sector are challenges. Lacking a sale, she plans to rebrand to make the most of her investment in the leased space.
Road construction during her busiest season “was a total, total crash for us,” she laments. “Our numbers went down over 50 percent weekly because of that.”
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Dave and Beth Ziegler have been looking since last year to retire and sell their Grand Traverse Pie Company franchise at 291 N. Zeeb. Chaconas—who’s listing the bakery/restaurant at $750,000—is optimistic, while noting that lease renegotiations and franchising issues take time.
Sonca Luu tells the Observer she plans to focus more on her beauty-related establishments and aims to sell South University stalwart Kang’s Korean Restaurant, one of three eateries she purchased last year.
Related: Two Vietnamese Spots on E. Liberty (Nov. 2025)
Cheesesteak destination Mr. Spots, at 808 S. State since 1986, was listed in 2024 for $1.2 million, now updated to $649,900. Chaconas says they were hurt by the bike lane that replaced street parking, but new housing nearby bodes well. “I think they’re just going to operate and see if the business comes back,” he says.
Chaconas doesn’t necessarily infer a trend or systemic issue behind the number of establishments seeking a successor. “Most of the times, the sales are people aged out,” he says. “It’s not the business.” But that’s not to gloss over the challenges.
“To run a restaurant these days, it’s so hard,” he says. “Labor, property taxes are jumping through the roof, and expenses, and then food costs—they change, like, daily.”
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