Ann Arbor

Mike and Jennifer Spadafore had twins last fall. This fall they opened a twin business, Main Street Bagels, right next to their Twisters Ice Cream in Chelsea.The bagel shop was carved out of some spare space at one side of the...

Renaissance has brightened the uninspiring southeast corner of Division and Washington, formerly parking space for TCF Bank. Owner Roger Pothus regrets the loss of foot traffic he had in his former location on Main, but he says...

Most restaurants try to give things away to customers when they open, but Ann Arbor’s fourth Panera, when it opened the last week of September in Upland Green on Plymouth, was taking—asking customers to donate...

Elmo’s Hideaway, beneath Elmo’s Main Street T-Shirts, is no Birdland or Village Vanguard. Still, it sure gave owner Elmo Morales a thrill when his first paying customer was musician Dick Siegel, who reserved the...

While young Kathryn Loy, owner of Pastry Peddler, was on the phone with a technician trying to get her credit card machine to work, the older woman at the counter explained that this was exactly the kind of annoying glitch that...

Wladyslaw and Nell Narowski started out online selling big tables—really, really big tables. “They go from a five-foot table that seats six and expand up to twenty-two feet and seat twenty-four,” says Nell.Size was...

Once again, Saline’s Downtown Diner has changed hands and its name. Former owner Keith Saloum decided to pursue a career in civil engineering, so he recruited Jamal Sway, who spent a few weeks observing before deciding on...

Cupcake Station owner Kerry Johnson credits the popularity of his cupcakes to variety and portion control. “If you’re having a party with twelve people, you can come in and get twelve different kinds of...

Mahek reestablished the Indian restaurant presence on East Washington in late August, a year after Shalimar Cafe’s departure left it a curry-free zone. The new restaurant was still young and uneven during my visits in...