Ann Arbor Observer • 25th March 2026

Mom Bosses of Ann Arbor - Ann Arbor Observer

At the Mom Boss Power Lunch last December, a mom breastfeeds her newborn and a giggling toddler runs free, while more than a dozen women enjoy a vegetarian Indian buffet and talk about their latest business ventures. For them, motherhood isn’t secondary to entrepreneurship—instead, they blend the two, and support one another along the way.
“When you put women in a room together, inevitably amazing things are gonna happen,” says Ariel Wan, whose nonprofit the Mamas Network cohosted the event with...

Ann Arbor Observer • 24th February 2026

Menopause Matters - Ann Arbor Observer

Christy DeBurton says perimenopause was “a rollercoaster I was not prepared for.” The Ann Arbor yoga and wellness instructor experienced symptoms including mood swings, insomnia, heart palpitations, and hot flashes. “I thought I was healthy and I did all the things, and it still really hit me.”
Not to be confused with menopause, which is when a woman has gone twelve consecutive months without a period and her ovaries are no longer producing hormones, perimenopause is a transitional state charact...

Ann Arbor Observer • 22nd December 2025

John Hilton: Ann Arbor's observer

In the late 1970s, John Hilton was working nights installing windshield wiper motors in Ford Granadas at the Wayne assembly plant. One morning, he stopped at the former Kroger on Broadway St. and saw “a little green stand with Observers in it.” The discovery would change his life.
Hilton says he “fell deeply in love” with the publication and what he calls its “affectionate, no bullshit” style. In 1982 he traded his $39,000 Ford job for a $13,500 staff writing position. Last October, he retired a...

Ann Arbor Observer • 6th October 2025

Woodturner Susan Kizer

On a September morning, Susan Kizer opens the door to the cheerfully cluttered brick carriage house behind her Main St. home. There’s a light layer of sawdust on her work tables, and wood of all varieties—from South American purpleheart to a maple burl she discovered in an antique shop—surrounds her. Anchoring the space is “Tinkerbell”—her nickname for the 750-pound lathe she uses to create her one-of-a-kind wood pieces.
“I’ll stand here and look at all of this and just enjoy thinking about what...

Ann Arbor Observer • 25th April 2025

Sheila Schueller: Promoting pollinator-friendly landscapes

It’s a cold spring afternoon, but ecologist Sheila Schueller is determined to find signs of life in her backyard pond. She scoops a wiggling alien-looking creature into her net. “Ooh, you see how it has baby wings right there?” she asks. Come summer, she explains, this nymph with the bulging eyes will emerge as a dragonfly and “eat up” any mosquitoes.
Schueller, fifty-two, delights in making connections in nature and helping others to do the same. A lecturer for the U-M School for Environment an...

Ann Arbor Observer • 25th November 2024

Speed Skater Jace Mendoza

In many ways, Jace Mendoza is a typical twelve-year-old. He likes to play video games with friends, watch YouTube videos, and eat pizza. But one thing sets Jace apart from his peers: He’s training to become a world-champion speed skater.
From the time Jace could walk, “he’s always tried to get to the finish line first,” says his dad, Jeff. Introduced to traditional “quad” skates at a kindergarten class party, he quickly moved to inline skates, convinced his parents to enroll him in speed-skating...

Ann Arbor Observer • 7th October 2024

All in the Family: A fiddler at home in the country

Steve Lesko says he “really lucked out” with his next-door neighbors. They don’t mind if he plays his music loud, they let him pop in any time for a home-cooked meal, and he’s always welcome to borrow their tools. That’s because Lesko’s neighbors are his parents. 
During Covid, Lesko was living with his parents, Lynn and Mike, and his grandmother Barbara, when their longtime neighbor put her house up for sale. The Leskos bought it, and its renovation became a father-son pandemic project. Ten min...

Ann Arbor Observer • 7th October 2024

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Early one morning two years ago, Gail Kuhnlein left her beloved home in Pittsfield Township’s Hidden Creek subdivision for heart surgery and almost didn’t return. 
Kuhnlein, now sixty, suffered complications during the scheduled repair of a congenital defect in her mitral valve, and was in a medically induced coma for weeks before she recovered. When she returned two months later to the home she shares with her husband, Tim, it was with a new perspective on life. “This,” she says, “is all bonus...

Ann Arbor Observer • 15th August 2024

My Neighborhood: Logan - Ann Arbor Observer

Earlier this year, Kimberly Baker Crouch’s family sold the house on N. Fourth Ave. that five generations of Bakers had called home, and she and her niece Brianna Murphy moved to an apartment on Ann Arbor’s northeast side. 
“It’s amazing how a house can become part of you,” Kimberly says of the move as she sits with Brianna in their new living room surrounded by family photos. The transition was emotional but the pair have found a “peaceful and quiet” oasis at Parkway Meadows apartments, Kimberly...

Ann Arbor Observer • 15th August 2024

My Neighborhood: Haisley - Ann Arbor Observer

When Marta Dabis first visited Great Oak Cohousing, she says, “I immediately knew that I had arrived home.” A Hungarian native and Zen Buddhist priest, Dabis says her neighborhood, where she’s lived since 2017, “feels like Europe inside,” with its colorful buildings clustered close together, community gardens, walking paths, and residents who know each other by name. 
As Dabis sits under a pergola on a Sunday afternoon, surrounded by lush native plants and birdsong, neighbors stop to say hello....

Ann Arbor Observer • 25th January 2024

William and Diane Pemberton: Mast Shoes' most comfortable pair

When William Pemberton’s twenty-six-year marriage ended in 2011, he says, “In a lot of ways I thought my life was over.” But as the longtime business manager of Mast Shoes, he’d always been close to his fellow staff members, whom he calls “a family.” And as he navigated his divorce, a coworker named Diane Rosecrans seemed to understand his challenges better than most.
“My parents were divorced when I was a kid, and my breakup with my first husband was painful,” she explains. “I just kept telling...

Ann Arbor Observer • 4th October 2023

Peanut's Neighborhood - Ann Arbor Observer

Tucked away at the end of a long dirt driveway near a pond in what Marsi Parker Darwin calls “the wilds of Waterloo,” lives a very famous chicken named Peanut. Marsi and her husband, Bill Darwin, have a hundred other birds on their thirty-seven-acre farm—including chickens, ducks, peacocks, guinea fowl, and a few parrots—but Marsi’s bantam hen, Peanut, age twenty-one, stole the spotlight earlier this year after she was named the “World’s Oldest Living Chicken” by the Guinness Book of World Recor...

Ann Arbor Observer • 10th August 2023

My Neighborhood: Angell - Ann Arbor Observer

It was fall 1977 when Eliza and John Woodford moved their young family from Montclair, New Jersey, to Ann Arbor for John’s new job in Dearborn with the Ford Times. John had left his copyediting job at the New York Times because the newspaper’s switch to computers was causing him vision problems.
“I just said, ‘We’re going to live in Ann Arbor,’” Eliza recalls. “I knew it was a college town and it would have good schools.” After rejecting newer subdivisions, they walked into the 1930s-era three-b...

Ann Arbor Observer • 5th May 2023

From Nepal, With Love

Curt Winans describes his wife Menuka as “a magnet” for people. When she moved to Chelsea in 2016 from Kathmandu, Nepal, with her eighteen-month-old daughter Melisha, she didn’t have a driver’s license and didn’t speak English well. But that didn’t stop her from getting to know her new town—and the people in it.
“I would push Melisha in her stroller, even through the snow,” says Menuka, who lives with her family in a circa-1900 home decorated with a string of Nepalese prayer flags a couple of bl...

Ann Arbor Observer • 23rd February 2023

Scott Carter: Adrenaline junkie turned yogi

Yoga instructor Scott Carter sits by the front window of TeaHaus on a recent winter afternoon with a black driving cap atop his head and a cup of herbal tea in his hands. As owner of Yoga with Carter—which offers virtual and in-person classes at different venues around Ann Arbor—he’s on a quest to make yoga “accessible to everyone.”
“My body was so abused for so many years, and I was taught to pay no attention to that,” explains Carter, fifty-five, a former Junior A-level hockey player and motoc...

Ann Arbor Observer • 25th April 2022

Stacie Sheldon: Sharing Michigan's indigenous language

Stacie Sheldon believes Native people have an invisibility problem. “We’re often an afterthought or put into the ‘other’ category,” says the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) descendant. She is working hard to change that. As cofounder of Ojibwe.net, Sheldon draws on her background as a user experience researcher and designer to bring Anishinaabemowin—the language of Michigan and the Great Lakes watershed—to a wider audience. 
“I think our language and our culture are exceptionally beautiful,” says Sheldon,...

Ann Arbor Observer • 28th March 2022

The Original Fool: FestiFools founder Mark Tucker

After fifteen years, Tucker is saying goodbye to Ann Arbor’s giant puppet parade for new creative pursuits. FestiFools will live on through its nonprofit, WonderFool Productions, and its partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library (see Events, p. 53). But Tucker—art director and visual arts instructor for U-M’s Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts—will bring his next creative gig to the U-M Museum of Art this summer.
Titled “FUN,” the exhibit invites the community to create giant, moveabl...

Ann Arbor Observer • 16th February 2022

For the Love of the Game: Mark Wiseman is living his childhood dream

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Wiseman listened to Detroit Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell religiously. “It was the soundtrack of summer,” he says.
“I’d always idolized people who did play-by-play,” explains Wiseman, forty-seven, who’s also a lifelong Red Wings hockey and Michigan football fan. He dreamed of being a radio announcer but knew those jobs were scarce. After getting a telecommunications degree from EMU and settling into a career at Thomson Reuters, he enjoyed his own version of play-by-pla...

Ann Arbor Observer • 18th November 2021

Phil D'Anieri: Appalachian Trail biographer

Phil D’Anieri sits by the front window of the downtown Sweetwaters in a baseball cap and glasses with his laptop and coffee at hand. For almost a decade he’d come here to work on his first book, The Appalachian Trail: A Biography–a project that began as a hobby and was published this summer. The New York Times calls it a “stalwart biography” and named it a recommended book of the week.
“It’s only 270 pages, but for the time it took me it should be War and Peace,” D’Anieri laughs. A U-M lecturer...

Ann Arbor Observer • 20th October 2021

Tyrone Hicks: Lessons in life and basketball

“It was probably the hardest coaching year of my life,” says Pioneer High girls’ varsity basketball coach Tyrone Hicks. “On top of Covid we went through an extremely volatile election cycle. It was layer upon layer of craziness.” Though he kept in touch with his team during lockdown via group chat and Zoom and encouraged them to stay active, he often worried about their physical and mental health.
Though he understood the reasoning, Hicks says he was “disheartened” that Ann Arbor’s schools and i...

Ann Arbor Observer • 17th August 2021

Raquel Arevalo: Advocate for "first-gen" U-M students

Raquel Arevalo recalls her mother waking her and her sisters up so early that “we’d be in the van waiting for the sun to rise.” During summers in Ada, Minnesota, they worked in the sugar beet or soybean fields. In the fall they harvested apples in St. Joseph, Michigan. And in the winter they returned home to the Rio Grande Valley, completing their seasonal cycle of migrant farm work.
“It was a hard life, but it was a simple life,” says Arevalo, thirty-four. Today, she brings that experience to...

Ann Arbor Observer • 24th April 2021

Jimena Loveluck: A whirlwind year for Washtenaw County's health officer

Jimena Loveluck was only a few months into her new job as ‘Washtenaw County’s health officer when ‘Covid-19 hit. She and her staff at the county health department entered pandemic response mode and haven’t looked back–often working up to twelve-hour days with little time off.
“I feel I don’t even have time to reflect on the year,” says Loveluck. In March, as the department led local mass vaccination efforts and coordinated vaccination strategy, it also marked the one-year anniversaries of the f...

Ann Arbor Observer • 24th December 2019

Joe Eadie: Kerrytown's Santa

No one notices Joe Eadie as he sips peppermint tea at a coffee shop–until the bespectacled sixty-eight-year-old with white hair and beard, bushy eyebrows, and a red baseball cap lets out a loud “Ho, ho, ho!” and a hearty laugh.
A guy working at his laptop turns and stares: Santa is in the building.
Eadie says the look is “God-given.” But he’s been honing the laugh and other skills for almost a decade as the resident Santa at Kerrytown Market & Shops, making appearances at its tree lighting, Ki...

Ann Arbor Observer • 17th June 2019

Maurice Archer: Break dance teacher

It’s the final class of Rec & Ed’s winter session, and break dancing teacher Maurice Archer is hosting a dance-off so his students can demonstrate their moves. As each takes a turn inside the circle, some spin, flip, and freeze like pros, while others dance upright to the beat of the music. Archer, thirty-nine–dressed in jeans, T-shirt, high-tops, and a black cap–cheers them all on with equal gusto.
“Ooh! Fresh!” he shouts. “You bring the energy!”
Archer’s taught break dancing for a decade, an...

Ann Arbor Observer • 27th January 2019

Eileen Spring: Food Gatherers' "Carrot Queen"

It’s the last day of “Rockin’ for the Hungry,” Food Gatherers’ biggest fundraising drive of the year. Outside the Kroger store on S. Maple, Eileen Spring, bundled in a sweater, puffy vest, and scarf, is chatting with staff and volunteers as 107.1 radio’s Martin Bandyke and John Bommarito host one final afternoon broadcast.
A well-dressed older man approaches the group and donates $100. “Woohoo! Thank you!” Spring exclaims, pumping her fist in the air.
For almost twenty-five years, Spring, fift...

Ann Arbor Observer • 20th September 2018

My Neighborhood: Dicken - Ann Arbor Observer

After almost eighteen years in the Dicken neighborhood, the Drabeks–Nancy, David, and daughters Grace, fifteen, and Ava, thirteen–had outgrown their small ranch home. They needed more space but didn’t want to leave the neighborhood.
When a friend spied a Realtor pounding a “For Sale” sign into the front yard of a spacious brick ranch on a tree-lined street just a couple blocks away, she texted Nancy. By the following day the Drabeks had put an offer on it.
Nancy, who grew up in Dearborn Heig...

Ann Arbor Observer • 30th November 2019

Adventures in the Humanities: A mom returns to high school

Last fall, during “capsule night” at Pioneer High, one of my son’s teachers mentioned that parents were welcome to audit the class. Judging from the laughter, I don’t think most parents took her invitation seriously. Unfortunately for my son, Adam, I did.
Back in the Eighties, I’d chosen more of a “CliffsNotes version” of high school, skating by with a 3.0, and ending my academic career at a bachelor’s degree. Now, with three kids tackling a challenging AAPS curriculum, I realized how much I’d...

Ann Arbor Observer • 19th August 2019

Chelsea Fair's Demolition Derby: Bring on the noise.

As the crowd streams into the arena for the Chelsea Community Fair Demolition Derby, I’m still waiting in a long line to buy a bucket of French fries. When I finally find my kids in the bleachers, I relish the end-of-summer scene: colorful carnival rides are lit up in the distance, smiling families munch popcorn, and the setting sun casts a golden glow on the stands. Then I brace for the noise.
One by one, big old, beat-up cars barrel into the muddy arena to take their positions. The starting fl...

Ann Arbor Observer • 5th January 2019

Girl Power: Growing up with U-M's sports heroes

Jessie was nine when she spied her at the Pittsfield library. She gave me a nudge. “Mom!” she whispered loudly, “It’s Nicole Elmblad!”
Elmblad, then a captain on the U-M women’s basketball team, was Jessie’s favorite player. She’d met her a couple of times at postgame autograph sessions. When she went up to say hello, Elmblad smiled warmly and said, “I remember you!” Jessie beamed.
If your sports hero takes the time to notice you, it can make your day. If you’re an Ann Arbor girl and you grow...

Ann Arbor Observer • 28th September 2017

The Mindfulness Experiment: My yearlong search for inner calm

Since I’m the mom of two teens and a tween, my life can get frenzied and stressful. I’ve longed for more meaningful and relaxed moments. So last year, I signed up for a class in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). It’s based on the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who calls mindfulness “paying attention in a particular way–on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” The course incorporates meditation as well as informal mindfulness techniques that students can use in everyday lif...

Ann Arbor Observer • 6th July 2016

Magical World: Adventures at the U-M's biostation

My journey with my teenage son to the U-M Biological Station began in an unlikely place: Jazzercise. That’s where I met a friendly lady named Carol. I often chatted with her after class, and one day she mentioned that her husband had recently retired as a U-M professor specializing in fish biology.
“No way!” I shrieked: fish biology is my son’s obsession. When I returned home I shared the news with my husband: “Only in Ann Arbor!” I said.
We moved here nearly twenty years ago for my husband’s j...

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels

Ann Arbor Observer • 30th June 2015

Beard Love: Inside Ann Arbor's beard boom

Beards are back. And they’re getting a lot of attention.
Aaron Wilson, age twenty-eight, and winner of Ann Arbor’s Best Beard Contest, says random women often stop to compliment him on his “well-groomed” beard. And Ryan McIntosh, a twenty-two-year-old U-M student with a beard fit for a lumberjack, gets high fives and “nice beard!” greetings from complete strangers.
“I think every generation [of men] has a way to show its manliness,” explains Hadley Whittemore, the big-bearded thirty-three-year-o...

Ann Arbor Observer • 22nd December 2012

Hockey Mom: Friday nights at Vets.

I lug my heavy hockey bag into the locker room at Veterans Memorial Ice Arena on a Friday evening and join a few of my teammates who are already suiting up. Once I strap on my pads, lace up my skates, and secure my helmet, a glimpse in the mirror reveals a fierce masked competitor, but inside is a nervous novice. I just started chasing my hockey dreams at age forty-two, and tonight’s my first game. If it weren’t for my supportive teammates and MACRHL (Michelle and Camille’s Recreational Hockey L...

Ann Arbor Observer • 1st September 2010

Starstruck: Sky gazing with the University Lowbrow Astronomers

The sun is starting to set as we drive down the dirt road deep into Stinchfield Woods north of Dexter to U-M’s Peach Mountain Observatory. My eleven-year-old son and I have come for a closer look at the night sky with the University Lowbrow Astronomers—a club of amateur astronomy enthusiasts that meets monthly and hosts open houses twice a month for the public.
We’d made the trek to the mountain the previous week for an open house, but clouds rolled in just before dusk and dashed our hopes. That...

Ann Arbor Observer • 27th August 2009

The German Park Picnic: Happiness by the bucketful

As our minivan makes its way north on Pontiac Trail for our annual trip to the German Park Picnic, we spot a man waving a red flag in the distance, and we know we’ve reached our destination. He’s one of more than a hundred German Park Recreation Club members who host an evening of German merriment three Saturdays every summer at this wooded oasis north of Ann Arbor.
The park’s gates haven’t even opened, and there’s already a long line of people waiting near the entrance. We can never seem to bea...

Ann Arbor Observer • 6th October 2025

In Chelsea, the Joy of Books and Painting - Ann Arbor Observer

“It was completely bonkers!” recalls Michelle Tuplin, owner of Serendipity Books, about how her store’s April move from Middle St. to Main went viral. When a “book brigade” of 300 locals moved Serendipity’s 9,100-book inventory in a human chain to the new location, bookseller Kaci Friss captured it on video and posted it to TikTok. More than 2.5 million views later, the store—and the Chelsea community—have garnered coverage from major news outlets, and Tuplin’s fielded interviews from reporters...

Ann Arbor Observer • 6th October 2025

The Coulsons Open Main Street Provisions  - Ann Arbor Observer

On a September weekday at lunchtime, husband-and-wife chefs Phil and Vanessa Coulson work side-by-side near the front windows of Main Street Provisions. Open since February, the shop offers artisan cheeses, meats, and gourmet food items in the Sylvan Building, next door to Agricole Farm Stop.
The pair prepares a cheese and charcuterie board for Kimber Zatkovich and her coworker, Elise Brantley. The owner of marketing firm Custom Ideation across the hall, Zatkovich says she’s “a regular,” and is...

Ann Arbor Observer • 6th October 2025

CD Top Shelf Expands to Chelsea: The bar and grill opens in Arctic Coliseum.

In September, hockey dad and entrepreneur Matthew Kavanaugh opened CD Top Shelf bar and grill in Arctic Breakaway’s former space upstairs in Chelsea’s ice arena. Kavanaugh says the restaurant will “focus on fresh,” and include pizzas, plus chopped sandwiches and salads. He’ll also offer Arctic Breakaway “fan favorites,” including batter-fried chicken tenders, shrimp, and cod. The bar will feature craft cocktails, beer, and wine, including a wine slushie machine through Memphis, Michigan’s Sage C...

Ann Arbor Observer • 25th June 2025

Driver’s Ed for All: A parent-led foundation aims to overcome financial barriers.

Three Pioneer High School moms have joined forces to fund driver’s education classes for thirty-six Pioneer students in the upcoming school year. It’s a pilot project for their new Drive Forward Foundation, which aspires to provide fully funded driver’s education for underserved students throughout Washtenaw County.
Dani Jones, who is the media director for the Ann Arbor Observer, spearheaded the initiative after learning one of her son’s friends couldn’t afford driver’s ed classes.
“Everyone ag...

Ann Arbor Observer • 7th October 2024

Chelsea Outfitters Moves and Grows

Megan Trenary, who opened Chelsea Outfitters last year with her husband, Matt, has quadrupled the general store’s space with their move across the street to the historic Kempf Bank building on the corner of Main and Middle.
The couple, who sell everyday goods for sustainable living, pulled up carpets, removed a drop ceiling, and painted, but Trenary says the old building—with tall windows and expansive wall space—was already a dream come true: “I appreciate well-made things even with their imper...

Ann Arbor Observer • 7th October 2024

Dan Kolander Is Back in Town - Ann Arbor Observer

Dan Kolander was too busy to take on the former Seitz’s Tavern space when Randy Seitz retired. When he saw it was for rent again, he jumped at his second chance. | Photo by J. Adrian Wylie
Husband-and-wife team Dan and Sarah Kolander—longtime owners of Dan’s Downtown Tavern in Saline—purchased Chelsea Burger, in the space formerly occupied by Seitz’s Tavern. In an interview before a planned late-September opening, Dan Kolander says they’ll serve a “simple, easy menu” of burgers, sandwiches, wrap...

Ann Arbor Observer • 22nd December 2023

FestiFools Returns - Ann Arbor Observer

“I felt some community responsibility to bring it back,” says Tucker, who’s art director and visual arts instructor for the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts. He launched the event in 2007 with students in his Art in Public Spaces class, but moved on to new creative pursuits after 2022’s parade.
The parade’s nonprofit organization, WonderFool Productions (later renamed Assembli), worked with other community partners to try to keep FestiFools and its companion events, FoolMoon and ypsiGLOW,...

Ann Arbor Observer • 10th August 2023

Friends of the Library - Ann Arbor Observer

From cookbooks to crime novels and poetry to prose, Rachel Pastiva says customers can find “gems” in every genre at the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library’s book shop.
Pastiva is executive director of Friends, now celebrating its seventieth year. The nonprofit sells books donated by the community—as well as games, puzzles, and other items—at its book shop, online store, and on bookshelves at the library’s branches, to raise money for the library. In recent years, Friends has donated $100,...

Ann Arbor Observer • 5th May 2023

Chelsea Outfitters - Ann Arbor Observer

On a weekday afternoon, Mack and Lilly Trenary munch on an after-school snack in the back of their family’s new Main St. shop, Chelsea Outfitters. The general store, which offers sustainable alternatives for everyday products, opened in March when Culture Creations moved across the street.
Megan Trenary, who owns the shop with her husband Matt, says their kids are already making it their own. Mack, age nine, likes to do his homework in the store and wants to work the cash register. Lilly, seven,...

Ann Arbor Observer • 4th October 2022

New Life on Main St. in Chelsea - Ann Arbor Observer

The former Vogel’s and Foster’s clothing store on S. Main in Chelsea is now home to two retailers with local ties who’ve split the 5,000-square-foot space. Whitetail—Mary Baude’s design, home, and lifestyle shop—moved from Dexter at the end of September, and Julie Konkle’s FarmSudz—a handmade natural skin-care store—relocated in July from its basement digs across the street. The two stores continue a retail tradition in the building that started more than 130 years ago with H.S. Holmes Mercantil...

Ann Arbor Observer • 23rd September 2022

Palgong Tea Opens in Woodland Plaza - Ann Arbor Observer

Jeanne Park’s entire family pitched in to handle the grand opening crowd September 2 at Palgong Tea, Park’s new bubble-tea shop in the former Espresso Royale in Woodland Plaza. Her eldest son, Yeajoon Lee, a recent U-M business grad, came up with a brilliant social media promotion—free tea for a year for the first eighty customers—that had some people  lined up before dawn. Yeajoon managed customer flow while his sister, Yeajee, and brother, Yeahoon, worked the register and prepared drinks, whil...

Ann Arbor Observer • 25th May 2022

Ricewood Expands to Maple Village - Ann Arbor Observer

“It’s the first time we’ll be on our own,” Frank Fejeran says of Ricewood Maple, the barbecue place he opened in early May with his co-owner and brother, Gabe Golub. “We don’t have ‘Daddy York’ helping us out.” 
Tommy York had helped the brothers get their start in 2015 when they launched Ricewood out of a food truck behind Morgan & York. After York renovated and revamped his business with new partners, the brothers moved inside the renamed York in 2019 to sell out of a permanent space. “He’s th...

Ann Arbor Observer • 4th May 2022

Jason Povlich's Master Plan Unfolds - Ann Arbor Observer

“It’s been beautiful and painful,” Jason Povlich says. In October 2020, Povlich and his wife, Suzei, opened the Grateful Crow fusion burger and sushi bar in the Clocktower Complex. 
“We were in the middle of a buildout in the middle of the pandemic,” he recalls. “We questioned whether we’d go forward.” But Povlich, who owns four Jet’s Pizza locations, including one in Clocktower Commons, says “this was always our long-term plan ever since Back to the Roots,” their former sushi bar and breakfast...

Ann Arbor Observer • 3rd January 2021

A Wrong Made Right - Ann Arbor Observer

It took fifty-nine years, but in November, Don Simons finally received the high school award he deserved.
Don “the Bomb” was a senior standout in football, basketball, and track at Ann Arbor High in 1961 and was in the running to win the “Most Athletic” student award and a coveted spot in the yearbook. But after the votes were tallied, another senior’s name was announced instead.
Fast forward to 2007, when Simons met up with some of his football teammates at Weber’s to honor their high school...

Ann Arbor Observer • 12th November 2020

The Pot Gold Rush, Continued - Ann Arbor Observer

“It’s a flower shop again,” jokes Marcus Hart, about cannabis store Information Entropy that he opened earlier this year with Drew Hutton. The former church once housed Ken Nielsen’s Flowers. Most recently it was a daycare center. But now, cannabis products are sold at the high-profile location on Broadway and Plymouth Rd. The pot is sourced from Hutton’s farm in DeTour at the easternmost tip of the mainland U.P.
“We’ve been best friends since we were about thirteen,” says Hutton. “We met at Top...

Ann Arbor Observer • 18th June 2020

Positivity Posters - Ann Arbor Observer

“We wanted to spread some cheer,” says Valerie Molloy about the poster project she and her husband, Ryan, launched in early April in their Dicken neighborhood. Valerie, who works for Michigan Medicine in development, and Ryan, who teaches graphic design at EMU, offer the fluorescent-colored “positivity posters” free to passersby from a wooden stand near their house. Each saying in the series (twenty-one at press time) is designed to “make people smile,” Valerie says, including, “You Got This,” “...

Ann Arbor Observer • 20th June 2019

Old Building, New Mission - Ann Arbor Observer

The first floor of Chelsea’s long-vacant Mack Building will be reborn this summer as Agricole Farm Stop, a year-round, everyday farmers market and cafe. Modeled after Ann Arbor’s Argus Farm Stop, Agricole will sell exclusively local products–including produce, dairy, eggs, meat, bread, and prepared foods–with 75 percent of the revenue going directly to local farmers and producers. Cafe sales will help cover costs.
“Small businesses struggle, and groceries struggle, but if you have a mission to...

Ann Arbor Observer • 15th June 2018

Craft Drinks Converge Downtown - Ann Arbor Observer

Two drinking establishments are set to open on Main St. this summer. Ugly Dog Distillery, which launched eight years ago on North Territorial Rd., is turning the long-vacant UAW hall into a tasting room for its handcrafted vodka, gin, and rum. Chelsea Alehouse Brewery, which opened nearly six years ago in the Clocktower Complex, will reopen a couple blocks south in Just Imagine’s old spot in the heart of downtown with an expanded menu and beer selection.
Alehouse owners Chris and Aubrey Martinso...

Ann Arbor Observer • 13th April 2018

Rival Papers in Chelsea - Ann Arbor Observer

At the end of last year, Tom and Charla Hamilton left their advertising jobs at the Sun Times News. By mid- February, the husband-and-wife team had launched a twelve-page weekly, the Chelsea Guardian, delivered free to Chelsea residents and businesses.
The Hamiltons are printing 5,900 copies of their “hyper-local” paper, which will cover city government, school board meetings, and arts and entertainment, and have a “huge focus on high school sports,” Tom Hamilton says. “Anybody who gets a newspa...

Ann Arbor Observer • 27th November 2017

Kitty Face Opens on Main St. - Ann Arbor Observer

Bonnie and Scott Cook plan to open their fourth downtown Chelsea store, Kitty Face–featuring new and vintage children’s gifts and toys–on November 11. They’ve been renovating the space since 2015, when they purchased the former Chelsea Village Hardware with Pam and Bill Conn. The Conns have since opened two shops in their half of the building: Mule Skinner Boots, which relocated from down the street, and Wines on Main.
“It’s worth the wait,” says Bonnie of the long-running remodel. “I think w...

Ann Arbor Observer • 30th January 2017

Super Pair - Ann Arbor Observer

“We are a mystery to a lot of people,” admits Bryant-Pattengill parent Ariel Hurwitz-Greene. Her eight-year-old son Nathaniel has attended Bryant, off Stone School Rd. south of Packard, since kindergarten; next year he and his classmates will move to Pattengill, north of Packard a couple of miles west, for grades three through five. With nearly 600 students, Bryant-Pattengill is Ann Arbor’s biggest elementary district by both area and enrollment. The “super pair” embraces twelve south-side neigh...

Ann Arbor Observer • 28th December 2014

A Team of Their Own - Ann Arbor Observer

Some glide on their skates and others wobble, but in early November members of the new Huron/Skyline women’s high school hockey team are finally on the ice for their first week of practice. As Huron sophomore Miah McCallister takes a break on the bench, she smiles behind her face mask. “I didn’t realize how much fun it would be!” she says. New to hockey and the first in her family to try the sport, she’s among eighteen young women from the two schools on the inaugural combined team.
“It’s long o...

Ann Arbor Observer • 7th June 2014

"Fragments of the Great War" - Ann Arbor Observer

Forty-six pieces–including ink drawings, watercolor and acrylic paintings, and collages–make up the collection. Lewis, ninety-six, says that four years ago he “went to work with serious vigor” to assemble the project and ensure it would be completed in time for the start of the WWI centennial. For Lewis, who is “interested in history as much as art,” the work is also deeply personal–he is a WWII veteran, and four of his uncles served in WWI.
“I’ve had this stuff in my head since I was a little...

Ann Arbor Observer • 7th May 2014

Never a Bystander - Ann Arbor Observer

Four years in the making, the documentary Never a Bystander premieres this month at the Michigan Theater as part of the Jewish Film Festival (see Films, p. 73). First-time filmmaker Evelyn Neuhaus (Ann Arborites, January 2012) raised $30,000, mostly from individual donors, to complete the thirty-minute film that celebrates the life and work of retired U-M professor Irene Butter–Holocaust survivor, human rights activist, and co-creator of U-M’s Wallenberg Medal and Lecture.
The film traces Butter...