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Five businesses. Five regions. One state worth knowing.
Michigan is 96,000 square miles of people building something. This week we found five of them. We found a brewery tucked inside a state park in the Upper Peninsula to a bookstore that has been anchoring a Detroit neighborhood for more than three decades. Every one of them is independent, locally owned, and worth your attention.
Upper Peninsula
Tahquamenon Falls Brewery & Pub
Paradise, MI
There are not many places in the world where you can watch one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi and then walk inside for a pasty and a Blueberry Wheat Ale. Tahquamenon Falls Brewery & Pub is one of them.
Owner Lark Ludlow is the granddaughter of Jack Barrett, the founder whose vision shaped everything you see here. In 1996, the brewery and pub were built inside Tahquamenon Falls State Park as a logging camp come to life: stone fireplace, rustic long bar, wildlife art, and a micro brewery that Lark operates herself as master brewer. The Harvest Wheat, the Black Bear Stout, the Porcupine Pale Ale. Every beer is brewed on site, available in collectible half gallon bottles.
The food is as Michigan as it gets. Fresh caught Lake Superior Whitefish, homemade pasties with gravy, bison burgers, broasted chicken. Visitors have been coming from across the world for decades, and the people of the U.P. have been coming back for longer.
Open seven days a week for the spring and summer season, 11am to 8:30pm.
Tahquamenon Falls Brewery & Pub 24019 Upper Falls Drive, Paradise, MI 49768 (906) 492-3300 tahquamenonfallsbrewery.com facebook.com/p/Tahquamenon-Falls-Brewery-100089973152988
Northern Lower Peninsula
Crow's Nest Restaurant and Catering
Harbor Springs, MI
The building started as a home. In 1953, Andy and Sophie Wrona turned it into the Crow Bar. More than 70 years later, it is still standing, still feeding Northern Michigan, now as the Crow's Nest Restaurant and Catering under Chef and owner Bob Vala.
Bob graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1987, and the philosophy he brought back to Harbor Springs is rooted in what Northern Michigan actually produces. Fresh lake perch pulled from cold water. Salmon prepared simply. Local morels in season, used the way people here have used them for generations. The result is a menu that does not need to pretend to be anything other than what it is: exceptional regional cooking in a place you would drive an hour to reach.
The Crow's Nest sits one and a half miles from the Tunnel of Trees. Thursday through Saturday, 5pm to 9pm, the kitchen opens for dinner. Come for the perch. Stay for the woodstove when the weather turns.
Crow's Nest Restaurant and Catering 4601 N State Rd, Harbor Springs, MI 49740 (231) 526-6011 crowsnest-harborsprings.com facebook.com/crowsnestrestaurantandcatering
Mid Michigan
Groovy Donuts
Williamston, MI
Andrew Gauthier was not a baker. He was a former investment banker who went looking for a good donut one afternoon and could not find one. Every option was a chain, a convenience store, or something that was not worth the calories. So he went home and wrote a business plan.
Groovy Donuts opened in Williamston in March 2015. A second location in East Lansing followed the same year. The concept was simple: an old school community donut shop with a 1960s and 70s vibe, where every donut is baked during the midnight shift so it is genuinely fresh when you walk in the door. Not baked the day before. Not a corporate formula. Made every single night, by hand, with quality ingredients.
The results speak for themselves. Andrew and his wife Monica, who co owns the business, have been named Entrepreneurs of the Year by the Greater Lansing Entrepreneurial Awards. Groovy Donuts has earned four straight years of profitability and landed on nearly every "Best Donuts in Michigan" list worth reading. Some customers have ordered the exact same donut for nine straight years.
Open Thursday through Sunday, 7am to 1pm.
Groovy Donuts 313 W Grand River Ave, Williamston, MI 48895 (517) 996-6300 groovydonuts.com facebook.com/groovydonuts
West Michigan
Sweetwater Local Foods Market
Muskegon, MI
In 2005, Sweetwater Local Foods Market opened and became Michigan's first farmers market dedicated exclusively to locally grown, organically produced food. No exceptions. Every vendor signs a pledge.
That means everything at Sweetwater (the produce, the meats, the eggs, the cheese, the baked goods) comes from West Michigan farms that meet strict standards around biological diversity, soil health, animal welfare, and human health. No GMOs. No synthetic ingredients. No cutting corners on the things that actually matter about where your food comes from.
What started as a mission has become a community. Farmers who could not otherwise reach customers, families who want to know exactly where their food was raised, and a market that has operated every week for two decades without compromising what it set out to do.
Open Saturdays, 9am to 12pm.
Sweetwater Local Foods Market 6401 Harvey St, Muskegon, MI 49444 (231) 286-9730 sweetwaterlocalfoodsmarket.org facebook.com/p/Sweetwater-Local-Foods-Market-100048608932547
Southeast Michigan
Source Booksellers
Detroit, MI
Janet Webster Jones started selling books while she was teaching in the Detroit public school system. She never stopped. Source Booksellers has been in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood since 1989, in its current home at 4240 Cass Ave since 2013, and last year was named Bookstore of the Year by Publishers Weekly.
The focus is nonfiction. History. Health. Spirituality. Social justice. Self knowledge. Janet and her daughter Alyson Turner, who co owns the business, built a collection that reflects what their community actually needs to read, not what an algorithm says is selling elsewhere. When they outgrow their event space, the library down the street opens its doors. When the library needs a bookseller, Janet and Alyson run over. That is what a neighborhood institution looks like.
When their building moved in 2013, customers showed up uninvited to help carry the books. One man brought his wagon. Another brought his truck. That is the kind of loyalty you build when you spend 35 years getting it right.
Open Monday through Friday, 11am to 6pm. Saturday, 10am to 6pm.
Source Booksellers 4240 Cass Ave, Suite 105, Detroit, MI 48201 (313) 832-1155 sourcebooksellers.com facebook.com/sourcebooksellers
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