by Maggie CeaseToday, I’m excited to bring you my conversation with Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor. We talk about all sorts of things, from how he ended up in Ann Arbor, to his path to becoming an attorney and a partner in the law firm of Hooper Hathaway, how he became involved in local government, and political issues, including basic services and quality of life, cultural and economic diversity, same-sex marriage, and ballot measures coming up for a vote in November. If you want to find out more about him and his work as Mayor, you can visit taylorforannarbor.com.
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by Maggie CeaseToday, I bring you an interview with Joel Panozzo, co-owner of The Lunch Room along with Phillis Engelbert.
Joel and Phillis started off hosting vegan brunches and dinner parties for friends in 2010, and then opened The Lunch Room food cart in the Mark’s Carts courtyard in the summer of 2011. If you haven’t already done so, check out my interview with Mark’s Carts founder Mark Hodesh in episode six. The Lunch Room food cart was so successful that Joel and Phillis went on to open a brick and mortar restaurant in Kerrytown in August of 2013. And then, in February of 2015, they opened a second location, The Lunch Room Bakery & Cafe, in the first floor of Huron Towers on Ann Arbor’s northeast side. In all of their locations, they’ve had a lot of success, and were awarded Best Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurant in Washtenaw County in 2016 by the Detroit Metro Times. In our discussion, you’ll learn how Joel and Phillis went from being neighbors to business partners, what it was like to open a food cart and start serving their food to the public, some of the differences between running a food cart and running a restaurant, a few of the businesses they looked to for inspiration when they were scaling up from food cart to restaurant, how Joel and Phillis develop ideas for new dishes, and what lies ahead for the future of the Lunch Room. To find out more about the Lunch Room, go to thelunchrooma2.com or find them on Facebook at facebook.com/thelunchrooma2. by Maggie CeaseZohreh moved to Michigan from Iran at the age of eighteen, and since then, has gone on to found the Pars Center, a Persian language and culture school dedicated to teaching the history, literature, and culture, of Iran. She has been running it for over 25 years in Ann Arbor.
In this interview, we talk about challenges she faced when she first came to the US, what motivated her to found the Pars Center and to continue running it over all these years, other events she hosts, and we even get to hear a favorite poem of hers by 20th century Iranian poet Ahmad Shamloo, which she reads in both Farsi, the official language of Iran, and English. The poem is called In this Cul-de-Sac. The other poets she mentions in the interview are Forough Farrokhzad and Rumi. To find out more about The Pars Center, or to contact Zohreh, you can send her an email at zohrehabani@yahoo.com. by Maggie CeaseWelcome to episode number 6 of the Aapricity Podcast! Today, I talk with Mark Hodesh. Mark is an Ann Arborite through and through. He started the Fleetwood Diner in 1972, and owned it nearly three years before selling it and purchasing Hertler Brothers Hardware (which is now Downtown Home and Garden) in 1975. After moving to Maine in 1981 and operating a historic inn there in the the 80s and 90s, he moved back to Ann Arbor, began operating Downtown Home and Garden again, and then went on to open Mark’s Carts in 2011 and Bill’s Beer Garden in 2012.
Here are the businesses we mention in this interview, with links to their websites: The Fleetwood Diner, Downtown Home & Garden (formerly known as Hertler Brothers Hardware), Mark's Carts, and Bill's Beer Garden. Mark and I met for the interview at Downtown Home and Garden, and we talked about the history of Ann Arbor, and how his businesses fit into the changing demographics of the city, where he gets inspiration for new business ideas and how he repurposes spaces to make them happen, what he does to create and run the best businesses he can, and much more. Oh, and if you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and leave a review in the iTunes Store or Google Play Music. The more reviews a podcast has, the easier it is to find it when it’s searched for. Thanks for listening! by Maggie CeaseToday, I’m delighted to bring you my interview with Hilary Lowe, who is Co-Owner of Literati Bookstore with her husband Mike Gustafson. Literati Bookstore opened in 2013, at a time when there were no other bookstores selling new books in downtown Ann Arbor. Since then, they’ve created a store that not only sells books, but also functions as a center of literary culture in Ann Arbor. We talk about how Hilary and Mike first decided to open Literati, what it means for a store to be a ‘third place’, what went into creating the physical space of Literati, tales from the manual typewriter in Literati’s basement, and what makes Hilary hopeful for the future of bookstores. During the interview, Hilary mentions a couple books by name. One of them is Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, which she calls "her favorite book". She also mentions Miss Jane by Brad Watson, which is Literati's July pick and will be available at the store then. The book she found at a used bookstore was A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. |
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