A Glen Arbor staple, Cherry Republic celebrates 25 years

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Bob Sutherland has had quite the year.

On March 6, the Cherry Republic CEO hiked from Pyramid Point across frozen Lake Michigan to North Manitou Island (16 miles round trip), along with the company’s digital marketing guru Andrew Pritchard, marketing coordinator Andrew Moore and distribution manager Tom Bisbee.

His father Dale (for whom the reopened mini golf course Dale’s of Glen Arbor is named) attempted the trip in the late 1970s together with two of Sutherland’s brothers, but encountered open water a mile from South Manitou and had to turn back. That trip took longer than expected and Dale’s wife Mary called the Coast Guard in panic. Bob waited decades for his chance to repeat the family pilgrimage. (Read about their trip on Cherry Republic’s online “Orchard Report”.

This month, Sutherland’s company Cherry Republic—Glen Arbor’s largest employer and a poster child of the Northern Michigan tourism industry—celebrates its 25th anniversary with a party in Glen Arbor on July 25-26.

On Friday, staff will offer the first ever “tour of the Republic” which begins at Cherry Republic’s retail headquarters on Lake Street, heads via bus to a local cherry orchard, then on to a processing plant, and concludes at a cherry food factory where participants can learn how Northern Michigan cherries are made into 170 different Cherry Republic products. Tours are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. That evening, Sutherland hosts a Barefoot Bistro Celebration Dinner (bare feet and t-shirts are the dress code) at 6 and 8 p.m. at the Grand Café.

On Saturday at 5 p.m., a huge BBQ buffet will commence, including slow-cooked St. Louis-style ribs brushed with cherry BBQ sauce and served with corn muffins, honey butter, coleslaw and cherry pie. Cherry Republic’s annual Talent Show follows at 7 p.m. The first-place winner will receive 25 $5 bills. Sutherland promises that this year’s talent show will include the biggest cherry-pie eating and cherry pit-spitting contests, yet.

To participate, email orchardreport@cherryrepublic.com. For the full schedule of events or to buy tickets for the tour or the dinner, click here.

“Twenty-five years ago, I was just a kid with ideas and a desire to try them out on people and see where they ended up,” Sutherland reflected. “And here I am today with thousands and thousands of ideas and tries stacked up on top of each other and pushed together into this lively creature called Cherry Republic.”

In July 1989, hairstyles were big, basketball shorts were tight, the Detroit Tigers were awful, and the Berlin Wall still marred Europe. Here in Glen Arbor, Sutherland began selling t-shirts and Cherry Boomchunka cookies from the trunk of his car (that same trunk was severed from the vehicle and is now attached to the side of Cherry Republic’s “Great Hall”). The tall and lanky Glen Lake School alum had no idea that his retail business would blossom into an empire with four locations statewide and national visibility. Despite the meteoric success, the company will never leave Glen Arbor.

“I could not imagine starting and headquartering Cherry Republic anywhere else but in Glen Arbor,” Sutherland assured. “It is a really special town—a place that attracts high achievers and people that care deeply for this land and for the community overall. Cherry Republic will continue to grow, but our headquarters will never leave Glen Arbor, because I rarely leave Glen Arbor. Our heart and soul is here.”