“With any business, you have [worry and doubt],” said Steve Nowicki about opening his Shipwreck Café in Empire late this spring. “We had all of our eggs in one basket. We put everything into this and if it didn’t work out we didn’t know what we were going to do.”

Glen Arbor’s upscale clothing scene is expanding store by store, innovative brand after innovative brand. This summer Pierre and Anne Pujos opened Flea—a spinoff of their boutique, The Exchange, which opened last July next to the Old Schoolhouse across M-22 from the Town Hall.

Chocolate making is an incredible journey. For Grocer’s Daughter this journey starts in Ecuador. Near the small town of Calceta, in western Ecuador, sits the Fortaleza Del Valle cocoa cooperative. Nearly 900 small, family cacao farms rely on the cooperative to obtain expensive Fair Trade and Organic certifications, carefully process their beans and ensure that they will be sold for a fair, living wage.

An Empire real estate development firm has cleared the first hurdle in developing a vacant three-acre strip of properties at the end of Lake Street. The complex would include the old Salisbury/Ace hardware store, the white house just south of it, the livery barn on the corner of Lake and Niagara, a house across Niagara Street to the north, and a quarter mile strip of land along South Bar Lake.

Sleeping Bear Surf & Kayak’s seventh annual SBX (Sleeping Bear X-treme) Junior Waterman Camp will take place July 24-28. Waterman camp is a unique freshwater surf camp designed and taught by water enthusiasts to create water enthusiasts.

Janice and Paul Richards are the new proprietors of Compass Rose Bakery, which opened on June 23 on the corner of M-22 and CR-677 (Benzonia Trail). They are confident that their gluten free baked goods — a product in high demand these days — will make a lasting impression in the community.

By Jacob Wheeler Sun editor When Gary Cozette and Joe Lada climb the ladder to the roof of their “Tower House” in Burdickville, they behold a breathtaking view of the Glen Lakes, with the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Lake Michigan in the distance. In their immediate foreground is an array of recently installed, cutting-edge solar […]

Glen Arbor pedestrians and shopping tourists have one more reason to walk west on M-109 this spring. Just past the Good Harbor Grill and the Pine Cone ice cream shop, Katy and Matt Wiesen have opened the clothing apparel store Coastal in the space formerly occupied by Great Lakes Tea & Spice. The tea & spice shop hopscotched west to the other side of Ruth Conklin Gallery, and now shares a space with Arabella Concepts jewelry store.

Photo by Ashlea Walter From staff reports The 14th annual Empire Asparagus Festival is set for May 19-20 in the quaint village with a quirky spirit. Festivities kick off on Friday with live music and a pig roast from 7-10 p.m. Dance, drink and be merry under the big tent downtown. The Traverse City-based funk, […]

One of the first harbingers of spring in the veggie world is asparagus, a popular early farmers market pick. People are so enthusiastic about asparagus, said third generation farmer Harry Norconk — who along with wife Barbara owns Norconk Asparagus Farm between Empire and Honor — that they begin inquiring about availability as early as April. “When you get a sunny day about 50 degrees, people start calling to ask when the asparagus will be ready,” he said.