Fill ‘er up, work your core, launch the boat, taste delicious chocolate
What’s new around town this spring?
From staff reports
What services are imperative for a small town like Glen Arbor? How about a grocery store, a hardware store, a gas station and an active Chamber of Commerce.
Check three of four for Jeff and Georgia Gietzen, the Grand Rapids transplants who acquired Northwoods Hardware three years ago (and became sole owners in 2011), who have also become Chamber leaders, and this spring bought the gas station just north of town. Northwoods Filling Station now boasts vintage 1950s signage, sells gasoline and quick bites, and most importantly stays open 7 days a week, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. That’s a big improvement over having to drive to Empire or Maple City for petrol.
When the Gietzens’ acquisition of the gas station was officially announced at the Glen Lake Chamber meeting on May 14, the town’s business leaders clapped and cheered.
“Similar to the hardware store, we want the filling station to provide a viable asset to the community that won’t close,” says Jeff Gietzen. “A community needs a gas station year-round. We need to be profitable, of course, but what drives us is the good of the community.”
The hardware store has expanded its inventory to include a home and garden department, a greenhouse and a birding shed (all behind the main building), and it will also serve cold beverages to quench the thirsts of tennis and basketball players on the public courts next door. At Northwoods Hardware and Filling Station, ’50s retro images of “June” and “Donnie” will welcome customers as they stock up on building supplies, hanging plants, or gasoline.
“We want to build good energy so that good things happen,” says Gietzen. “If you go into a restaurant without good energy, you won’t go back, even if the food is fabulous. We want our businesses to have soul, a good vibe and energy.”
Fitness fun
Leelanau is consistently rated the healthiest county in Michigan, and among the healthiest nationwide. Now there’s a new way to stay fit in Glen Arbor, because as TRX trainer Stacy Jago says, “fitness should be an everyday thing.”
Jago, a 40-year-old native of Newberry in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who had a fitness studio in Los Angeles until 2009, opened a TRX facility and yoga studio in Glen Arbor’s Village Sampler Plaza on April 1 (look for a grand opening party on June 15). TRX incorporates suspension training that leverages gravity and bodyweight and allows you to perform hundreds of exercises using a system of ropes. “Train the way you move,” is Jago’s mantra. At the studio, she offers hands-on personal training because, as she says, “people get lost in the gym when they work out alone, and that makes me cry.”
When I toured the studio in early May, Jago had just returned from running the dunes in training for the upcoming M-22 Challenge, which will be her third. She had gnarly blisters on her feet from running on the hot sand, but she was determined to improve her overall time. She finished fifth overall among women at last year’s race.
Jago’s TRX studio also offers yoga classes with local instructors and recent Leelanau transplants Leda Olmsted and Amanda Jackson. (This past winter, Olmsted discovered the naturally formed ice boulders on Good Harbor Bay, whose images made national news.) They will teach traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, hot yoga during the cold months, TRX yoga with ropes, and —get this — standup paddleboard yoga on the Glen Lakes.
Visit Jago’s website and buy a workout package at GlenArborFitness.com. Or drop in for a $20 individual workout.
Vacancies and moves
We’re less than two years removed from the Good Morning America show’s “Most Beautiful Place in America” honor, but for some reason Glen Arbor is pocked with vacant storefronts. There are two near Ruth Conklin Gallery, and the spots formerly occupied by the Black Swan in the Village Sampler plaza and Macbeth on M-22 are also empty. The Glen Arbor Athletic Club in the old schoolhouse will also shut its doors, and memberships there will be honored at the Homestead Resort.
Mark and Jennifer Cundiff’s business Enhanced Physical Therapy moves into the space formerly occupied by Mary Turak’s Yarn Shop in the Village Sampler; the Yarn Shop will re-open later this summer in her daughter Lissa Edwards’ home on Lake Street. Meanwhile, the Glen Lake Artists gallery on Lake Street has left the old Arbor Light building and moved to a space in front of the Glen Arbor Art Association and behind Lake Street Studios. Sobran Gallery will take its place next to Petoskey Pete’s, and Cherry Republic’s corporate offices have moved upstairs.
Expansion on the Narrows
On the Narrows Marina opted for a scaled-back expansion at its spot on Big Glen Lake, just north of the Narrows Bridge. After securing permission from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the McCahill family installed an extra dock (but no new moorings), which they say will create more space for boaters to park their crafts while filling up on gasoline, use their restrooms (whether or not they are customers of On the Narrows) or buy sandwiches from McCahill’s Crossing Dairy Bar, which can be delivered across the bridge to the marina.
“I hope the community will see what we’ve done and conclude that it enhances the overall experience,” said Tom McCahill.
New owners of Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate
Over in Empire, Jody Dotson and DC Hayden have acquired Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate from Mimi Wheeler, who is happy about her semi-retirement and time to garden, catch up with friends, and visit her 9-month-old grandson in Minnesota. She will remain a consultant to the new owners and soon launch her new blog, MimisChocolate.com. There you can find recipes for delicious delicacies such as lamb stew in chocolate sauce, and granola with cocoa nibs.
“I now have time to focus on creating recipes using chocolate,” says Wheeler. “I am inspired to add deep flavored dark chocolate to savory dishes as well as using olive oils in truffles. Chocolate adds so much complexity to so many dishes.”
Dotson and Hayden are entrepreneurs and Fair Trade food advocates who believe in the relationship between consumers and farmers and also in the integral role that Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate plays within cozy Empire. Customers to the chocolate shop just south of town on M-22 will enjoy the same high-quality customer service, friendly local staff, and delicious artisanal chocolates, despite the change in ownership.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the Glen Lake Artists Gallery had moved to the Glen Arbor Art Association, instead of to its own space in front of it. We regret the error.
