New businesses, faces on the block open their doors

FisherSutherland4.jpgBy Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
No, that’s not an outhouse near the Crystal River, steps from Riverfront Pizza. Don’t do your business in there, canoers. That’s actually Hole 6 of Mike Sutherland’s new mini-golf course, The River at Crystal Bend, where an airborne putt into one of the two openings in the outhouse seat might earn you a hole-in-one (we’re not telling which one). Alright, enough of the potty humor.
Sutherland’s 18-hole mini-golf course, accessible by turning off M-22 at Oak Street by Serbin Real Estate (the old bank), seeks to provide a safe and fun setting where kids can hang out, though the whole family too will enjoy Crystal Bend. And he intends to respect the aura of the wooded, natural setting, with a nod to authentic local history. No pesticides flowing into the river, no flashing lights, bells and whistles or bright paint.


But wait, before the golfing even begins, a horse-drawn carriage will pick you up in front of the course and take you on a ride through the woods as the lowering sun turns the forest orange. You arrive at an opening in the woods and come across an old trapper, smoking a corncob pipe and guarding the dead raccoons he has caught, lamenting that the Indians wouldn’t buy his 150 pelts, leaving him hungry tonight. The wagon moves along, taking you to the beach for a magnificent sunset, before returning to Crystal Bend where you meet a man (ironically similar in stature to the trapper) dressed in traditional Indian garb, speaking in rehearsed Ojibwe for a couple minutes — like it was 150 years ago, Sutherland says.
Visitors will enter the mini-golf course through a gazebo, where the kiddies are invited to cook gourmet s’mors from Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate over a roaring open fireplace. An adjacent room will feature pinball tables, and just outside, foosball, outdoor ping-pong, bocce ball and a giant chess set. Closer to Riverfront Pizza, in the family cabin built in 1920 and formerly owned by the Zolman family, is a gift shop and gallery featuring Grace Dickinson-Johnson’s historic photographs, as well as wood-carved Indian artifacts and totems.
“Families typically get trapped when they’re here in the summer,” Sutherland says, “because they don’t know what to do with their kids. ‘Do we go and watch the sunset?’ But kids can come here to hang out. It’s great too for family reunions and birthdays parties.”
Sutherland hopes the mini-golf course, itself, will rival the nicest gardens in the county. Local gardener Cre Woodard (see her gardening column on page 2) was given a blank canvass to work with. Since breaking ground on April 1, Sutherland has prioritized the gardens along the river. His inspiration for this venture was the old Lund’s Gardens, in the swamp off M-22 near Sugar Loaf. The original question in his mind was how to make money from the gardens. He pondered, what if someone had a putter in their hand while walking through the gardens? Hence, the 18-hole course.
Sutherland boasts that 85 tons of stones and boulders and recycled lumber and windows were brought to the site, and that not a single tree on the property was removed. The birch trees anchoring the course are estimated to be 40-50 years old.
The River at Crystal Bend will open for the first time on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. of Memorial Day weekend, and remain open every day throughout the summer and weekends in the fall.
ReviveChiropractic.JessicaCarden.jpgRevived and refreshed
For the first time in recent memory, Glen Arbor has a chiropractor. Jessica Carden has opened her Revive Chiropractic Studio on M-109, steps from Synchronicity Gallery, and she brings a family craft with her. Carden is a third-generation chiropractor, and her husband Jessie, with whom she lives on a farm they are restoring near Maple City, is a chiropractor in Suttons Bay. They aspire toward a self-sustainable lifestyle, requiring as little impact as possible on the earth. She hopes, eventually, to grow exotic fruits like figs.
Carden works in Glen Arbor on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and in Lake Leelanau for Dr. Marie Genna, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. She specializes in family care, optimizing learning and communicating it to kids. “What you learn your whole life comes through your nervous system,” she says. “Why not treat it well?”
“My foundation is asking the body what it needs. I employ a very low-force, and conservative adjusting style.”
Carden admits she faces misconceptions of what a chiropractor does. “It’s not about ‘Bruce Lee maneuvers’. I’m not going to beat you up … even though I grew up playing pond hockey in New Hampshire, and gave my brothers bruises,” she jokes.
The name “Revive” is how people ought to feel after an adjustment, she says. Reinvigorated and renewed. “I want to reintroduce people to themselves. Some worry that [what ails them] will require a huge intervention to fix, but if the body is ready for change, it fixes itself.”
“I want people to leave here renewed and refreshed.”
Narrows–minded
Spontaneous boaters on the Glen Lakes will be happy about this. You no longer have to plan ahead for picnics out on the water this summer. Just call KT’s Glen Lake Bistro, which has opened up shop at the site of the former Narrows Deli/Dairy Bar, and they’ll meet you near the Narrows Bridge or at the Glen Craft Marina with your sandwiches, soups, ice cream, rotisserie chicken or still warm Otis Spunkmeyer cookies — all in a picnic basket with a compartment for a bottle of wine too. Let’s not forget Katie’s homemade salsa, for which her former colleague’s at Art’s used to line up and salivate, or her hot German potato salad and sauerkraut — a couple lecker recipes from her family heritage. Katie and husband Jeff Rabidoux (formerly of the Le Bear Resort) are thinking health conscious at the Bistro: no fried foods, low sodium. They’ll also try to emulate the Greek cuisine legend that once occupied the same space. Remember Greg Nicolau and his lamb shanks?
Katie and Jeff also plan to launch t-shirts from the bridge at boats on particularly busy traffic days. This year’s theme: “Narrows-minded” t-shirts.
Meanwhile, Jeff’s new company, the Leelanau Premier Group, will offer real estate, concierge and housekeeping services capable of pampering seasonal residents (stocking their refrigerator before they arrive, for example) just as he did at Le Bear. “In lieu of a key box,” Jeff says, “we can greet your guests or renters at the house, give them a welcome packet with upcoming events (and a copy of the Glen Arbor Sun) and offer them a contact person. We can also mow a lawn or put in a dock.”