Posts

Nightmare on Ice, Miracle on Ice

,

Remembering a near-death experience on frozen Lake Michigan. It was Super Bowl Sunday of 1984, and the carefree 15-year-old girls wanted to find ice caves. Karen Gros and Bobbi Boos, students at the Leelanau School north of Glen Arbor, walked onto frozen Sleeping Bear Bay in search of tunnels and mammoth formations they expected to find on Lake Michigan. The girls suddenly found themselves on a chunk of ice that broke off from the pack and began floating away from the shore. Suddenly, the ice on which they stood began to disintegrate into smaller chunks.

Read more
/by

Leelanau Coffee’s journey from Empire to Glen Arbor

, ,

John Arens reflects on the coffee company—and Glen Arbor mainstay—he and his brother Steve launched 33 years ago. They sold the company early this year to Grand Rapids-based Schuil Coffee Co. Leelanau Coffee opened in 1992 on Lake Street, sharing a 500-square-foot space with another startup called Cherry Republic.

Read more
/by

Cherry Republic installs Glen Arbor’s first electric car chargers

One of the challenges for those embracing the switch to electric cars is finding a place to charge them when out on the road. Cherry Republic is part of the solution. It has installed Red E Electric Vehicle Fast Chargers at its headquarters in the Village Sampler shopping center in Glen Arbor, offering residents and visitors alike a way to charge their vehicles. Cherry Republic owner and CEO Bob Sutherland says he has wanted to install car chargers for several years. A noted environmentalist, he wants to make sure the company is doing its part to mitigate global warming.

Read more
/by

Cherry Republic’s December giving campaign focuses on need for housing

Each December, Cherry Republic launches a “31 Days of Giving” campaign, which in the past has supported farmers, environmental and renewable energy initiatives, and land preservation. During the first week of December 2025, the Glen Arbor-based company reported in a blog post that it is giving to organizations working to reduce the tremendous shortage of housing in Northern Michigan. The problem is particularly acute, especially here in Leelanau. “We are proud to have housing as a priority in our giving this December,” the company reported in a blog post.

Read more
/by

Saving cherries, saving farms

, ,

Cherries are the calling card of Northern Michigan. They represent our home, just as citrus speaks for Florida, or as lobsters lobby for Maine. Here in the North, orchards define our landscape, U-Picking is a cherished tradition and a slice of pie means “I love you.” But cherry farmers these days face a perfect storm of challenges, from environmental to political. Erratic swings in temperature caused by climate change threaten cherry buds in the spring; cheap foreign imports have undercut prices that U.S. farmers can expect to earn; workers needed to harvest crops have grown scarce due to unaffordable housing prices and restrictive national immigration policies; and the local real estate frenzy has disincentivized growers from staying on their land when they can sell their orchards for millions.

Read more
/by

Take the challenge. Run faster than the bear

Join the Glen Arbor Women’s Club for a fun-filled day at the “Running Bear 5K Run/Walk & ½ Mile Kids Run” on Tuesday, July 22. Come out and take the challenge as the run continues for its 18th year. The chip-timed race is a favorite with the community and visitors.

Read more
/by

Life, liberty, beaches and pie—for our foreign-born workers, for us all

,

July 4 has always been my favorite holiday since I was a young child running around Glen Arbor in the 1970s. I felt such pride being an American. Recently, our chef at the Cherry Public House told me that he saw a border patrol agent driving down M-22. He was miffed that they were patrolling Leelanau—200 miles from a border that happens to be the safest in the world. It is nerve-wracking for our foreign and local workers at Cherry Republic because we are a team and family and we don’t want to be broken up any more than the hard-working families we’ve seen on television torn apart in pools of tears these last six months. Cherry Republic is hosting a refugee family from Central America. The father has taken on the difficult job of stirring our four giant scalding jam and salsa kettles in our Empire plant. Unfortunately, because of the legal wrangling going on between the courts and The White House, our Central American refugees can no longer work. The pot stirrer in Washington shutting down the pot stirrer in Empire.

Read more
/by

Meet Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes’ new director Laura Ann Johnson

The Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes — a nonprofit partner organization to the National Lakeshore, which helps maintain the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail — invites the public to meet and welcome the organization’s new executive director, Laura Ann Johnson, at an event on Thursday, Feb. 20, from 4-6 pm at the Cherry Republic Public House. Help celebrate new horizons for Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes and enjoy some fellowship in the middle of this great winter. Light food and beverages will be provided by Cherry Republic.

Read more
/by

Sleeping Bear manhunt, Empire sugar bear, Pop-tart man Bill Post, Twin Flames wedding: Glen Arbor Sun’s top-viewed stories of 2024

Our coverage in 2024 featured crimes, celebrities, cool new businesses, and an homage to the now removed Crystal River culverts. Our top 10 most-read stories included: a manhunt in the National Lakeshore; the search for a black bear that broke into Grocers Daughter Chocolate and devoured a 50-pound bag of sugar; Jerry Seinfeld’s movie “Unfrosted” about Pop-Tart man Bill Post, and the Twin Flames Universe cult’s secretive wedding in Traverse City. Thanks for your readership. We look forward to sharing more stories of Leelanau County events, characters, businesses, and the arts in 2025. Here’s the list of our Top 10 stories by online views in 2024.

Read more
/by

True Gretch cherry salsa

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer held up her book True Gretch and a jar of Cherry Republic’s “True Gretch Cherry Salsa” at the Traverse City Opera House on July 31 after Cherry Republic founder Bob Sutherland interviewed her for the National Writers Series.

Read more
/by