Restaurant Sale, Farm Sale, Costco Rumors, and TV News Changes

 

BIG CHANGES ON the restaurant scene in Marquette. The latest? The Union Grill on US 41 has been sold to the owners of the Steinhaus, the German restaurant downtown.

 

No, that doesn't mean the Steinhaus, with a growing and enthusiastic clientele, is moving. It's staying right where it is.

 

Justin Fairbanks, the chef and owner of the Steinhaus, says the Union Grill location will be used to prep food for the Steinhaus, and also for catering and special events, as well as the processing of local meats. The Steinhaus is big on that.

 

But there's more. The new location (no name yet) will also open for lunch and will also retail meats, cheeses and specialty foods. Marquette foodies are jumping for joy.

 

But wait, there's more!

 

Fairbanks and his family have also bought the Dancing Crane Farm in Skandia. He'll now have a ready supply of local produce (though they're not yet set up for winter crops) and a coffee roaster. 

 

In economics, they call this "vertical integration." In culinary circles, they call it "farm to table" or "farm to fork."

 

Whatever, it's an exciting and possibly game-changing development for the restaurant business in Marquette.

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SO PROBUILD IS closing down in the middle of November. No surprise, given the intense competition for builders and contractors at that location on US-41. Lowes and Menards are literally a (long) stone's throw away.

Now begins the speculation on who might move into that prime spot.

In the lead, early on, is Costco. That rumor is rampant. Marquette Township officials have heard it but know nothing about it. Costco corporate officials in Washington state are saying nothing about it and wouldn't say anything, anyway, until they got permits.

It does seem that the ProBuild site might be a little small for a Costco, doesn't it?

Also in the running on the rumor circuit is a Meijer hyperstore. There are 100 of them downstate. Why not one in Marquette Township?

Oh, there's also the perennial rumor about the Olive Garden moving in.

And this just in! Saks Fifth Avenue is moving to the ProBuild site! No, wait, it's Bloomingdale's!
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YOU MAY HAVE noticed the big tent that's sprouted up next to Coco's.

Turns out it's for a big Halloween party this Saturday night. Everyone's invited (in costume preferably) and reportedly at least 200 revelers are expected.

Don't worry, it'll be fully enclosed, with heaters inside. To say nothing of the body heat that'll be generated.

 

More important, perhaps, is that the tent will go up again next spring as a new wedding venue in Marquette. Coco's management says they already have two weddings booked for the summer.

Coco's, by the way, had been up for sale for well over a year. No takers at the asking price. Owner Jackie Gonda (with her husband Patrick) took it off the market a few months ago. They're staying, she insists, and expanding the restaurant's operations.

Why not? It's a huge piece of property in an ideal location, across from the beach and just down the block from the Nestledown B&B which should be opening early next summer.
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TV6 HAS ADDED a new face to its 6 pm newscast.

She's Sophie Erber, fresh out of Florida. Welcome to five months of winter, Sophie, and by "winter" we don't mean 63 degrees and gloomy skies, we mean 4 degrees, 150 inches of snow, and occasional white-outs.

For now, she's co-anchoring only the six o'clock newscast with Steve Asplund but plans are for her to possibly co-anchor the 7 pm and 11 pm newscasts, as well.

So far, she comes across as attractive, poised and confident. The chemistry with the other anchors isn't quite there yet, but she certainly seems to have a future.

Suggestion: Don't let her be just a pretty face, a news "presenter." Give her serious reporting responsibilities. Investigative work maybe (something sorely lacking in the UP). Get her fingernails dirty.

TV6 would benefit, and so would she.
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DOWN THE BLOCK, Greg Peterson, the new news director at ABC 10, is trying to inject a greater aggressiveness into his tiny staff of seven.

Peterson, himself, is out on the streets. A few weeks ago, he accosted Congressman Dan Benishek and quizzed him on climate change. The interview lasted for more than a minute, an eternity on local newscasts. Critics might have thought it was embarrassing and inappropriate, but it did get ABC 10 quoted in the Huffington Post.

For better or worse, it's a new day and a new approach for the UP's ABC affiliate which has had a remarkably strong web presence but woefully weak ratings for its newscasts.

Suggestion to ABC 10: Trade your $37.50 news set (also known as "Flowers in a Pot next to a Pole") to Zach Galifianakis for his Between Two Ferns set. Between Two Ferns is decidedly more attractive than what you've got now.


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CVB Faces Dilemma, Boathouse Faces Possible Deadline, and ABC 10 Has a New Face

WANTED: DIRECTOR OF a tourism bureau in the upper Midwest in one of the most livable communities in the nation, on the shores of one of its most scenic lakes. Summer and winter tourism are growing here. Huge opportunity for the right person. Salary won't make you rich but you will be comfortable.

Well, the search has been on for several months now and the Marquette County Visitors and Convention Bureau Board has reviewed a few dozen candidates for its executive director position. At last word the board has now come up with a couple of final candidates.

Problem is, neither one of them reportedly has serious tourism experience, neither one of them is local, and one of them, if given the job, would commute to and from Marquette.

Say what?

The actual ad that the CVB has published calls for three years of tourism experience, significant knowledge of Marquette County, and an absolute willingness to travel 60 days a year and work on weekends.

So what's the story here? Why are there no qualified candidates? Is there a problem with the search effort? The salary? The benefits? The board members?

Who knows?

The current director, Pat Black, is leaving before the end of the year. She's got enormous institutional knowledge that she needs to pass along. The learning curve will be huge. Her successor should have been chosen by now, and that person should be a hospitality professional, preferably from Marquette County.

It sure seems like an exciting and challenging job in a wonderful community where good jobs are sometimes rare. Who's interested?
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TIME'S RUNNING OUT if supporters of the proposed boathouse on Lake Superior want to get the plan approved before the November election.

The current commission almost certainly would approve the boathouse--with only commissioner Sara Cambensy likely dissenting--but it has only three more regular meetings before the election, and the Planning Commission still has to give its approval before the City Commission can vote on it.

Three commissioners, all supporters of the boathouse, are stepping down in November. Will their replacements be as sympathetic? Will the boathouse become a campaign issue?

The Upper Peninsula Community Rowing Club never thought it would come down to this. They thought the boathouse would be an obvious enhancement to the city, at no cost to the taxpayers...with no serious opposition.

Wrong.

Opponents spoke up. Loudly. They started a petition drive. They wanted no further development of any kind on the shoreline.

 

So the Rowing Club changed its plans. It scaled back the size of the boathouse, it moved it adjacent to the Hampton Inn where it would be less conspicuous. It offered to raise the money for it, build it, maintain it, open up most of it to the public, donate the facility to the city and then lease it back...and they offered their first born child to the city.

Okay, the last part isn't true.

But the point is, the club is offering a helluva deal to the city with a minimal environmental impact. It's hard to believe that this commission, or the next commission, would turn it down.
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A BIG SURPRISE at ABC 10.

The newly appointed news director is Greg Peterson, a news veteran who, at one time or other, has worked at all three stations in the market, as well as the Mining Journal.

He's also worked as a freelancer and he recently started a news blog, Upper Peninsula Breaking News.

He's a newshound, with forty years in the business.

What's surprising about the hire is that Peterson is an activist, with plans to make ABC 10 an advocate for open public records and aggressive investigative journalism.

Generally, broadcast TV stations shy away from controversy. They have sponsors to answer to.

It'll be interesting to see what Peterson is able to do, especially given the limited resources he'll be dealing with at ABC 10. The station is notoriously underfunded, and is actually run by its parent station downstate in Alpena.

Peterson will also be anchoring ABC 10's newscast within a few weeks.
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AS IF CLIFFS Natural Resources needed more bad news.

Its stock price earlier this week dropped to a 52 week low of $12.73 a share, and yet TheStreet Quant Ratings still lists the stock as a "sell." Why? Because it has poor profit margins, weak cash flow, high debt management risk, and most notably, a continued slackening of demand in China.  

Other than that, things look rosy.

Locally, there's been no comment from Cliffs after a tumultuous several weeks that saw a hostile takeover of the mining company by the hedge fund, Casablanca Capital.

Casablanca has said it wants to shrink the company and sell off some assets. Does that mean there'll be changes at the Empire or Tilden Mines? Are any jobs on the cutting block? No one's talking.
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IT MAY HAVE taken Ken and Sue Schauland almost three years to finally break ground on the Nestledown Bed and Breakfast on Lakeshore Boulevard, but they certainly aren't wasting any time.

Ken and his crew have been out there almost every day in the last few weeks, and the B & B is rapidly taking shape. They're planning on getting it covered before the snow falls and then finish it up this winter and spring, and be open for guests by early summer.

It'll feature six guest rooms in the main inn, another one over the garage, and a sauna in the basement. A distinct Scandinavian theme.

Believe it or not, it'll be the only B & B located in the city limits of Marquette.

Across the street from the beach? Along a walking and biking trail? A half mile from a cute downtown flush with good restaurants and bars? Not a bad location. It sure seems like they won't have much trouble attracting guests.
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NO CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY yet at the much anticipated dinner theater planned for the closed-down Delft Theater on Washington Street.

Owner Tom Vear has the design and financing in place. What he doesn't have yet are final agreements from all the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies involved in getting the theater built.

Soon, Vear says. Soon.

Maybe within a week or two, but don't ask about an opening date. Earlier this year, it was supposed to be this fall and...uh...checking the calendar, we see that it's now...fall.

That's what you get when you mix heavy doses of business and government, with a touch of optimism.


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