The truck should be back in two weeks
THE BELOVED DIA de los Tacos truck is coming back to Marquette, probably within two weeks.
New ownership, but the same recipes, same tacos.
You might recall that Mike Walker, a food truck pioneer here, gave up the business last year in favor of working comfortably and warmly in Snowbound Books. Surrounded by books, book lovers, and wintertime heat. He loves it.
But that left Marquette without the familiar blue truck, and buyers didn’t come knocking at Walker’s door. Until now. Matt Beardsley, the owner of 231 West, the acclaimed patisserie and coffee shop, has just worked out a deal to lease the truck temporarily and then buy it.
So, exquisite fresh pastries and…tasty tacos???
Makes sense, Beardsley says–good food is good food, no matter where it’s from.
“The problem for most food trucks is they don’t have a good kitchen where they can prepare the food,” he says. “We’ve got that right here, at 231. And people have missed Dia since it left, so we’re bringing it back.”
Something else–a food truck is good insurance in case the pandemic shuts down the restaurants and coffee shops again, and it will also keep some of 231’s employees working, even if another economic shutdown takes place.
It’s taken a while, says the owner, but it’s still on track
THE CUSTOMS HOUSE condo project on Lakeshore Boulevard is still a go, in spite of a few setbacks.
That’s the word from the owner and developer, Nicole Gregory.
The plan to convert the old and vacant sandstone Customs House to four condos, and add two more alongside it, has been in the works for well over a year. Delays, complicated by a lawsuit against the city over an easement (it’s since been dropped) and COVID, had some wondering whether the project would ever get off the ground.
Absolutely, says Gregory. “We’re excited that the pier is going to go in and by all the development at Founders Landing,” she says. “It’s a beautiful area and we want to be part of it.”
The final step before they start construction is getting approved for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) by the Brownfield Authority, the Downtown Development Authority, and the City Commission.
The fact that the project would restore an old, vacant, historical building should help.
Gregory hopes to begin the restoration and construction by fall.
They moved without closing for even a day
HOW DO YOU move all your inventory from your old location to your new one, which is right across the street?
You run it. That’s what Queen City Running Company owner Kevin Thomsen and his employees did last weekend.
“We didn’t want to lose a day of business on Saturday,” says Thomsen, “so we just kept running back and forth across the street all day moving things–including 800 pairs of shoes. I looked at my watch at the end of the day and saw that I had taken 24,000 steps.”
Their new store, in a structure that dates back to the 1850s, offers three times the space that their old location did. More room for displays, storage and social distancing.
Shoes are displayed on old MSHS bleachers.
Speaking of displays, many of the shoes are resting on old bleachers from Marquette Senior High School. A cute and nostalgic touch.
How’s business? Well, springtime with the economic shutdown wasn’t great, but summertime business has been booming. People–runners and non-runners–want to get outside to cure the COVID blues.
A slow summer? Nope
SPEAKING OF BUSINESS in town, consider the above photograph.
It was taken outside the Portside Inn, at 2:55 pm on Saturday.
Two dozen people, many of them tourists, waiting outside for the restaurant to open at 3 pm. For the last several weeks, the streets and sidewalks have been crowded, the businesses busy.
Most business owners downtown and on Third Street will tell you it’s been a good and profitable summer–after a calamitous spring–and they can only hope that the COVID numbers stay reasonably low so that fall will continue to bring in the tourists.
Another shutdown this fall, followed by winter, which always has some businesses clinging to life support, could spell doom for businesses all over the Upper Peninsula.
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