Beef on Third Street, Indian Cuisine, NY Deli Revived, School Test Scores Are Down, a Big Start-Up in the SmartZone, and a Cool, Cloudy Summer
The Latest from Marquette, MI by Brian Cabell
YOU GOTTA FEEL for Joe Constance, the developer of the Third Street Marketplace…He’s been trying to fill the last vacancy at the Marketplace for a couple of years now, but plans for an Italian restaurant, the Food Co-op, a pastry shop, a game store, and most recently, an ice cream shop, all fell through at the last minute…
A new candidate has just entered the picture: Chicago Beefs, which features sandwiches, pitas, bowls and pizzas, most with beef or sausage…The Chicago Beefs restaurant in Houghton has been open for a year now, and gets good ratings—4.8 on Google reviews…
Owner Mike Glenn is eager to expand to Marquette, and the Marketplace location seems ideal…“There’s a bigger university here, it’s a much bigger town than Houghton, and there’s already a demand for what we serve…” Glenn says he’s ready to sign a contract immediately and open within two months…Constance is a bit more conservative. He wants to check the financials of Chicago Beefs, and the design plans before he signs anything. He’s understandably a little gun-shy.
A WELCOME ADDITION to Third Street…Elixir (next to Be Well) has reopened under new owners…The little shop offers not only juices (including fresh-pressed watermelon juice), but coffees, teas, salads, pastries, and Indian food!—Dal and Tikka Masala, earlier this week…A changing, expanding menu, including Ethiopian cuisine sometime in the future…Plenty of vegetarian, organic, and gluten-free options.
The two owners are Paul Farley and Charles Kuntz. “I’m a glass-blower by trade,” says Farley. “I owned a brewery but then found that I was overworked, so I came to Marquette and we started this business.”…So far, so good. The word will spread.
SPEAKING OF INDIAN food, can’t somebody open up an Indian restaurant in town? Please?
NOTHING TO BRAG about for Marquette schools…Results of the standardized M-STEP tests for third through seventh graders are in…In both the English and math tests, two of the grades scored higher than last year, but three grades scored lower…And compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, virtually all of this year’s scores were lower…We’ve got some work to do.
AN OLD FAVORITE is coming back…The New York Deli is planning to reopen at the Upper Peninsula Medical Center (where a coffee shop was previously located)…Most of the same, familiar sandwiches, soups and salads from years ago…Food also available for delivery and pick-up…Medical Center management estimates the Deli Cafe will reopen later this month.
IS SUSHI POPULAR in the U.S.? Yes, it is…We see it at virtually all our supermarkets here…Axios reports that sushi sales at U.S. retailers were up an astounding 72% last year…Kroger is the biggest seller of sushi nationwide, with 40 million pieces sold last year.
A LOCAL SUCCESS story…Syncurrent, a start-up tech firm designed to help entrepreneurs in underserved communities—mostly rural and Native American—is off to a good start after its first year. “We have contracts with a handful of communities and good cash flow,” says Dhruv Patel, one of the company’s co-founders. Seventy-five individuals and a couple of businesses are currently using Syncurrent’s services.
Patel is a recent NMU graduate and a client of the Innovate Marquette SmartZone…“I don’t know where we’d be without Innovate,” Patel says. That’s a ringing endorsement for Innovate which, years ago, started slowly, but is now starting to pick up steam…Is Syncurrent planning to move if it continues to grow? No, Patel insists. It’ll remain a Marquette-based company with clients all over the nation.
IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a new car under $20,000, forget it…According to Axios, the last remaining new car in the U.S. under twenty grand was the Mitsubishi Mirage, and the Mirage is now being discontinued…Automakers just aren’t making small cars anymore—the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris, the Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Focus, and Volkswagen Beetle have all been discontinued in recent years…New vehicle prices in July, according to Cox’s Kelley Blue Book, averaged $48,334…$48,334!…You could buy a cute little camp in the boonies of the UP for that price.
IT SURE SEEMS like this has been a cooler summer than normal…Might be recency bias since we had that spate of cool, cloudy days just a week or so ago…According to meteorologist Karl Bohnak, June this year was actually warmer than average at the National Weather Service in Negaunee, while both July and August were a just a degree or two cooler than average…There were 11 days of 80 degrees or above in June, but only five in July…That’s a switch we wouldn't expect…
And what’s ahead? Bohnak says September will be warmer than average. Ahh, the tourists are gone, the sun is out, and the skies are blue (we hope).
POEM OF THE WEEK
“Nature” Is What We See
“Nature” is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.– Emily Dickinson
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