NY Deli Moving, Pandemic Surging (Slightly), the Comped Dinner for 33, and the $1000 Putt
The latest from Marquette, MI by Brian Cabell
NEW YORK DELI, one of Marquette’s best-known little restaurants, has closed down. But wait! It’s planning to move a mile west down West Washington Street to the building vacated by Family Video….Not a done deal yet, but the owner is hoping to reopen in the new venue by late November. A much bigger space for diners, along with an array of deli goods for sale.
HARD TO BELIEVE, but Babycakes, another Marquette institution, has closed down on Mondays and Tuesdays. It’s “due to understaffing and a broken supply chain.” Not enough employees, not enough food delivered…And yet another institution, Vango’s, searching for parttime employees. Wages? $16-30 an hour (that’s with tips for the wait staff)…In this weird economy, restaurant jobs are looking increasingly attractive.
THE CONTROVERSIAL LONGTIME pandemic unemployment benefits will finally be ending this week. Seven million people in 26 states will be losing their weekly supplements…Will they be out there responding to all those Help Wanted signs all over town? We’ll see.
LIKEWISE, THE NATIONWIDE moratorium on evictions is ending. The US Supreme Court overturned the ban last week….More than three million Americans say they face eviction in the next two months.
YES, THE COVID numbers are again increasing in Marquette County, but the surge is nothing like what we saw in November of last year and April this year. That’s according to Dr. Bob Lorinser, the medical director for the Marquette County Health Department….Hospitalizations remain low, deaths rare…Vaccines are an immense help.
THE PANDEMIC, LORINSER predicts, will eventually end, but Covid will become endemic, instead. “It’ll be with us all the time. We’ll just have to learn to live with it,” he says….For us to eliminate Covid altogether, 90% of the world’s population would have to be vaccinated or previously infected by the virus, Lorinser explains. Not gonna happen.
YOU CAN’T ACCUSE attorney Karl Numinen of taking the easy, popular cases. A few years back, in two separate cases, he defended two young men accused of sexually assaulting women, and won the cases. The MeToo movement wasn’t thrilled with him…And last week, charges were dropped against another Numinen client, a Gogebic County Sheriff’s Deputy who’d been accused of assault and battery against a prisoner. Another win.
“The pendulum has swung too far in one direction,” Numinen says while emphasizing that he remains a vehement defender of women in sexual assault cases, and an outspoken critic of law enforcement officials who abuse their authority.
A STRIKE AUTHORIZATION vote is underway today (Thursday) by more than 300 NMU professors who have been working without a contract since July….It sounds more ominous than it is, according to the union president Dwight Brady. A strike is not imminent. He believes progress is being made…The problem is, they took a cut last year because of the pandemic and reduced enrollment, and now they’re trying to get back on track. And the university, of course, also has serious financial concerns.
REASON NUMBER 131 why we love the UP: The funeral for the mother-in-law of Steve Whelan (Big Boy restaurant owner) was held last week. Afterward, the funeral group made their way to the Casa Calabria for dinner…Thirty-three diners in all.…”When we got there,” Whelan says, “they brought out appetizers that we didn’t order, then more food and drinks. And it just kept coming.”…At the end of the night, the entire bill was comped by Casa owner Jim Johnson. Partially explained by the fact that both Whelan and his wife used to work at the Casa, but still…This kind of thing doesn’t happen everywhere.
QUITE AN EVENING at the Marquette Golf Club Monday. The Women’s League finished play, had dinner and drinks at the clubhouse, then gathered for one final, climactic competition on the putting green…All season long, they had been putting money into the pot for the chance to sink a long putt and win the pot. But each Monday, three golfers had tried and failed. The pot grew to more than $1000….Someone was going to win this evening, no matter how long it took…They started with 40 foot putts. Dozens tried and failed, sometimes by inches…Darkness set in. Headlights on golf carts were turned on…It was then moved to only 30 feet. Still no winner. “I can’t see the hole!” shouted one contestant….Finally, the putt moved inside the 20 foot mark. Make-able, even in darkness…The winner, after nearly an hour of missed putts, cheers, groans, and a drink or three, was Amy Chapin. We’re hoping she left a hefty tip for the wait staff.
PLENTY’S BEEN SAID about the astonishing new “Natural” mural on the Be Well building on Third Street. The shoreline, the nest, the bird, the flowers, the trees. Gorgeous….But what’s really captivating is the woman. Her eyes, especially. Soulful, mesmerizing….”Natural” will be the new must-see for all visitors to Marquette.