Ramada Adds a Touch of Class, Courtyards for Sale, Fish Express to Close, YMCA Modesty, a New Field House, and Civilization's Decline

The Latest from Marquette, MI by Brian Cabell

LET’S BE HONEST—the Ramada Inn is an old, tired, mid-priced hotel brand. It’s been around for 70 years and there’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s nothing exciting about it, either…Which makes the opening of the new Slabz Bar and Grill in the Ramada last week especially puzzling. Slabz is fresh, cool, and very nearly gourmet. So why locate inside the Ramada??? “We know that Marquette likes something new and hip, and they like good food,” says Tom Dolaskie, one of the partners in Slabz, “so that’s what we’re giving them.”

The menu is huge and eclectic—offering oysters and chicken shawarmas, as well as filet mignon, and a three pound trout (whole fish) butterflied…Not just dinner but breakfast and lunch, as well.

The atmosphere has been totally transformed—dim lighting for dinner, white table cloths, music (a little on the loud side), and a comfortable intimacy for all tables which have been separated by freshly cut birch trunks. A very cool aesthetic. And the prices? Eminently reasonable.

Dolaskie and his wife Ana (formerly of TV6), along with their out-of town partner Darrin Hubbard, own a handful of restaurants and businesses in Munising; now they’ve made their way to Marquette, and they may force other restaurants to up their game here.

SO WHAT ABOUT the Ramada itself? It was recently bought by the Base Hospitality Group, headed by Josh Paquette and Charles Holsworth…Any other changes, besides the restaurant, anticipated? “We’re aware the Ramada needs fresh life breathed into it, and we’re working on it,” says Holsworth. The amenities will be upgraded, and a new look inside and outside the hotel are likely over the next year or two.

SPEAKING OF RESTAURANTS, we’re disappointed to see that The Courtyards, the New Orleans-style bar and restaurant in south Marquette, is up for sale. List price: $1,850,000…It was opened three years ago by local chef Don Durley. His son Chris has been Operations Manager there but now Chris, we’re told, is moving over to Durley’s other business, the enormously popular Lagniappe restaurant downtown…But Courtyards also has a big following—and great drinks and food, as well…Here’s hoping the new owners, whenever they arrive, preserve what the Durleys have built at The Courtyards.

SOMETHING NEW AT Third Street Marketplace…Fish Express is closing down—the owner is retiring—and in its place will be the Third Street Grill, right alongside Kognisjon Bryggeri. The grill will offer burgers, dogs, appetizers, etc—essentially bar food. “I’m excited about it,” says Marketplace developer Joe Constance. “It’s something new, and the owners will do a great job with it.” The Grill’s owners are Brandon Wicks and Mark Troudt, who also own Pizza@ Marquette in the Marketplace…Also opening up soon next door: Loads of Fun, a laundromat.

ANYONE WHO’S LIVED here more than a decade or two knows that Firearm Deer Season isn’t what it used to be in and around Marquette. Or in all of Michigan for that matter…Excitement seems to have waned, media coverage is way down, the numbers have declined…Twenty years ago, the state had 800,000 licensed deer hunters; now it’s below 600,000, and the decline is expected to continue over the next 20 years.

Why? Hunters are getting older, and young people aren’t finding hunting as appealing as their parents and grandparents did. It’s a cultural change…Something else worth noting: While the total deer population has soared above two million in the state, the numbers have actually decreased in the U.P. while increasing in the heavily populated areas of southeast and west Michigan.

A CHANGE AT the YMCA. Partitions have just gone up in the Men’s communal shower, creating individual shower stalls, instead. “We’re just responding to some concerns of our members,” says CEO Jenna Zdunek. “We want everyone who comes to the YMCA to feel safe and comfortable.”…Changing times, changing identities, heightened sensitivities…The Women's showers already contained individual stalls…You can see a similar trend at Tadych’s Marketplace where, several months ago, communal Men’s and Women’s restrooms were converted into individual restrooms.

MEANTIME, THE MUCH anticipated new field house at the YMCA is almost a done deal…$4.9 million of the $5.5 million needed for the 19,200-square-foot field house has been raised. More on the way…With any luck, shovels go in the ground next Spring.

YIKES. THREE QUARTERS of American adults are now considered overweight or obese…This, according to The Lancet, the esteemed medical journal…Back in 1990, only about 50% percent of us were considered overweight or obese, so yeah, we’re getting…uhhh…fatter. Especially concerning is the trend for young people 15-24 years old. Almost half of them are already overweight or obese…What’ll they face in the years ahead? More heart disease, more diabetes, a shortened life span. We’re in desperate need of a change in lifestyles and food consumption.

HISTORY BUFFS ALERT: An updated version of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Frederick Stonehouse has just been published, in honor of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the freighter’s sinking…Books available at orders@averycolorstudios.com….A special hardcover version will be offered early next year…The book provides the best account of the evidence and theories on the sinking of the enormous freighter on November 10th, 1975. All 29 crew members on board died.

THE LATEST SIGN of the impending collapse of our civilization: 60 million households recently tuned in to watch a fight between a social media sensation and a 58-year-old boxer, 30 years past his prime. A guy who can apply for Social Security in four years!…Not surprisingly, most viewers found the fight to be disappointing, even boring…Oh well. Maybe next time, to jazz things up, the promoters can find a blind man to get in the ring with a kangaroo.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”

—Ariel Durant

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