Karl Klockars | Author

Nine Lives, Nine Animal Nonprofits Up North

July 5, 2025

While our feline friends have their apocryphal nine lives, nonprofit animal rescue organizations around northern Michigan save far more lives than that every day. There’s no shortage of animal lovers around our area of the Mitten, protecting everything from dogs and cats to horses, bu… Read More >>

Taco Shop or Brewery? Why Not Both?

May 3, 2025

For over a decade, northern Michiganders have known Happy’s Taco Shop as a destination for fun, creative menu items, like their lamb cheeseburger taco, choriqueso rangoons, and Crunchwrap Royale. Last summer, however, The Happy’s team quietly added another line to their collecti… Read More >>

The Influence of an Influencer

Feb. 15, 2025

“This is the Junction. Oh my god … this thing is phenomenal.”

Those are the words that plunged Glendale Burger Shop into weeks of frenzied burgermaking, thanks to the influencing powers of Seoung Lee and Chow Down Detroit. Hundreds of thousands of people across ev… Read More >>

More Than Just the Booze: What Makes a Great Cocktail?

Nov. 30, 2024

What makes a great cocktail?

If you were to judge by the array of hundreds of bottles of spirits behind the bar at Traverse City’s cocktail lounge Low Bar, your first instinct might be to name any number of high end whiskeys, rums, gins, vodkas, or other liqueurs. And sure, ev… Read More >>

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

Oct. 5, 2024

For more than 20 years and through thousands of smoked turkey legs, Steve’s Smokin’ BBQ has been a landmark at fairs and festivals from Traverse City to Arizona and back, not the least of which is the National Cherry Festival. This summer, owner Steve Randell and his son Logan b… Read More >>

The High-End Cuts of Chloe's Chop House

Aug. 24, 2024

Northern Michigan is famous for its wide variety of dining destinations, from burgers and fries to supper-club style excess to farm-to-table fine dining. Earlier this year, Chef Taylor Sutherland and his brother Hunter looked at the restaurant landscape and realized it was lacking something… Read More >>

Moomers' Olympic Flavors

Aug. 3, 2024

With the Olympics in full swing over in Paris, we get two weeks of patriotic pride this summer, and Moomers is taking advantage in the best way they know how: Through ice cream flavors. We stopped by for a couple of cones recently and adored the two new mixes that’ll have you chanting… Read More >>

Going All in on Full Send Ramen

June 8, 2024

Ask Daniel Mabie about the first bowl of ramen he ever had, and you get an answer that takes you on a journey halfway around the world, from California to Hawaii, and about how the power of a bowl of soup can yank you out of teenage angst and remind you that life can be worth living.

<… Read More >>

Where the Panini Reigns Supreme

April 13, 2024

Even when he was running the kitchen at Bubba’s in Traverse City, Justin Chouinard had his eye on the little restaurant space across the street.

For years, 439 East Front has housed restaurants like Patisserie Amie, Cook’s House, 9 Bean Rows, Sparks BBQ, and most recentl… Read More >>

Nano Brewing, Macro Impact at Third Life Brewing Company

March 9, 2024

On a Friday evening, near the end of a dark road but still within sight of the glow of Manistee’s Vogue Theatre, bright light pours from the corner windows at the massive Manistee Iron Works building. Inside, patrons huddle around the bright bar, chat at tables, play board games, and … Read More >>

Small Town Charm, Big City Kitchen

Feb. 17, 2024

Many of us learned to love meal kits during the pandemic. They’re conveniently sent right to your front door, they’re pre-portioned, you often learn something new while using them, and at the end of the process, you have a fresh, home-cooked meal.

Simple as they seem to … Read More >>

The Holiday Spirits

Dec. 9, 2023

These days, cocktail menus are moving from vodka-laden lemonades and beach-friendly rum punches to sharper drinks, pairing gin and whiskey with citrus and syrup to create concoctions more appropriate to sweater weather and tree stand sipping. Winter is coming on quick, and while you’r… Read More >>

The Vet Recommends

Oct. 21, 2023

Your humble author is in year nine of being a cat dad to our little tortie-tabby meatball, Aoife T. Bavarois Dunlop-Klockars, and I’ve played caretaker to a variety of other family cats, dogs, birds, fish, and even a rabbit. (Next? Hopefully sheep!)

But no matter how many year… Read More >>

Prost! Cheers to the Oktoberfest

Sept. 16, 2023

September and October bring some of our favorite things to northern Michigan. Fall colors. Hunting season. Halloween candy. Sweater weather. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about one of the best parts of autumn: the return of Oktoberfest beers.

Despite the name, the… Read More >>

What Are You Reading?

Aug. 26, 2023

The closure of Gaylord’s longtime downtown bookstore, Saturn Booksellers, in spring of 2022 had a big impact on a whole community of book lovers, but perhaps none more so than Lindsay Klein. The Colorado native’s childhood dream was to open her own bookstore in Estes Park, but w… Read More >>

TC Vietnamese’s House Combination Pho

Aug. 26, 2023

Even though Good Bowl has had a well-deserved monopoly on pho in TC for a while now, more options for bowls of the savory-sweet, beefy, and deeply herbaceous Vietnamese noodle soup can never be a bad thing. That’s why we’re always happy to order up another serving of the House C… Read More >>

Meet The Winery Circuit Players

Aug. 5, 2023

If you’ve spent any time at a winery in northern Michigan, you know that what’s in the glass is just part of the appeal of a visit. There’s the great views of the vineyards, rolling hills, or one (or both!) of the bays. There’s also often live music. Most vineyards h… Read More >>

On a Roll at The Dojo

June 10, 2023

“My mom always told me to stop playing with my food,” Brent Shafer jokes while explaining how he got behind the counter at The Dojo, his new space at the Long Lake Culinary Campus where he slices sashimi, shapes sushi, and rolls maki by hand.

Shafer opened the doors earl… Read More >>

Springtime at Spring and Porter

May 6, 2023

Opening a restaurant is a famously difficult proposition. Opening your first restaurant after building a reputation at Petoskey-area dining destinations like Tapawingo and Chandler’s? That sets the expectations bar pretty high. And then deciding to take the reins of a restaurant that … Read More >>

The Right Side of the Tracks

April 8, 2023

In a different timeline, Macie Hefron would be studying to be a lawyer right now. Instead, due to the COVID-induced extension of a summer job in college, the Midwest is on the cusp of having its first rail bike operator right here in northern Michigan. Hefron, 22, is the driving force behin… Read More >>