Culinary Rookies of the Year

New(ish) restaurant owners step into the shoes of long-time favorite eateries

By Ross Boissoneau | July 22, 2023

When new owners take over established restaurants, things change. Sometimes it’s décor, other times it’s a completely new menu or concept. Perhaps it just means reopening a shuttered establishment. Or maybe the new owner respects the restaurant and clientele so much that they don’t change much, other than adding a new coat of paint.

The restaurant industry, the nation’s second-largest private sector employer, totaled $937 billion in sales last year. So perhaps it’s no wonder that for most every owner getting out, a new one is waiting in the wings. The long hours and low margins aren’t for everyone, but those who are part of the industry say it is a rewarding career.

In the past couple of years, several eateries around the area have welcomed new captains at the helm. The Express asked some of the new(ish) owners what it has been like to take up the gastronomic torch in the past year or two.

Lil Bo

For Jenni Scott, taking up the reins of the former Little Bohemia has been a blast. “It’s a community staple. It was one of my favorite haunts since I was in my early 20s,” she says. She and her family purchased the restaurant and bar in Slabtown two years ago this month. At that time, it had been closed since it shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic.

“It’s a neighborhood bar. The locals keep it thriving,” Scott says.

The owner and chef of the former Betty’s Hot Dish food truck has been in hospitality since an early age. “My first job was at Mabel’s at 14. I started bartending at 18 as soon as I was old enough. Then I shifted to the back of the house,” says Scott.

So what’s new at Lil Bo? Start with a return to what’s old for the longtime west side staple. “We wanted to bring it back to a neighborhood bar,” Scott says. So they kept much of the décor, as well as the iconic sign out front.

On the new side, the offerings have been revamped. “It’s my menu,” Scott says. That includes the Saturday Morning Cartoons Brunch, served from 9am to noon on Saturdays. It offers a host of breakfast bo-ritos, handheld egg sandwiches, and a couple different flights: your choice of three different mimosas, three bloody Marys or—wait for it—three different sugar cereals. (Can’t get enough of Super Sugar Crisp, right?)

Also new is the selection of Betty’s Po Boys from Scott’s longtime food truck endeavor. She has a food truck parked on-site, part of the attraction of the Front Yard, where she’s reclaimed some of the parking lot for al fresco dining, drinking, cornholing, and whatever else she can come up with.

Northport Pub & Grille

For Michelle Hemeyer, purchasing and opening the Northport Pub & Grille was a similar experience in that she and her family wanted to bring back a restaurant that had been the backbone of the community. As Tucker’s, it had been a thriving spot in the town on the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula until it closed its doors in April of 2020.

“It was open five or six years. We didn’t want to see it vacant,” says Hemeyer. So she and her husband, Mark, decided to do something about it. And that something ended up being the purchase and reopening of the restaurant/bar/bowling alley.

While both Lil Bo’s and the NPG, as Hemeyer refers to it, were reopened after being shut down, there’s one big difference: The Hemeyers live in the Detroit area, where Mark is the CEO of a wastewater treatment company. So it falls on Michelle to commute and oversee the operation.

Not that she minds. A longtime summer resident of Lake Leelanau, she and her family plan to move north permanently when their 16-year-old son graduates from high school. Until then, they will continue to travel back and forth between their homes in southeastern Michigan and Leelanau. “When we bought the post office building in Northport, we started spending more time here,” she notes.

The pub’s menu is a cross-section of popular tavern favorites, with a few creative dishes thrown in: fish tacos, fried pickles, pasta, and wings along with floats, cheese curds, and a peanut butter bacon burger. “The favorites are burgers and pizza. Calzones are now on the menu and gaining speed,” Hemeyer says.

One of her favorite specials is the weekly burger. “Everyone in the kitchen designs their own and it gets on the menu for a week,” she says. And with 20 taps, she says there’s always something new on the beer menu as well.

Hemeyer hadn’t worked in the restaurant industry for years, but says she loves being back in the midst of it. “It’s what I did in high school and college. Then I took a long break. I never thought I’d see myself back here,” she says. “In this job you’re constantly learning, changing, growing. You can’t stay the same. Whatever comes, you roll with it.”

That’s kind of the story in Northport itself. Over the past few years, the town has begun to undergo a bit of a resurgence. That includes the restaurant industry. “We have six places in a two-block radius where you can get food or drink, and every one of us is different,” says Hemeyer. “You’ve got something for everybody.”

For those who might be interested in opening or working in a restaurant, whether it’s a new establishment or one that’s been around a while, Hemeyer suggests jumping in feet first. “Just do it. It is rewarding and gives you great social skills. You put your heart and soul into it, but making people happy is rewarding.”

West End Tavern

Jeff Lobdell is used to the ups and downs of restaurant life, having grown up in it and worked in it virtually all his life. He’s also used to purchasing restaurants when owners are ready to move on and running them successfully.

His secret? Don’t fix what isn’t broken. “We try…the best we can to preserve a community gathering space. I’ve fallen into a niche of acquiring existing restaurants,” he says. “They [restaurant owners] know I’ll take care of their people, the name, the legacy.”

He and his business partner Scott Parkhurst at Restaurant Partners Management own 14 restaurants in the Grand Rapids area and five in this area, including Flap Jack Shack, the two Omelette Shops, Boone’s Prime Time Pub in Suttons Bay, and Apache Trout Grill on West Bay. Then Mike and Sheila Connors, who had sold the lattermost to Lobdell and Parkhurst, approached them about purchasing their remaining restaurant property, West End Tavern.

Originally Scott’s Harbor Grill, then Harbor 22 Bar and Grill, the restaurant was purchased by the Connors in October 2015 and became West End Tavern. Lobdell and Parkhurst took over last May, with no plans for big change. “People like it for what it is,” says Lobdell. “I didn’t buy it to make it what I want, but what [customers] want. The menu’s primarily the same, the atmosphere is the same, the culinary and waitstaff the same.”

The restaurant’s customers seem to approve. “They’ve been very happy we haven’t changed too much,” Lobdell says.

As for those who might consider a career in the industry? “The old adage is if you want to make a small fortune in the restaurant industry, start with a large fortune,” Lobdell says with a laugh.

“Restaurant owners should know a lot about the business,” he continues more seriously. “For young people, it’s a great way to start a career as a busser, server, move into assistant manager, manager—it’s a great career path.”

Plus, given the pandemic, the Great Resignation, and the need for staff virtually everywhere, employees have never had more opportunities. “The pay has never been better, employers have never been more flexible,” Lobdell says.

And who knows where things might go? “Maybe someday you’ll work for someone without an exit strategy.”