A third Northport-based business for the owners of Porcupine and Enjoy Michigan opens tomorrow (August 7) at the north end of the village. The retail side of Yard & Lake debuts first, with an onsite restaurant/bar to follow. Plans for the property also include an Airstream-turned-cocktail bar, and outdoor gathering spaces for community and private events. The Leelanau Ticker has a first look at this fresh addition to Northport’s entrepreneurial ventures, which already this summer include Northport Trading Post, Northport Pub & Grille, the Nora pop-up and a 24-hour “cheese shop” at the Pier Group building.

Shawn Santo and husband Kevin Borsay bought the historic building at 215 Mill Street (pictured) — formerly home to The North End Eatery, whose owner Pauli Penning launched a pizzeria wagon offshoot called The Big Hot Woody — with intentions to open a combined retail and restaurant space.

Santo and Borsay arrived on the scene eight years ago, after back-to-back vacations in the village left Borsay unable to “get Northport out of his mind.” The two had already joined creative forces on a $2K apparel startup called Pure Detroit, which now has five storefronts in the city proper. Borsay also co-owns Workshop Detroit, producing furniture from lumber reclaimed from Detroit’s vacant and abandoned building stock. The pair also operates Stella Good Coffee, housed in the lobby of the city’s iconic Fisher Building. 

Santo shares, “The core of our passion is adaptive reuse…that is true in Detroit, and there is a complete parallel here, taking under-utilized historic buildings and spaces and bringing new use and increased vitality to the properties.”

After becoming enchanted with Northport, they soon started Enjoy Michigan in a vacant former barber shop on Nagonaba Street, and later Porcupine, housed in one of the most delightfully rustic — and recognizable — historic storefronts in the village.

Santo says that the newly renovated Yard & Lake property was originally a gas station dating to the 1920s, with local lore revealing “the service bay to the north, people were allowed to bring their car and work on it for no charge.” They re-installed garage doors to the original service bay area, which they plan to keep open even in rainy weather, “helping create a light and breezy interior space for retail.”

The offerings will have a “beach and nautical feel,” says Santo, and those popping by for the opening tomorrow will see a preview: a men’s swimwear line from Portugal; bath and grooming products; beach blankets and coverups; nautical-inspired apparel and jewelry; beach reads and coffee-table books; and outdoor luxuries and necessities.

Santo explains Yard & Lake is a joint venture — she and Borsay are teaming with friends and business partners Dan McGowan and Anne St. Onge, also of Detroit, who will be adding a music and event component to the gathering space. “Dan produces and coordinates over 300 events a year in over 25 venues. He also owns the adaptive reuse building The Crofoot in Pontiac and oversaw its significant renovation to a music venue and events space,” she says. “He has many creative aspirations for Yard & Lake.”

“Next,” she adds, “we are proceeding on steps to open the restaurant and cocktail bar. We have an Airstream we brought from Detroit, that was custom-built for food and beverage service.” It’s currently dismantled in the courtyard, but Santo says she is expecting in the coming days to get a permit from the Village of Northport planning commission to reconstruct and install it on the property.

The Airstream will serve as the bar and food ordering station, with all food prepared inside in the commercial kitchen. The front yard will serve as a “cocktail garden,” available along with the courtyard to be rented for events.

The “yard” aspect of the new business is also currently coming to life in the hellstrip between the sidewalk and street, where Santo has, with permission from the village, created “an ecology garden with 30-year-old plus lavender and sage plants from the yard that we wanted to save and relocate.” The gardens will be home to mostly native species, “with four to six turns of blooming from early spring to late fall.” 

And what of staying open past late fall? Santo says she is open to it, perhaps with reduced hours, noting that “last summer there were more visitors in Northport than I have ever seen, more tourists from Michigan and Chicago, and more people driving to the tip of the peninsula instead of stopping in Suttons Bay.”

Bottom line, she says, she believes in being a part of the burgeoning business community of her adopted home: “Retail specifically is a focus of ours because when independent retailers come out of communities, it flattens them, and they lose that little bit of spark. Building community is a passion of ours.”

And last, a quick update on Northport’s other new kid on the block, Olean’s at 780 N. Mill Street: Owner Daniel Caudill shares with the Leelanau Ticker — and all who are awaiting the opening of the county’s first recreational marijuana dispensary — that they are definitely “on track to open this month.”