It's summer, which means peak season for Leelanau’s restaurants and retail shops. Fittingly, there’s been a lot of moving and shaking in that scene lately, from rebrands to soft openings and beyond. The Leelanau Ticker has the scoop on the latest happenings, including a new cocktail bar and beer garden in Northport, not one but two restaurant relaunches in Suttons Bay, and more.

Yard & Lake introduces new bar concept

It was a beehive of activity at Yard & Lake in Northport over the weekend as the lake-themed retail store opened its much-anticipated onsite bar and bier-and-cocktail garden. 

Shawn Santo and husband Kevin Borsay – who also operate Stella Good Coffee in Detroit’s iconic Fisher Building, and own northern Michigan retail stores Enjoy Michigan and Porcupine – have stewarded the revitalization of the multi-use property at 215 Mill Street.

Santo shares, “We created a plan with multiple foundational revenue streams — retail, food and beverage, event bookings, and overnight accommodations — to set up the facility to be durable for a variety of situations.”

The historic property — originally a gas station dating back to the 1920s — reopened as an open-air retail store in 2021 before adding a “store within a store” concept called Hidden Toys in 2022. The latest renovations include an interior bar and an Airstream-style service bar in the front yard to serve the beer garden.

Yard & Lake serves local wines and ciders and a craft cocktail menu created by Traverse City native Roman Albaugh, owner of The Bartending Co. and co-founder of Audacia Elixirs.

Santo anticipates a couple of soft opening weekends with beverage service plus small plates, cheese boards, and desserts, and then to open seven days a week later this summer.

North Country Grill and Pub becomes North Country Kitchen and Bar

Back in March, Karen Boone – long-time owner of North Country Grill and Pub in Suttons Bay – announced on Facebook that she had sold the business to a new owner named Matthew Branton. Since then, the restaurant has mostly been closed, pending kitchen and dining room renovations and an overhaul of the restaurant concept.

Now, Branton is ready to introduce that new concept to the local community. The restaurant, renamed North Country Kitchen and Bar, has been using a soft launch model for the past couple of weeks to bring a small number of patrons through the doors, test out its new menu, and work out any kinks in the machine.

Branton says he and his team have retained a few menu items from the old North Country, but have largely reimagined the restaurant with a southern food approach – not dissimilar from Pearl’s New Orleans Kitchen in Elk Rapids. Menu items include a cornmeal-dusted catfish served with collard greens and creamed corn; a Cajun-style pasta with peppers, okra, onion, corn, tomato, and Cajun sauce; and other southern staples like shrimp and grits, jambalaya, and po’boy sandwiches.

“My family is from the south, and I spent a ton of time in New Orleans growing up,” Branton says. “When I met our chef, Eric Force – who was a sous chef at PepeNero in Traverse City for about a decade – I asked him what kind of food he wanted to do, and he told me he wanted to do Lowcountry southern food. I said, ‘Well that’s weird, because that’s my family food! How can I say no?’ So, we’ve spent the last couple months working out the menu, and we’re really trying to do authentic southern food.”

For now, North Country Kitchen and Bar is open Thursday through Monday, “5pm to close,” but Branton says the restaurant is “hoping to open for lunch in the next few weeks.”

Hang-On Express becomes MUA Asian Cuisine

Jolina Lor and Rouacha Moua, the owners of Suttons Bay’s Hang-On Express, announced plans in April to give the business a full makeover, including a rebrand, an interior redesign, and a new menu. That news marked the second major development for the nearly-20-year-old Leelanau staple within the last few years. In December of 2020, former proprietors Maika and Vang Hang passed the restaurant on to Lor and Moua after 17 years of ownership.

After winding down operations as Hang-On Express a month ago, Lor and Moua opened the doors at MUA Asian Cuisine on Tuesday, June 20. Per the Suttons Bay Chamber of Commerce, the reimagining of the business involved a variety of local players, with Kirsten Pappas of Wink Interior Design providing the vision for the interior renovation and Ken Bowen and Brian Robel doing the handywork.

The restaurant’s new menu features both Chinese and Thai entrees, as well as appetizers, noodle dishes, soups, and different variations of fried rice. Don’t worry, though: Signature dishes like the “Insane Noodles” – wide rice noodles with onions, eggs, lettuce and topped off with mozzarella cheese – remain among the offerings.

Going forward, MUA will be open Tuesday through Sunday, with hours of 11am-8pm Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11-9 on Fridays, 12-9 on Saturdays, and 12-8 on Sundays.

Peninsula Provisions officially up and running in Lake Leelanau

In February, we reported that Kate Vilter Stassen, the former owner and steward of The Riverside Inn in Leland, had a new venture in the works: Peninsula Provisions, a new specialty wine shop that will also stock “a boutique selection of beers and ciders,” a smattering of food options (such as cheeses, cured meats, terrines, and grab-and-go appetizers), and more. The business, which is situated inside the newly renovated Samaritans’ Closet building at 25 South Lake Leelanau Drive, had welcomed its first customers last Thursday, June 22 and is now open Tuesdays through Sundays; hours are noon-7pm on Sundays and 11am-7pm all other days.

Vilter Stassen tells the Leelanau Ticker that Peninsula Provisions is planning to host an open house at the shop soon to celebrate the grand opening. She encourages curious locals to keep an eye on the business’s Facebook page for details about that event and other new developments.

Both Craig Manning and Emily Tyra contributed to this report.