From Modern Kitchen to Siam Square

hen the owners of Modern Kitchen lost their Wolverine Tower lease last summer, they hoped to find a more accessible location closer to downtown. Instead, intense competition and high rents drove them east. In December, they opened a new restaurant inside the hotel on Washtenaw Avenue just west of the US-23 overpass. They're calling the place Siam Square.

as it a nice, neat merger or a volatile tug-of-war between two national rivals? The answer depends on who you ask. Either way, the recently announced stock merger between the Detroit-based Merchant of Vino and Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market means big changes ahead for Ann Arbor's natural foods and produce scene.

Coffee, Kibbeh, and Computers: design by Dilbert

li Rida thought Internet cafes were a bit silly--until he found himself in Majorca, Spain, and anxious to get on-line. "I never bought the idea of somebody paying money to access the Internet," he says. "But there I was, out of town and wanting to do just that. I changed my mind right there and then."

hen Sheryl Danci and her sister DeLynn Carter opened La Piñata in 1980, Mexican food was just about to get very, very hot. Chi Chi's hadn't hit town yet. Taco Bell wasn't yet fashionable. The whole town, it seemed, was waiting for a great enchilada and a killer margarita.