Aren't we just the cutest, quaintest little college town?! A Chicago suburbanite visits Tree Town and falls in love with our family-friendly museums. Or, at least, like. This is the kind of stuff the CVB eats up. Excerpt: "Chances are you would consider a long weekend visit to Ann Arbor, Michigan, because it's easy to get around in this university town filled with family-friendly experiences. Give the trip more depth by looking for the exceptional museums and experiences thait await, both on and off of the University of Michigan campus." Read the rest here.

There is no shortage of coffee experience among the partners behind the forthcoming Hyperion Coffee Company in Ypsilanti. Dan Kubera has been a barista, roaster and manager in the coffee business for more than five years, Alex Merz is a longtime coffee connoisseur and Eric Mullins has spent more than a decade in the industry. Together, they plan to create micro-roasted coffee with a focus on relationships, science and education.  "Our specialization will be in working as much as possible with farmers when we can and to develop that work into lasting relationships that our local community can invest into," says Mullins. "We are trying to focus on educating our customers and wholesaling our coffee so that we can reach a wider audience and to get great coffee into more hands."  Hyperion Coffee Company will be located on N. River St. in a 1,200 square foot space Depot Town location. As Kubera and Mullins are both former managers at the Ugly Mug Cafe, the Ypsilanti location was a great way to capitalize on their established local network of coffee lovers, a well as position themselves well between Ann Arbor and Detroit.  "When we first took a tour of the place a few months ago we kind of fell in love with the old brickwork, the giant green doors, great location in Depot Town, and amazing neighbors," Mullins says. "When we all met up after our initial walkthrough we were in awe that such a cool spot had gone unused in Depot Town for so long, we fell in love with it and immediately picked it up." The Hyperion Coffee team hopes to have their roasting operations underway by mid- to late March. While their focus will be entirely on roasting initially, they hope to eventually add a small cafe to the business. Mullins says they expect to hire two to three employees in the first year, and can foresee employing 10 to 12 workers in the future.  Source: Eric Mullins, Hyperion Coffee Company Writer: Natalie Burg

GENOMENON is one of those startups that local leaders get all warm and fuzzy about. The Ann Arbor-based company is a cross between life sciences and tech, and has a very promising future. And then there are the startup resources that have been invested in its success. GENOMENON has leveraged just about every new economy startup program in southeast Michigan. It spun out of the University of Michigan, taking advantage of U-M's Office of Technology Transfer along the way. It has worked with Ann Arbor SPARK, the local small business development center, and the Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest initiative, among others. "We have really maximized the resources in the Michigan startup community," says Dr. Mark Kiel, co-founder & CEO of GENOMENON. GENOMENON is the product of three U-M pathologists, including Dr. Kiel. They are developing software focused on interpreting the mountains of data that come from genome sequencing. The end result could lead to things like improving cancer diagnosis and treatment. Think of it as data analytics for genome sequencing. "We can produce the data really efficiently," Dr. Kiel says. "It's interpreting the data that is the problem." GENOMENON is currently made up of seven people after launching last May. It is currently looking to hire a handful of software developers. "We need boots on the ground, people who can code," Dr. Kiel says. Source: Dr. Mark Kiel, co-founder & CEO of GENOMENON Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

The anonymous incubator space at 333 Parkland Plaza is about to get much bigger as the owners begin to move to a new building that is much, much larger. "We will essentially be 10 times bigger than we are today," says Mark Smith, co-owner of 333 Parkland Plaza. Smith never intended to end up in the small business incubator game. He ended up with his current building just off Jackson Road in the early 2000s when a bio-tech company he invested in went under. Smith recruited young biotech and medical device firms to fill it, offering an all-inclusive rental rate with professional and mentoring services aimed at helping those startups grow. It worked. The building has been full for years, and Smith has had to turn away prospective tenants because there is no room at the incubator. His current client list includes Evigia, ePack and AVAcore Technologies, which take up all of the 7,500 square feet. Now Smith and his partners are in the process of closing on and moving into another commercial space nearby. The transition should be done by the of the first quarter or early second quarter. The 75,000-square-foot facility will include thousands of square feet of dry and wet labs. Smith plans to build in a co-working space, and add to the services offered with the likes of human resources, 3D printing and CAD software. Smith is looking to hire four people to operate the new facility with jobs ranging from facility management to IT. "We are starting at 10 (companies occupying space in the new facility)," Smith says. Those include all of the other firms currently at 333 Parkland Plaza and a few more. Smith can now accept applications for space in his incubator with the idea of having enough room to accommodate the requests. Smith plans to keep the facility at 333 Parkland Plaza and currently has a tenant lined up to take over the entire space. Source: Mark Smith, co-owner & manager of 333 Parkland Plaza Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

U-M School of Art and Design professor Phoebe Gloeckner made a splash in 2002 with her lauded graphic novel, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. Now she's poised to find an even bigger audience as the film adaptation, starring Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgard, is set to debut at next week's Sundance Film Festival Excerpt: " Over the years, I've been approached by three different directors about turning the book into a film but I was never comfortable with the vision that they presented. Maybe it was because I had my own vision for a film version. Then, Marielle Heller approached me about creating a play. I thought that was so insane and couldn't imagine it whatsoever, so I said yes. Over the last eight years, as she was researching and writing, we developed a strong relationship and I grew to trust her. So when she approached me about turning the play into a film, I said yes." Read the rest here.  Watch an interview here. Catch the Sundance listing here.

From the University of Michigan to Teach For America to Wall Street, a pair of U-M alums get together for a beer at Ashley's and realize that they still wan't to make the world a better place. Enter Arbor Brothers, a part-time philanthropic organization that helps facilitate social entrpreneurship. Excerpt: "While maintaining their day jobs, the two started with a few pilot projects. They spent 100 hours with Nick Ehrmann, then a Ph.D. student at Princeton University, who founded Blue Engine, a nonprofit that places teaching assistants in public high schools in New York City. They worked with Hot Bread Kitchen, an organization that empowers women and minority entrepreneurs in culinary workforce programs, a loan package that financed a move to a full-time kitchen. Then in September 2010, they quit their jobs and focused all their efforts on Arbor Brothers." Read the rest here.

Just a few years ago, The Lunch Room was but a food cart. As of next week, the popular vegan eatery will be an established and growing restaurant chain with two downtown locations.  "The Kerrytown location probably wasn't big enough from the first day we moved in there," says co-owner Joel Panozzo of The Lunch Room's first permanent location, which opened in 2013. "We've been making things work, but on a weekly basis, we'd say no to large catering orders and wedding cakes and one thing after another. So we've been trying to figure out how we could say yes." The answer turned out to be a second location with a larger baking space. The new restaurant in Huron Towers on Fuller Ct. will include a 1,037-square foot dining room and adjoining kitchen large enough for the owners to expand their baking operations enough to cover both locations, catering and wholesale orders. The new Lunch Room will feature grab-and-go options to cater to the student and hospital worker crowds buzzing around Huron Towers, while the Kerrytown location will continue to focus on made-to-order meals. Sit-down dining, however, will definitely still be available at the new restaurant, in addition to their deli case offerings.  "With the sandwiches, we'll unwrap it and grill it to order," says Panozzo. "We'll play and experiment with how far we can take the grab-and-go concept." Panozzo expects to begin with a soft opening of the new location over this weekend, with doors officially opening some day next week. He and co-owner Phillis Engelbert plan to employ about 15 part- and full-time workers at the new restaurant. Source: Joel Panozzo, The Lunch Room Writer: Natalie Burg