Many foodies populate the northern Michigan area, and the heart of all cooking and eating--spices--is soon to have a bigger presence in the area as well.
Suttons Bay Trading Company, a small-batch spice manufacturer and retailer, is opening its first northern Michigan storefront in, where else, Suttons Bay. Under the name Suttons Bay Spices, husband-and-wife owners Kim and Karen Pontius are looking forward to re-establishing the personal connection with their customers that they've been cultivating online for some time now.
The couple moved to northern Michigan in recent years, although the area has been their goal for many years, after a vacation in 1990 touched off a love for Suttons Bay.
"We weren't sure how we were going to do this but we looked at a lot of possibilities. We both had food service and hospitality experience in our past and knew we did not want the grueling pace of the restaurant business while trying to raise a family," says Karen Pontius.
Karen, who is the president, proprietor and spicer, says a soft opening of the store is scheduled for April 30, just in time for the Suttons Bay Saturday village-wide shopping event to kick off the spring season.
"Our grand opening will be in mid-June after we have a chance to get situated in our new place," she says.
While Suttons Bay Trading Company, Inc. has been in the area for two years, the right retail spot just wasn't available till now. The spice company has been working out of a Traverse City building next to Grand Traverse Distillery, where it will still conduct its online and wholesale business.
Pontius says the store offers retail customers the same advantages as it has before: micro-blended , quality batches of spices from their own recipes, as fresh as can be--a big improvement, she says, over most spice blends that sit on the shelf for far too long before they reach your table.
Writer: Sam EgglestonSource: Karen Pontius, Suttons Bay Trading Company
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.