Born and raised in Hawaii, Piilani moved to the Lansing area over 30 years ago and began an ongoing catering business. Her new venture features a daily lunch buffet and, if all goes according to plan, may soon feature a nightly dinner buffet ($8.99)..

I was curious to see if there would be many wines from the challenging 2009 vintage, and how they would show, but most of the wines continued to be 2007 and 2008 juice.

Ramon’s, a family-run restaurant owned by Margarita and Ramon Fuentes that once had two locations in Lansing, opened in 1976 before shuttering in 2002.

On any given day, Bella Harvest offers 20 to 25 varieties of produce. In the winter, very little is organic, and that disappoints customers. As the growing season matures, though, organic options proliferate until they peak in late July and early August, when nearly 100 percent of his produce is organic.

Patrons recently celebrated the grand opening of Eden’s Juice in downtown Lansing. The juice bar, in business since March, welcomed friends ' both old and new, celebrities and average Joes ' to select from an expanded menu of healthy juices and more..

In 1975, Sutter Home’s White Zinfandel experienced a "stuck fermentation," a problem that occurs when the yeast dies out before consuming all of the sugar. This problem juice was set aside. Some weeks later, the winemaker tasted it and preferred this accidental result, which was a sweet pink wine.

“Our major excitement with the whole thing is the addition of the bar,” Bates said. “Because everyone who has been in and seen it ' especially regulars who come in all the time ' has been asking us to build one for a while now, so they’re pretty excited.

Before her current venture, Valdez owned Niña’s Taco House, within a stone’s throw of her present site. Recently divorced and pregnant with her fifth child, Valdez was inspired to open her own Mexican restaurant ' after she had been in a wheelchair for three years, battling multiple sclerosis.

You’ve undoubtedly heard the dire claim that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first year and 95 percent fail within five years (actual statistics are about twothirds make it to the two-year mark and almost half survive to their four-year anniversary).

Yes, Joseph is surrounded by the Great Lakes, although that didn’t help a number of Scalawags restaurants Joseph, 56, operated in the area. He opened three of them in the past five years, and the last remaining Scalawags (in south Lansing) closed just a couple months ago.