Enjoying delicious food and drinks with friends and family in the warm daylight is one of the best ways to spend a summer afternoon. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic pretty much robbed us of that last year, unless you happened to have a nice private patio to enjoy takeout. For the rest of us, Lansing has a number of restaurants with great patios, and we have years’ worth of Top of the Town voting data to sort out the best of the best. Here are a few of the most popular spots to check out this summer. more

Cindy Swain’s older sister, Carla, was a mentor and an inspiration. She played tennis, ran and cycled. In the ’70s, just as Title IX was introduced to the world, Carla spoke openly about gender equity. In 1976, Swain lost her sister. more

Bruce Philip Miller’s new book, “Once Upon a Time in Lansing,” tells the story of a Lansing bank failure in the ’30s and its unlikely manager, Joseph Gleason. He said the idea for the book originated when he was just a young boy. more

Peppermint Creek Theatre Co. closes its season with a video documentary, “Radical Acts of Education,” which has solid reasoning to justify the use of the word radical in its … more

Howard Davenport knew he was in the running for Ryder Driver of the Year 2020. But when his superiors called him into the back office to announce a winner, Davenport didn’t think ever for a second that he would get the award.  more

Sirnico Williams, 19, discovered skateboarding after a fateful find in his front yard, a busted up skateboard that had been abandoned by its former owner. The sport is his passion, and it’s a no-brainer that his favorite thing is his skateboard.  more

The MSU Broad (rhymes with “Road”) Art Museum has the car packed and gassed up with a big summer exhibit, “Interstates of Mind” — a tangled web of stories, concepts and images as sprawling and far-reaching as the interstate highway system itself. more

Mary Jane McClintock Wilson is a remarkable woman who serves as a tour guide in her new book, “The Lansing I Knew,” in which she reminisces about the people, places and things she observed through her nearly 96 years in Lansing.  more

irector Kelly Stuible-Clark says Riverwalk Theatre’s latest production, “Working,” is a collection of funny and heartfelt stories collected from all sorts of workers.   more

Westside Convenience bears more resemblance to a New York City-style bodega than a typical Midwestern convenience store. You can find hot fresh food, household items, freshly brewed Kool-Aid and a seemingly endless array of snacks.  more

Foxgrave’s new release, “Snake Oil,” is a five-song single sided 12-inch record that masterfully teeters on the line of loose rock ’n roll and tight, melodic pop punk. It’s pissed off, yet poetic. Rowdy, yet reflective—similar to The Replacements in their heyday. Vocalist/guitarist Caleb Shook chatted with City Pulse, here’s what he had to say about the band’s new release, its third, on Smog Moon Recordings.  more

After being established through a Facebook group, a team of local musicians has moved their live concert streaming series to its own independent website. Established in late 2020, Best Friend’s Club has helped alleviate the drought of live music for both performers and fans. more

Despite the cataclysmic effects the pandemic had on county fair events in 2020, most are expected to take place this year, at least in some form. more

ArtPath, an annual public art project alongside the Lansing River Trail, has reached its $7,600 crowd fundraising goal for its fourth exhibition year. more

A cocktail of rain, wind and even a little snow assaulted the farmers market last week. The fair-weather hipsters stayed home. So did the lemonade stand. Altogether, more farmers showed up than customers, and coffee was the only thing that sold out because everyone’s hands were cold. There was a steaming cauldron of chicken congee for sale at the Vietnamese sandwich stall, and had the cardboard bowls not run out, the congee would probably have sold out, too. more

Katherine Heiny’s new book, “Early Morning Riser,” is a comic novel that doesn’t need a laugh track. “Early Morning Riser” will make you laugh out loud on its own. … more

You could get into a thicket teasing out trombonist Michael Dease’s many inspirations. He’s a professor of jazz at MSU, after all. more

Between the small town of Owosso and the even smaller town of Perry, runs M-52 — a remote stretch of Michigan highway that’s mostly lined with cornfields and intersecting dirt roads. Among this rural countryside once sat an eerie, dilapidated farm house. That abandoned two-story home is now demolished, but it lives on via the cover of “Polymorphic,” the brooding debut record from Bloody Butterflies.   more

Now that more people are getting vaccinated, Habitat for Humanity is taking on more projects and slowly getting back to the way things used to be.   more

Dawn Newton’s just-released novel, “Remnants of Summer,” filled me with nostalgia for my Michigan roots and it often brought tears to my eyes. The coming-of-age novel is an engaging mix of innocence and being faced with harsh realities.  more