Ann Arbor, MI, has a lot of amenities. –And many of them seem to be getting bigger than their britches as a mushrooming hospital system booms this cute little liberal arts town into the $billianosphere.
A few years back Tommy and Matt decided to take a stand for oldtime neighborly style, so they quit their jet-set deli jobs and bought the old Big Ten Party Store and turned it into a low-key yet worldclass wine’n’cheese shop.
It’s been wonderful watching Big Ten avoid the hype and get the job done. They really know what they’re doing and everyone who works there really digs good food. They have the oldworld vibe—without being (overly) cranky old farts themselves. (A couple of them even sport sexy Laguoile wine’n’cheese knives in those curvy back-of-hip sheaths: Eurostyle, for sure.)
I’m happy to call them friends. What they do is share and what they know is food. So that’s what you get. No fooling around.
Here’s the Morgan & York website and ph# 734-662-0798.
I bet there aren’t many places today that do what they do. It’s Dean & Deluca quality—pushed even further—in a neighborhood corner shop. What they stock leans hard not to the fancy per se but to the authentic, the real-deal—craftmade, homemade, handmade. They know the makers of their stuff by first name whether they’re local or across the globe. When you buy bacon here it’s sliced for you off of hams that are smoked a few at a time in the hills down south. Tommy knows the lady whose basement some of the cheeses come from in England. Sean took his years in France to heart. Every day they put on their smocks and deal out the rare oldstyle service.
(Thanks to staff models Sean and Rob, and shopper Martha.)
