Café Racer
Gear heads and coffee addicts rejoice! Finally there is a place where people who enjoy the rich aromas of coffee and motor oil can go to find both.
Café Racer—located right across the bridge on Cross Street in Depot Town—is unlike any other café you’re likely to ever go to. After all, how many coffee shops also have a full service garage in the back?
The goal for owners John Craddock, Pat Somers, Leah Halbert and Claire Broderick was to create a place in which motorcycle enthusiasts, coffee lovers and anyone just looking for a cool place to hang out can meet up and have a good time.
“We service, restore and maintain bikes,” said co-owner Claire Broderick. “We get parts for people to do their own things and we have a full service shop. We’ve incorporated the coffee with our motorcycles and our merchandise, so you can get all of that here.”
The four friends have been motorcycle enthusiasts for years, and decided a few months ago to open a unique store that brings together a garage, a coffee shop, a museum and an art gallery featuring works by local artists.
“The name Café Racer is a spinoff of a type of motorcycle and motorcyclist from way back in the day,” Broderick said.
Back in the 1960s café racer was a term referring to World War II veterans who would modify their motorcycles. Eventually, the term began to be applied to the type of motorcycles they created, which were highly modified to fit their own needs—specifically to go extremely fast.
“They used to race from café to café, drinking coffee instead of alcohol,” Broderick added.
There is a debate over what exactly a café racer motorcycle really is. Some people say the term refers exclusively to British bikes, like BSA, Norton and Triumphs. Others argue that a café racer can be any model of bike that has been customized. But at Café Racer everyone—bike lover or not, young and old alike—are likely to get a kick out of the store’s unique style.
“These guys will come in and they will just have all these stories and memories,” Broderick recalled. “I’ve had fellas pull out ratted black and white photos kept together by scotch tape of themselves or loved ones on their bike.”
While customers are enjoying a cup of freshly made coffee from Roos Roast in Ann Arbor and browsing the museum-quality display of classic motorcycles—including a ’73 Yamaha, a 1929 Harley and a 1941 Indian—professional mechanics in the garage can be doing repairs, oil changes, tire work and restoration. They work on all types of motorcycles, including mopeds and scooters, and even have a few up for sale.
The store also sells a wide variety of merchandise, most of which has been designed and created by local artists including t-shirts printed by VG Kids and designed by the Gibb Company, metalwork from Speed Cult and a unique light-up statue called “Tin Angry Man” by Cre Fuller.
In the future Café Racer plans to continue to work within the community by teaming up with a local bakery, releasing a 2010 pin-up calendar featuring local girls modeling with motorcycles and putting together events such as rallies and concerts.
“There’s just a really awesome community and support in this area, and we all—as business owners and residents—want to see it grow. That’s also why we keep things local,” Broderick explained.
The garage is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the coffee shop is open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday noon until 6p.m. For more information contact info@caferacerypsi.com or visit the store at 10 E. Cross St.
Energy Outlet Store
“Eco-friendly,” “green technology” and “energy conservation” are buzz words people are constantly being bombarded with every day on TV, in advertisements and even in children’s movies. Yes, environmentalism is trendy, but it’s more than just another passing fad.
As Deb Heed of the Clean Energy Coalition explains, the actions of this generation will directly impact future generations, so being passionate about conservation and renewable energy has a much larger impact than simply being part of a social movement.
“It just seems like this is such a transformational time in our country and our planet’s history,” Heed explained. “Any lifestyle change we make will impact future generations, so the more normal this becomes to the college generation, the better chance we have of lasting change.”
But making an impact on the environment doesn’t require drastic change. In fact, all it takes is a quick trip down to the Energy Outlet Store, located next to Café Luwak in Depot Town.
Part of the Clean Energy Coalition, a “non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting clean energy technologies as a way to create healthier, energy independent communities,” the Outlet Store is a one-stop-shop for green technology.
Located in the front half of the CEC’s offices, the Outlet Store offers a great display of energy saving appliances, eco-friendly home improvement products and cool green technology.
The store can be roughly split into three sections: home sealing and insulation, light and energy conservation and water efficiency. While many of the products target home-owners, there are plenty of options for college students living in a dorm or apartment.
“As a student it feels like ‘There’s only so much I can do,’” Heed explained. “You can’t go and insulate your own room, but you can seal your room, you can use a draft guard and you can write a letter to the university.”
Many of the products Heed recommends for college students are relatively cheap but will make a big difference in utility bills—like the draft guard, which slides right under the bottom of the a door and will come in handy for anyone living in a dorm room during winter. Another great choice for those on a budget is the Toilet Tank Bank, which Heed demonstrated.
“If you have a toilet with a tank you can access, you take the top off, fill the bag and put it into the tank so it can’t fill up all the way. It will save 0.8 gallons of water per flush, and only costs $2.00.”
Another easy way to conserve energy and money is to swap out traditional light bulbs in your room with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Traditional light bulbs are incandescent, which means they create light by also producing heat—which uses more energy. CFL bulbs create less heat and use a quarter of the amount of energy than incandescent bulbs. For those with a slightly larger budget there are also LED bulbs which create no heat, use even less energy than CFL and last much longer—approximately five times longer than CFL and up to 50 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
“[LED bulbs] are an inheritance piece,” Heed joked. “It lasts 20 or 30 years.”
Products like the LED bulbs, which are more efficient and last much longer, are becoming more and more common. Though they do cost more than other similar options, they will quickly pay for themselves and will continue to last for years to come.
Take the Smart Strip, for example. While it may look like your average power strip, several of the outlets are designed for specific uses. Two of the outlets—which are color-coded blue for convenience, will cause all of the other outlets to shut off when the devices plugged into them are powered down. This makes it convenient to cut off power to large set-ups for stereos, entertainment systems or computers which don’t necessarily need to stay plugged in all night. A third, red outlet is the only one which will stay on by default and is great for devices that need to remain on all the time, like modems and alarm clocks.
While most college students would like to make their apartments, houses and dorms energy efficient and eco-friendly, it all comes down to money. To help make some of these energy conserving appliances and gadgets a bit more wallet-friendly, the Energy Outlet offers three different Eco Kits—one for water, heat and electricity—which provide an assortment of products for cheaper than buying each one individually. For between $20 and $25 you can get pick up of the kits and start saving energy and money right away.
And for the real eco-geek there is what Heed refers to as the store’s “pièce de résistance”—their line of Solar Powered bags. The bags come in four styles—backpack, messenger, converter and laptop—each with a solar panel on the back.
“Just being anywhere near sunlight will cause the panels to charge up and fill a battery,” Heed explained.
Inside the bag are outlets to charge cell phones, cameras, iPods, laptops and other electronic devices. They aren’t cheap—running anywhere from $199 to $499—but they are a must for the geek-on-the-go and would make great gifts for the technologically-savvy.
With products for every budget, the Energy Outlet Store is the place to go to learn how to make your house, dorm, apartment or office more energy efficient. But the store is first-and-foremost part of an organization dedicated to improving the environment—so starting this fall they will be offering classes to inform and educate people on how they can make a difference.
The Energy Outlet Store is located at 44 East Cross Street and can be found on the web at www.cec-mi.org. They are open Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
