Friday, February 28, 2014

Plymouth Road Big Boy to shift to Annie’s Family Restaurant and Bake Shop

The elevated Big Boy statue that has stood on Plymouth Road near Farmington Road since 1958 will be coming down as the site will get a facelift and a new name this month.

The restaurant will open Friday morning as Annie’s Family Restaurant and Bake Shop. The owners are ending their relationship with the chain restaurant, remodeling the property, and creating an independent establishment with a revamped menu featuring Michigan products.

“Our contract with Big Boy expired and we mutually agreed to depart,” said partner Wail Bamieh. “They have quality food and reputation, but this gives us a chance to do something different.”

Bamieh has been affiliated with Big Boy restaurants since 1970. Along with partners James Morisi Sr. and James Morisi Jr., Bamieh has controlled the Livonia site for 14 years.

The trio is in the midst of projects to install a new fireplace, remodel the salad bar, and other interior renovations. New outdoor signage will be installed for Annie’s, named for memory of the wife and mother of the Morisi’s, a lady who was known for her homemade dishes.

The new restaurant will feature a familiar collection of sandwiches, home-cooked meals, and extensive breakfast offerings at reasonable prices, Bamieh said. Annie’s will add fresh seafood, Mediterranean and Polish dishes to the menu, including Jennie’s Pierogis.

Bamieh said he is excited to unveil a unique collection of homemade desserts with homemade cakes, pies and original creations featuring Guernsey’s Ice Cream. He said he hopes the changes to will keep his regular customers coming back while attracting new ones.

“We always had a good reputation for a clean restaurant, good food and good service,” Bamieh said. “I think our customers appreciate it, and we will continue that.”

He added he will maintain his 40 employees, including some veteran wait staff led by Denise Hueston, who has worked at the site for 38 years.

Livonia Chamber of Commerce President Dan West said Bamieh and his partners have thoroughly planned this transition.

“This is the second time in less than 10 years that Wail and his partners have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars enhancing this property,” West said. “He’s not slapping a new sign on an old building. The look, menu, and name will be fresh when the site reopens.”


Annies Family Restaurant and Bake Shop is scheduled to open at 6 a.m. Friday, March 7. The phone number is 734.421.4349.

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CONTACT: Wail Bamieh, partner, 734.421.4349

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Chamber lauds OHM, Bill and Rod’s with 2014 business of year awards

Dave and Buster’s, Home Instead earn enhancement awards

(LIVONIA; February 11, 2014)  - OHM Advisors, Bill and Rod’s Appliance, Dave and Buster’s, and Home Instead Senior Care were selected as Livonia Chamber of Commerce award winners and will be honored at 10th annual Leadership and Awards Celebration on Thursday, Feb. 20, at Laurel Manor.
“These companies do amazing work and share their success in many ways throughout the community,” said Livonia Chamber President Dan West.

The 2014 Outstanding Large Business of the Year Award goes to OHM Advisors, an engineering and consulting company headquartered in Livonia. OHM employs 220 people at eight locations in Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.  The company serves nearly 50 municipal clients, including Livonia, Farmington, Farmington Hills, Northville, Plymouth and Canton townships, Romulus and Wayne County. They also work for several corporate clients such as Valvoline, Nationwide Insurance, and New Albany Company.

“We have our four original customers from 1962 still on board, including the city of Livonia,” said John Hiltz, OHM’s president and third-generation partner. “I think that says a lot of about our staff and service through the years.”

The company was created by Ernie Orchard, John E. Hiltz (Hiltz’s great uncle), Frank Papke and Bill McCliment in Detroit in 1962 and moved to Livonia in 1972, at about the same time Hiltz’s uncle retired and his father, John J. Hiltz Sr., became a partner. It became known as Orchard, Hiltz and McCliment in 1983. Through the years, OHM provided key planners for infrastructure work, drain installation, and road projects – a number of them along the I-275 corridor.

Hiltz, a former member of the Livonia Board of Education, said the OHM staff is encouraged to be involved in the communities in which they live and serve. In Livonia, OHM employees are involved in the Plymouth Road Development Authority, Livonia Community Foundation, Livonia Symphony Orchestra, Livonia YMCA, and numerous other causes.

In 2013, OHM added 60 employees and earned two notable honors: The American Council of Engineering Companies of Michigan Firm of the Year, and the Michigan Business and Professional Association selected OHM as a leading place to work.

“Our service has been the key to our growth,” said Dan Fredendall, OHM’s executive vice president. “We know we succeed only if our communities succeed, and we bring those services for success to the table.”
The Outstanding Large Business of the Year honoree is a Livonia company with more than 50 employees and a sustained record of business excellence and extraordinary community service. Hiltz said he is “humbled” that OHM was selected, and he views the honor as a “validation of the service we provide to our customers and communities.”

The 2014 Outstanding Small Business of the Year is Bill and Rod’s Appliance, a three-generation appliance repair and sales store with a presence in Livonia for 51 years. The company expanded six-fold in 2013 by moving into an 18,000-square-foot building on Middlebelt Road. The move provided room for mattress sales, demo kitchens for customers to test appliances, and increased inventory. The move boosted the employee count to 26, and sales of parts and machines by 182 percent.

“I think our dependable service and helpfulness through the years helped us grow,” said Linda Legato, who runs the business with her husband, Kim, and son, Joe. “Kim is always answering questions from customers.”

Many appliance stores are not willing to share expertise with customers trying to fix their own appliances, but Kim Legato said this builds trust with future customers. “I always felt that helping people like that was an investment in future business,” Kim Legato said. “They seem to always come back to buy parts or a new appliance.”

Linda Legato’s father, Aloysius “Rod” Rodriguez opened the business in the basement of his Garden City home in 1963 with his friend, Bill. Months later, they parted ways and Rod moved into a Livonia store, but Rod kept the name Bill and Rod’s. Rod died suddenly in 1976, shortly after he hired his daughter’s new fiancĂ©e. Kim and Linda eventually took over and ran the business while raising their three children. The couple also praises the work of senior technician John Kortesoja for his 39 years with the company.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” Linda Legato said about earning the Outstanding Small Business of the Year award, an honor that goes to a Livonia business with 49 or fewer employees with a sustained record of business excellence and extraordinary community service. Bill and Rod’s has supported Livonia Goodfellows, Livonia Save Our Youth Task Force, several school fundraisers, and donates appliances to Life Remodeled, a charity that builds new homes in Detroit for impaired adults.

Dave and Buster’s and Home Instead Senior Care will receive this year’s Community Enhancement Award, which honors Livonia companies that invest in a construction project that makes a visible difference in the community.

Dave and Buster’s opened its second Michigan location in Livonia in December. The multimillion-dollar project constructed a new 40,800-square-foot restaurant and video game arena on Victor Parkway with room for 1,800 people and jobs for 294. Meeting rooms and sports viewing areas are adorned with murals featuring Detroit-area sports teams and landmarks. General Manager Dave Rogan said people have waited more than three hours to enter the venue on some nights.

“It has been great the way the community has embraced us,” Rogan said. “We exceeded our expectations by 35 percent (in the first two months).”

Dave and Buster’s consistently attract customers from Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Toledo. “We pull people to the Livonia area so there is an additional (economic) spend in this area,” Rogan said.

Home Instead Senior Care tripled the size of its home-turned-office location on Middlebelt Road. The expansion to 4,900 square feet added room for administrative offices and training rooms, but owner Glenna Yaroch focused on an expansion that maintained the comfortable, home feel and Victorian look of the structure.

“Being locally owned and operated, I don’t want anyone to tackle me in Kroger’s because they were upset with our service,” said Yaroch, a 20-year Livonia resident. “We were always committed to quality. We aim to do what is right, not what is easy.”

Her team of 155 employees tended to the non-medical, in-home needs of 300 clients last year, most of whom are senior citizens with cognitive issues such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

Yaroch opened her Home Instead franchise on Five Mile and Hubbard in 2002, before moving to her current location in 2004. She concluded about two years ago she needed more space when “I had to meet in the bathroom to have a private conversation with someone,” she said.

A physical therapist by trade, she frequently supports senior care initiatives at St. Mary Mercy Hospital. Yaroch and her husband, Scott, have three grown children and worship at St. Michael’s Catholic Church.

For the second time in five years, Mark LaBerge is the Livonia Chamber of Commerce’s Ambassador of the Year, which is awarded to the chamber’s most-active volunteer over the past year. The retired Livonia police captain is now the director of campus safety for Henry Ford Community College.

“Mark is omnipresent at our events and grand openings, and his keen awareness of this community is immensely helpful to the Chamber,” West said.

He has lived in Livonia for 41 years and is an alumnus of Churchill High School.  LaBerge and his wife of 28 years, Brenda, have two grown children. In addition to his chamber involvement, LaBerge also serves on the Community Alliance Credit Union Board, Livonia YMCA Board, and Livonia Optimist Club.

“The Chamber lets me contribute to the growth, positive change and continuous improvements of the city that I grew up in, was educated in, worked in, raised a family in, and still choose to live in,” he said. “The Livonia Chamber is more than a business group – it is an organization that supports the entire community.  

The business award winners were nominated by Livonia Chamber of Commerce members and community leaders and selected by an anonymous committee who evaluates the nominations.
The Leadership and Awards program, sponsored by Cambridge Property and Casualty, AlphaUSA, St. Mary Mercy Hospital and Madonna University, is coordinated by the Livonia Chamber of Commerce and the Livonia Observer. Tickets are available at $25 each. Admission includes a light dinner and soft drinks. A cash bar will be available. To reserve tickets, call the Livonia Chamber office at 734.427.2122, or via e-mail at sweeney@livonia.org.


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