Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Village Corner in Ann Arbor: Purveyor of Fine Wines and Fake I.D.'s


The much-loved Village Corner party store in Ann Arbor, along with its impressive wall of confiscated fake I.D.'s with the eyes X'd out, is gone, the victim of a development project that includes a high-rise student apartment building. Many Flintoids will remember this place. Mike Wilkinson of The Detroit News reports:

Dick Scheer and his wife, Sally, have run the store for 40 years, enjoying a remarkable run fueled by students' thirst for beer and liquor and older adults' growing love of wine. They tapped into a wine craze that started in the 1960s and has grown for generations. "We hitched our wagon to that," said Scheer, 67, a graduate of U-M.

A few things have changed. Today's students are also interested in microbrews as well as wine. Years ago, students walked right past the wine and headed for the coolers. "A lot of the students today are really savvy," he said.

While the beer accounted for the most sales, the wine helped the owners weather the ebbs and flows of the school year and made them famous; the store is known around the country for its selection of smaller vintners from Europe.

Don't worry. Scheer plans to reopen at another location.



2 comments:

  1. Uhhh.. does that mean I can get my ID back now? It should be in the 1987-88 group.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.