New restaurants in Houghton and Hancock boost local food scenes

The restaurant scene in both Houghton and Hancock is growing.

New restaurants – signs of vibrancy in any downtown – are sprouting up in both Keweenaw Peninsula communities.

Yes, a couple of restaurants have closed, but several new ones have opened and others are planning to expand. 

Not long after Cyberia — an iconic downtown Houghton coffee shop and community gathering spot — shut down, The Prickly Pine took its place. 

In Hancock, The Kaleva Café, a longtime community landmark, closed its doors, but a family group turned the space into Uncles, a breakfast and lunch diner.  Just down Quincy Street, the Nisu Bakery and Café shut down, but Griffin Family Café and Catering took its place. 

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve certainly seen an influx of new restaurants opening in the Keweenaw area,” says Brad Barnett, who is executive director of Visit Keweenaw. “While some turnover is common in the food and beverage industry, we’re experiencing a net increase as local entrepreneurs confidently respond to the growing diversity of tastes and interests of our community and visitors.”

He adds the trend is “directly aligned to the Keweenaw’s identity.” Locally owned, small businesses are the DNA of the Keweenaw’s food and beverage industry.

“These family-owned, small-business entrepreneurs bring an authentic, one-of-a-kind experience you won’t find anywhere else. Their investment is a powerful signal of the region’s increasing vitality and its appeal as a premier destination for visitors seeking an authentic, outdoor-centric lifestyle,” he says. “It’s incredible to see our community members chasing their dreams and enriching the Keweenaw experience for everyone.”

There’s also a big expansion under way in Houghton.   

Sky Sushi, a popular sushi restaurant in downtown Houghton, plans to expand and has purchased an empty building facing the entrance to the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, the former Kirkish Furniture store.  

The Prickly Pine

Run by a young couple, Robert and Geni Klimak, the Prickly Pine offers specialty coffees, cold drinks and homemade breakfast and lunch snacks in a welcoming, wood-filled space designed to feel like the North Woods it calls home. 

Located on a prime downtown corner (just a block from City Hall), The Prickly PIne opened in July to lines out the door and continues to attract crowds. 

The Klimaks are both from the Lansing area. Geni has worked for major corporations such as Delta Airlines and Disney, but her dream has always been to own a coffee shop.  

Now she has one. Geni comes in before 6 a.m. to bake cheddar biscuits, cheddar-chive biscuits, jalapeno-bacon biscuits, little Danish and quiche bites that sell out quickly. She hopes to add muffins and cookies to her baking repertoire soon. 

Robert first came to Houghton to study at Michigan Technological University, but, he says, “College wasn’t really my thing.” Instead, he trained as a certified arborist who climbs and cuts down trees. He used wood from trees he cut down to build the Prickly Pine coffee bar, milling it himself.  He plans to build furniture and shelving too. 

“We want the coffee shop to feel like a cozy place in the North Woods, with a lot of handcrafted stuff,” Robert explains. “I want something unique. I want people to walk in and know that this place was built with love.” 

The Prickly Pine is open from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. 

Uncles Local Diner

Uncles is owned by Daryll Williams, his son, Blake, and Blake’s brother-in-law, Alex Nettell. Daryll also owns Gino’s, another popular eatery in Hancock.  

Uncles serves breakfast and lunch. 

“We’re trying to keep the traditional Kaleva menu, but we’ve added our own twists,” Blake says. “We have burritos and breakfast bowls, an Uncles omelet with three meats and cheese, and our special Unc sauce.” 

Blake, Daryll and Alex competed to create Unc sauce, a homemade tangy, smoky sauce for burgers, breakfast sandwiches, tater tots and anything that needs what Blake calls “just the right amount of kick.”

Why did they name their restaurant Uncles? 

 “We’re all uncles,” Alex explains. “I’ve been an uncle since I was not even 2 years old.” Blake is Alex’s son Duke’s uncle, and Daryll’s been an uncle all his life.

“All the uncles are great cooks too,” Alex adds. All three share the cooking chores at Uncles. 

Uncles is open from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday through Monday, closed Tuesdays. 

Griffin Family Cafe

The Griffin Family Café and Catering has moved to downtown Hancock from the Jutila Center, where the eatery opened in the former Kangas Café three years ago. The Griffin family decided to go into the restaurant business because Malachi Griffin, then 22, had been in a terrible car wreck that put him in a coma for four months and left him with brain damage. 

“Malachi wanted to work, and his therapist thought working in a restaurant would help him rewire his brain,” says his mother, Kelly Griffin, who owns the café. “And I love to cook. I love to feed people. That makes me happy.”

When Finlandia University, which owned the Jutila Center, closed, foot traffic vanished and the café shut down, continuing to operate just as a catering business until they heard that the Nisu Bakery and Café was closing. Kelly knew Nisu’s owner and was able to take over her space and her loans. 

They’re on the main street through downtown Hancock now, and foot traffic is back. Kelly is delighted. 

“We see a lot of new faces, a lot of visitors,” she says. “I love the people. It’s a blessing to serve the community and talk to the people.” 

Kelly is facing some challenges though. She can’t fry because regulations require an industrial hood, which costs a minimum of $20,000. 

“I can’t do omelets or fried potatoes. I can’t even fry you an egg,” she says. “So I’m learning to do all kinds of stuff in the oven.” 

She makes Finnish pannukakku, homemade cinnamon rolls, and a cinnamon roll French toast bake. She cooks bacon and ham in the oven. She’s working on a frittata, an open-faced baked omelet.  And saving for that industrial hood. 

Griffin’s specialties include a breakfast pasty filled with egg, meat, potatoes, green peppers, onions and cheese, an asiago bagel sandwich, a Greek salad, biscuits and gravy, and pannukakku. 

Oddly enough, the Griffins have come full circle to their new location. It’s the same space where Kelly and her minister husband, Thomas, opened their first storefront church in 2003, The Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church, now located near McAfee Field in Hancock. 

The Griffin Family Café is open for breakfast and lunch Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.

Shiba Cafe

There’s a brand new flavor in Hancock. 

The Shiba Café offers Japanese ramen featuring locally grown mushrooms and fresh farmers’ market produce, along with Japanese-style appetizers and desserts. 

Located in the former Finlandia cafeteria on Summit Street, Shiba Café is owned by Zack Osborn, a Hancock resident who also grows mushrooms and raises Japanese shiba inu dogs.  

He named his ramen house for his dogs, whose smiling caricature is on their sign.  “Japanese dogs, Japanese ramen,” he explains.

Osborn originally planned to put his ramen house in the Jutila Center, but the facilities weren’t compliant with regulations. Finlandia’s cafeteria was vacant, regulation-compliant and already set up as a buffet line.

“So why not embrace that,” Osborn says. 

Customers go through buffet-style to choose ingredients for their ramen. They have a choice of three broths: pork bone, miso and mushroom; three kinds of noodles: wheat, buckwheat or purple rice; four proteins: pork belly, tenderloin steak, halal chicken or sauteed oyster, chestnut shitake or lions mane mushrooms; and a wide choice of toppings — from bean sprouts, broccoli, bamboo shoots and green onion, to fish cake, tofu, bok choy, kimchi, egg, spinach, artichoke hearts, even cheese.

There are special topping choices too, depending on what’s available from the local farmers market. 

Osborn offers what he calls signature bowls for $5, $10 and $15. The budget bowl contains fewer options than the more expensive ones. Customers who want to build their own bowl pay $2 for broth, $3-$5 for noodles, $5 for protein and $2 per topping. Appetizers and desserts are $5 each.  

Appetizers include fried calamari, cold seaweed salad, shiba nuggets (chicken nuggets breaded in Japanese panko crumbs), sesame balls filled with red bean paste, shiba puff pizza (mushrooms, feta cheese & spinach on a puff pastry) and pork or mushroom potstickers,  

With seating for 150, Osborne is open to the idea of catering meetings and receptions. He’s already catering 300 school lunches a day for a new charter school in Calumet. 

“I want this place to become a community center,” he says.

Shiba Café is open Wednesday through Saturday for lunch from noon-2 p.m. and dinner from 5-8 p.m.  

Sky Sushi

When Sky Sushi opened in downtown Houghton in 2017, it was an immediate hit.  Offering a creative variety of sushi rolls as well as traditional sushi, sashimi and ramen, the restaurant filled its 20 seats for lunch and dinner five days a week, with to-go orders pouring in as well. 

Houghton had never tasted anything quite like it.

Now owners “Curly” Zhang and her husband, Justin Li, are planning to expand. And they’re doing it big. 

They’ve purchased a 12,120-square-foot vacant building facing the entrance to Houghton’s iconic lift bridge. They plan to build a restaurant on the ground floor that can seat 50, with nine apartments on the floors above.  

They’re starting from scratch. The building, built in 1910, housed Kirkish Furniture years ago. Now it’s an empty shell. The ceiling collapsed in 2016, but that’s been fixed. 

It’s costing Sky Sushi $4 million to buy and renovate the building. The owners received a $1.5 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). 

Their current building is not really designed to be a restaurant, Zhang explains.

“The floor plan is too small, and the kitchen is not set up right. We want to move to make it more functional for us and allow us to serve more people.”

The couple also plans to expand their menu, adding Thai and Vietnamese specialties such as pad thai and pho. 

In their new location, Sky Sushi will have space for three sushi chefs and a larger, better laid-out kitchen. They’ll be adding at least one sushi chef and more kitchen staff. In their present location, Li is the only sushi chef, and his mother cooks in the small kitchen.  

Li learned to be a sushi chef in China and Chicago. He and his mother once ran a small Chinese restaurant in China. 

But good sushi chefs are hard to come by, and “It’s really hard to find one to meet Justin’s expectations,” says Zhang. “He has very high standards. If it’s not perfect, he’s not going to serve it.” 

Sky Sushi hoped to open their new restaurant next summer, but a family emergency that recently took Justin and his mother back to China may delay their plans.  While he was away, Zhang kept the restaurant open for limited hours with an abbreviated menu. Li has returned, and the restaurant has resumed normal operation. 

Sky Sushi is open Tuesday through Saturday, noon-2:30 pm and 4:30-8:30 pm.

Other new restaurants

Houghton has welcomed other new restaurants recently too. Among them, Beviamo, a wine bar in downtown Houghton, which features wines, specialty cocktails, charcuterie boards and flatbreads. La Catrina is a new Mexican restaurant located in the former Pilgrim River Steakhouse on Highway 41.