(exciting music) - [Tom] On this episode of "UTR," we're back in Ann Arbor to take some classic classes, soar with superheroes and dine at a gem of a restaurant.

And in the middle of it all, we'll have some coffee that's changing the world one cup at a time.

Get ready to explore the cool people, places, and things that make the entire Ann Arbor area awesome.

(exciting music) (wine sloshes) (crowd murmurs) (glasses clink) - [Announcer] A visit to the Stahls Auto Collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at Stahlsauto.com.

- I've been around the world, but there's one place I keep coming back to.

And the more I explore, the more I realize it's the place to be.

I'm Tom Daldin and this is "Under the Radar Michigan."

(exciting music) You know, year after year after year, the Ann Arbor area is continually named one of the greatest places in the world to live, work, play, own a business, raise a family, and even film a TV show.

So if you'll excuse me, that's exactly what I'm gonna do right now.

Yep.

Ann Arbor and its surrounding communities are chock full of enlightened, educated people, amazing restaurants, cool, funky shops, diverse culture, history, tradition, sports, and tons of natural beauty.

There's so much to eat, see, do and experience here, that if you're not careful, you just might pack up and move the whole fam-damily here.

There's also the added intellectual uplift of the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University.

They give the region an excitement all its own by producing passionate people full of energy and ideas.

Now, if for some reason the whereabouts of the Ann Arbor area has until this time alluded you, I shall elucidate its location immediately.

Ann Arbor and its super cool colony of close communities are located in Southeast lower Michigan, about 30 minutes due west of Detroit.

(pages swoosh) You ever get tired of saying, "They just don't make things the way they used to?"

We'll, get ready for a retro rewind 'cause we're about to go serious old school on you.

That's right.

Here at the Michigan Folk School, you can take classic classes and everything from bread baking and cheese making to blacksmithing, woodworking, gardening, and even dress making.

It's a nonprofit campus that creates community by teaching time-tested techniques that'll enrich your life.

Yep, you can learn crafts that have been carried on for generations because these are the skills that helped us become who we are.

Oh, and they can also come in pretty handy too.

Pun intended.

Now, the first class I decided to take was one in how this all happened.

So I went back in time with Jason and Julia Gold.

You guys I am so, I don't know what to, impressed, blown away.

I thought this would be, you know, a folk school.

I thought it'd be like a little shed out in the, I mean, we are out in a beautiful pasture.

This place is state of the art.

I wanna start taking classes here yesterday.

(Jason laughs) The amount of stuff that you guys teach here, I mean, just ramble through some of them.

- Well, we teach the cooking classes.

We're sitting in the kitchen, so.

- Right.

I could use a couple of those.

- Yeah.

So we do lots of cooking.

But then also moving into fermentation and cheese making and then herbalism into the gardens.

We do natural dyes and then also woodworking and leather work and blacksmithing.

- Oh, you can like this, you can do- - Soap making- - And yeah, learn to make a hat here.

Learn to make shoes here.

Learn to make a dress here.

- Absolutely.

- Yes.

- I mean these are all skills that, to know this stuff would, it would come in kinda handy.

- It would, it definitely.

This, and the folk school movement began about 150 years ago in Northern Europe.

There was a real fear of the Industrial Revolution taking over and us forgetting knowledge, the people's knowledge.

So there was a movement they called the Volkshochschule to try to somehow or another retain the people's knowledge and it went all over the world.

And so there's folk schools from here to China and everywhere.

We got about 150 of 'em in this country alone.

- Wow.

Well, I mean, you guys started this together, so it's obviously a labor of love.

- Yeah.

- What's the most rewarding thing for you guys doing this?

- Well, it really does feel like we're preserving something for those of us that forgot to listen to our grandparents.

And now that we wanna know things, it's like we're like the surrogate grandparents and we're preserving knowledge that could otherwise be lost to antiquity.

But then also it's, there's valuable wisdom in the past that could push us forward and allow us to use that wisdom in conjunction with the technology of now and into the future.

- You know, speaking of technology now, I mean, oh, I forgot.

Don't go anywhere.

I bought something for you guys.

Hold on.

(Jason laughs) Don't go anywhere.

Okay, cut, I'm back.

We, on the show, we featured a gentleman named John Wilson a couple years ago.

- Mm-hm.

- The sweetest man.

And he taught us on the show, he taught me how to make a shaker box.

- A shaker box.

- And I made this shaker box with my own two hands.

It's something I created with him that I'll never forget.

I didn't order it on Amazon.

I didn't go to a store and buy it.

I bent the wood, made this with my own two hands.

And it's, I put keepsakes in here, I took 'em out 'cause they make noise.

- Sure.

- But yeah, it, this, it just means so much to me that I did this.

It's something tactical and that you made yourself.

- Mm-hm.

- Yeah.

So, I mean- - Well, that's the piece.

Like John passed away this last year.

- Yeah.

- And, but because of what he did, he passed on this knowledge to so many people.

You, yourself included.

We teach shaker box making here and it's because of John.

I taught and learned from John.

- Oh really?

I did not know that.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- This, I cherish this thing because of the time I spent with him and it's something he taught me to do and that now I know how to do.

In this day and age, like I said, where it's all screen time computers, cell phones.

We're being bombarded 24/7 with bad news.

- Oh yeah.

- To be able to come here and do something that means something that's useful.

How did you make this all happen?

This place is fantastic, but this couldn't have been easy.

- No.

It's always community created.

I mean, as we are crafting, you know, school, we crafted this school from nothing.

When Jule and I started the folk school, it's not like we said, "Well let's start a folk school."

It just happened.

We did a chicken processing class, then we did a beekeeping class and we had a folk school and we named it Michigan Folk School 'cause when you abbreviate Michigan and sound it out, it sounds like "my folk school."

And that becomes a possessive.

And we wanted people to also feel like they had an ownership of the school because it is a nonprofit.

- What a brilliant and timeless idea this school is.

It's a place the entire community can come to, to learn, grow, connect, and actually make something with their very own hands.

I would've made something, but heck, I'm still trying to figure out how to make a good TV show.

Honestly, if you're tired of staring into the endless internet for entertainment, step away from your computer back in time and learn a skill or a craft at the Michigan Folk School in Ann Arbor.

That way, next time your internet goes down, you'll have something worthwhile to do.

Bonus.

(pages swoosh) You know, don't you sometimes wish you could change the world?

Well, here at Bitty and Beau's, they're doing it one cup at a time.

Mmm.

Now, when it comes to making the world a better place, this is a place you really need to know, because they hire and help special needs people find a meaningful place and pursuit in their community.

Yep, when you get a delicious cup of Joe at Bitty and Beau's, it's handed to you by someone whose smiling face may not look like yours, but when you boil it all down, they have pretty much the same needs, wants, and deserve the same respect as anyone else trying to make their way in this crazy world.

So to find out more, I arranged for a super special message from the kind and caring creator herself, Amy Wright.

(pages swoosh) - Hi, my name is Amy Wright and I'm the co-founder of Bitty and Beau's Coffee.

The inspiration behind Bitty and Beau's Coffee is our two youngest children, Bitty and Beau, who both have Down Syndrome.

And as the parents of children with disabilities, when we learned that 80% of people in our country don't have jobs, we didn't want our kids growing up in a world like that.

The reason we do what we do is because we believe people with disabilities need to be valued just like everybody else in the world.

And what we noticed was when people would come into our coffee shops and spend time with our employees who have disabilities, they started to see them differently.

And while we can't open enough coffee shops to absorb the number of people with disabilities that need jobs in our country, what we can do is continue to demonstrate what's possible when you give someone with a disability a chance.

And so every guest that comes through our door is greeted with a warm, "Welcome to Bitty and Beau's Coffee."

They might sit at our counter and visit with our employees or have that moment when they pick up their order, where they have a short conversation with one of our employees and they start to see them differently.

And when you see people differently, you can't unsee that.

You go back into your place of work or your school or your social setting and you start to try to include people with disabilities in your life more.

So, we really feel like our shops are these portals where people can come in, experience what it's like to spend time with people with disabilities.

And that's when culture really shifts.

We hope that people all over the state of Michigan will decide to make a road trip and come to Ann Arbor, bring the whole family and come spend the day at Bitty and Beau's coffee.

You won't regret it.

You'll think it's the best thing ever.

And we hope you'll tell all your family and friends to come visit us too.

- Yep, Amy Wright started Bitty and Beau's for all the right reasons.

And speaking of reasons, here's just some of the reasons why Bitty and Beau's baristas love their jobs.

So first of all, what's your name?

- My name is Maria.

- Oh, very pretty name.

- Oh, thank you.

- So what's your favorite part about working at Bitty and Beau's?

- My favorite part of working at Bitty and Beau's is working with my crew and see what the learning experience is in the coffee shop.

- So what do you love about working at Bitty and Beau's?

- I love working here because I like the customers and the workers here.

- So tell me about the map on the back wall of all the different places.

- It's like, it maps like, of like Bitty and Beau's like where it's at.

- And where all the people around the world who have been here?

It's incredible.

People have been here from every continent.

That shows you how special you guys are.

- Yeah.

- Well, what's your favorite part?

The customers or the coffee?

- Well, I like everything about Bitty and Beau's because I come here every day.

- But, and also you guys actually take the time to write special notes to people for their coffees.

Why do you do that?

- So people can feel welcomed here and blessed to be here.

- Why do you think it's so important that Bitty and Beau's is here?

- It is important to make an impact on developmental and disabilities in all kinds of people like me.

- You are wonderful.

(hands slap) - Thank you.

- At Bitty and Beau's, coffee is the compelling, caffeinated conduit that brings people in.

But once inside, you suddenly and delightfully realize that as different as we all might be, at our hearts, we're all the same.

So next time you're anywhere near downtown Ann Arbor and you're looking for a good place to go to get a great cup of Joe, all you need to know is Bitty and Beau's.

Oh.

And don't forget to bring your smile.

(pages swoosh) Now if you're looking for your favorite superhero, you came to the right place.

But I'm not talking about me.

If I'm your superhero, you need a hobby.

(Tom chuckles) Oh, like the cape though?

Mm.

And speaking of hobbies, here's one that'll spark your imagination from here to a galaxy far, far away.

That's right.

I'm talking about comic books.

And one of the greatest places to meld your mind with this magnificent medium is the Vault of Midnight right here in downtown Ann Arbor.

This is a classic comic bookstore and a whole lot more.

And the more time you spend here, well, the more time you'll spend here.

So to find out how this fantastic find of fun and fantasy got founded, I hung up my superhero cape.

Remember Edna says, "No capes."

And conversed with awesome owner Curtis Sullivan.

First of all, the name.

- Yeah.

- Oh my gosh.

- Vault of Midnight.

- That's a mouthful, right?

- Oh, I was talking to my daughter last night.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I told her where, I said, "She won't know this place."

I said, "Well, we're going to the Vault of Midnight."

She's like, "Oh my God."

She lives in Detroit.

- Right on.

- Loves your location there.

Where'd the name come from?

- It's a amalgam of a few things.

So we like EC comics in the fifties, like "Vault of Horror," "Crypt of Fear," you know, weird science, fantasy, all those comics from the fifties.

- Yeah.

- And then, Captain Midnight was a character that I just always loved the name Captain Midnight.

Also an old character from like the thirties.

- Ah.

- And so, it's sort of a blending.

And then Vault implies we have lots of cool stuff inside, maybe, so, yeah, yeah.

- Boy, that's quite an explanation, but it makes sense.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a mouthful.

When people ask, you know, what kind of place we are, they think we're gonna be scary 'cause the name maybe it's a little intense, but- - And speaking of that, I was gonna say for a while I thought, where did comics go?

But they've never gone anywhere.

Comics have always been here and they've been expanding and growing and it's not a genre, it's a- - It's a medium.

- It's a medium.

- That's right.

Good.

Thanks for saying that.

It's really important.

Comics are, yeah, different than books and they're different than film and they're not storyboards.

They're totally cool juxtaposed words and images working together in a really neat way.

- So yeah.

- Yeah.

- There's nothing to me more boring than a book that's 500 pages and it doesn't have any pictures in it.

- What a rip.

- I know.

- Can I get some pictures in here?

- Yeah, whereas a comic book, it just illustrates the whole story and helps your imagination just go in all kinds of different directions, so- - Yeah.

- And comics are more than Marvel and DC right?

They go into- - So much more.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah.

- There's comic book artists and comic book authors from around the world - For sure.

Yeah, there's probably, you know, a hundred active publishers in the United States and in other countries like Japan, manga, which is the name for comic books in Japan is so prolific.

Everyone reads comics around the world.

America reads less comics than the rest of the world for some reason.

Yeah.

I don't know.

We gotta get our act together.

- Yeah, well, speaking of the vault aspect, I went down to the basement.

(Tom laughs) - Yeah.

It's pretty good.

- There's enough comics you could give everybody in the world a comic book down there.

- Yeah, no, we, I think we just did the math on it.

And we're encroaching on like 250,000 comic books in the store, so quarter of a million, individual tiny comic books.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

- Now in my house Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day.

- Okay.

- But here Wednesday is what, new comic book?

- Every single week, new releases go right here.

And yeah, every single week without fail, new comic book day is Wednesday at all comic shops everywhere.

That's just the way it's always been.

- And you're right downtown Ann Arbor.

How long have you been in Ann Arbor?

- The, since '96 is when we opened.

So we've kind of bopped around town.

We've been on Main Street for almost 20 years.

- [Tom] Well then, you're doing something right.

- We're doing okay.

Yep.

- And it says comic books and stuff.

- That's right.

- What's the stuff part?

- So this is good.

This is the catchall.

We do manga and we do board games and we do tchotchkes and toys and pins and stickers and t-shirts and statues and weird stuffed avocados.

- I was just gonna say, I saw that earlier.

I'm taking that avocado home.

- Yeah, it's, no, it's gorgeous.

Yeah, we sell a lot of giant stuffed avocados, strangely enough.

- So you've got locations in Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Detroit?

- That's true.

Yeah.

'96 in Ann Arbor and then we went to Grand Rapids in 2013.

So we've been out there almost 11 years, and then Detroit in 2016.

- Wow.

- So almost, yeah, nine or whatever years on in Detroit.

So yeah, long time then.

Yeah, those shops are doing good and yeah, it's exciting.

It's weird that we can have a couple stores, no more though.

My dream initially was to just survive.

And then we got a couple stores and we're like, "Oh, we'll open stores.

We'll be the big giant, the Borders of comics or something crazy.

And then we realized that it's very hard to run three businesses, so that's a lot.

- I love your passion.

I can tell you love what you do.

- Big time.

- You're great at it.

- Mm-hm.

Thank you.

- And you're helping turn the whole world onto something that, I mean, everybody should read comics.

- I think so.

I think so.

Everybody should read, period.

But why cheat yourself with just words, you know, throw some pictures in there.

- Right.

- You get art and great writing.

So yeah.

You know, don't cheat yourself, treat yourself as somebody once said.

- Well with talk time terminated, it was time for Tommy to wind up my imagination and let her go.

And not only did I find comic books that were a huge part of my past, I also discovered new ones that will be a frequent part of my future.

If you're a current connoisseur of comic books or like me, wanna pick it back up where I left off, Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor has the combination to your imagination.

So whether you travel through time, space, or just a normal car, like the rest of us earthlings, check this place out real soon.

(upbeat music) (pages swoosh) Well, next up we're gonna feature a restaurant here in Ann Arbor that's a real hidden gem.

Well, it was a hidden gem, until now.

Surprise.

Welcome to Peridot, where you'll find fantastic Vietnamese inspired cuisine and classic signature cocktails, all in a mind-blowing, artistic atmosphere.

To say this place has a cool vibe is a tremendous understatement because the ambiance here is over the top awesome.

But before I partake in some of my new soon to be favorite flavor profiles, I thought it'd best to delve into a bit of the backstory.

So I spent some table time front of the house with Chef Duc Tang.

Just gimme a little bit of sense of the journey that you took to get here.

I mean I, it was planetary, wasn't it?

- Well, Peridot is definitely the latest chapter in a long journey.

Most of that culinary journey revolves around Pacific Rim, the restaurant I run and own next door to Peridot.

And that's been around for 24 years.

I was asked by a friend to help start that in 2000, having going into it with zero culinary experience, no culinary education, never worked at a restaurant before.

In fact, my undergraduate degree was in biochemistry and I I have a graduate degree in theology.

A friend asked me to come to Ann Arbor to help him start Pacific Rim.

And I told them just I'll do it for two years, then maybe look at medical school after that.

And as soon as I started cooking, I just fell in love with it.

And it, I found that it just really fits me really well.

And from there it's just a journey of exploration, of experimentation, of getting back to my roots, calling my mom a lot, asking for recipes and just trying to recreate all the food I grew up eating.

My journey, culinary journey started way back from Vietnam is where I was born.

We, my family fled the country after the war.

We were one of the boat refugees.

Lived in refugee camps in Hong Kong and in the Philippines.

So it got exposed to other Asian cuisines through that journey.

And then landed in California.

And I grew up in California, which is a melting pot of various different Asian cuisines, Asian cultures as well.

- You've been on quite a journey in your life and to end up here with these two amazing restaurants in an amazing town.

- And Ann Arbor is such a transient town, so you are always having to reinvent yourself.

You always, there's always new people coming and going.

So you always have to, you can't just rest on that.

You always have to draw in new people.

And, Peridot is, I mean, over the years, 24 years running Pacific Rim, I've had many opportunities to open other restaurants.

Open a second one or one in a different location.

But I've always kind of said no to it because it just wasn't right.

It didn't feel right.

You really have to believe in it and you have to commit.

I didn't want to do anything half-hearted.

When the opportunity to come, came to open Peridot, I said yes probably 'cause it was right next door and I wouldn't have, I wanted to be present.

Anything I did, I wanted to be hands-on.

If I go somewhere else, you can't be at two places at once, but being next door, you kind of can.

- Yeah.

- And then also, the team of people involved, Adam, Justin, Robbie, GC, all the guys, Andrew, all the guys are part of this community that run businesses around town.

Last Word, Alley Bar, Good Time Charley's, they wanted to team up to open something special here.

And you know, because with that relationship, you know, I said this is, you know, this is the right fit.

And that's ultimately the most satisfying thing about the job is walking through the dining room and watching people really enjoy not just the food, but enjoy the company, enjoy each other or their relationships.

If food is a vehicle to bridge gaps and to draw people into relationships too, then I'm happy if it can achieve that.

- You're a very profound person.

Anybody ever tell you that?

- Well, I, for me, cooking and running a restaurant is very philosophical.

Not just practical.

You have to really believe in what you're doing and believe in why you're doing it.

And for me it's about drawing people in, about relationships, about community, creating community and food can be a great vehicle to create community.

And community can be just the people around one table, but it can be the wider community, Ann Arbor, downtown.

I live just down the street, so what I love about working in, and that's why I've been able to do it for 24 years, is that in Ann Arbor, it's so small that I'm able to integrate family life, work life, community life, downtown, being part of the downtown community and just, I have five kids.

So when they were young, they used to just walk downtown all the time and come and hang out at the restaurant and have meals together and go home and take them on bike rides downtown and stop in to the restaurant.

So it's just that whole integration is what's really appealing about being in Ann Arbor.

- [Tom] Well, even though I was never really the coolest guy in school, just being here at Peridot made me feel like I was somebody.

Somebody who was about to enjoy a fabulous meal, that is.

And everything we tasted was creative, complex and completely crave worthy.

It was a transcendent treat for every single one of our taste buds.

If creative cuisine in cool confines is something you find completely captivating, come please your palate at Peridot.

It's an absolute gastronomic gem you'll be glad you discovered.

Oh, and speaking of discovering stuff, come explore all there is to eat, see and do in and around Ann Arbor.

It's a part of our great state that helps make Michigan the best place in the world to be.

Mic drop.

(upbeat music) (wine sloshes) (crowd murmurs) (glasses clink) - [Announcer] A visit to the Stahls Auto Collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at Stahlsauto.com.

(exciting music) (exciting music continues)