Those of you who have lived in Dearborn for sometime will have some great memories of the landmark Dearborn eatery known as the Chambertin.

The restaurant was located on Michigan Avenue in the area now occupied by Kroger (formerly Farmer Jack) at Nowlin, along with a Holiday Inn. We were unable to find any photos of the Chambertin to share here but if you come accross any we’d be happy to post them here for all to see.

At its peak, the restaurant employed some 100 people, which was popular in the 1970s and 1980s.

We mention the Chambertin because its founder, Constantine “Gus” Kokas, died Thursday, May 21, 2009. He was 83. His funeral was held Wednesday in Westland and he was buried at the Great Lakes National Cemetery for veterans.

For his full obituary, please click HERE.

Dearborn Memorial Day parade-watchers.

On this Memorial Day, let’s all fly our flags and keep alive the spirit of American patriotism that is burning bright in all of us today. We thankfully remember those who have fought, who are fighting, and who will continue to fight to preserve our liberty and the right of all people to live in freedom.

As we pause to give thanks on this holiday, let’s also take the time to reflect on what Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, said in a speech on May 18, 1941 during the heated debate that occurred over the United States open support of the Allies before entering World War II.

” . . . What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession.

“An America is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the right of free men . . . ”

CANCELLED: July 30th Music Under the Stars at the Dearborn Hills Golf Course.

Free ice cream courtesy of the Dearborn Hills Civic Association.

If you’re planning to attend Dearborn’s 85th annual Memorial Day Parade beginning at 10 a..m. Monday you’ll need to find a parking site other than the former Montgomery Ward store.  Unlike past years, parking will not be available at the  southeast corner of Michigan and Schaefer.

The Dearborn War Memorial at City Hall.

However, plenty of free parking can be found  in the public lot located near the northwest corner of Michigan and Schaefer (north side of Michigan Avenue, where the former Kroger supermarket was located). Access to that lot is available off of Schaefer.

To get to this lot, the city is advising drivers to travel south on Schaefer from Ford Road. Drivers will not be able to cross Michigan Avenue to reach the parking lot if they are traveling north on Schaefer.

Serving as Parade grand marshal will be Michael E. Thornton, a retired United States Navy SEAL, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a Medal of Honor recipient. Also participating are Dearborn’s many veterans’ organizations, school bands, youth groups, community service organizations, and special floats from The Parade Company. There also will be a flyover by a F-18 fighter aircraft.

To make Dearborn’s 85th parade possible, a special thanks goes out to the many generous sponsors.

“It would be very challenging to hold an event on the scale that Dearborn does without the leaders in our business community who step up to the plate and make such a strong commitment to this effort,” said Gary Tanner, commander of the Dearborn Allied War Veterans Council. “Their help is a key factor in our conducting one of America’s best-known tributes to our fallen service men and women.”

The Parade’s sponsors include: Dearborn Federal Savings Bank; Dearborn Rotary Foundation, which is sponsoring the special “Let Freedom Ring” float; ACO Hardware; Lafontaine Motors, Inc.; HAP Alliance Plan of Michigan; East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority; Dearborn resident Brian O’Donnell; Henry Ford Medical Center Fairlane / emergency room; Hyatt Regency Dearborn; and Dearborn Outer Drive Kiwanis and Dearborn High Key Club.

Also providing support for the parade and ceremony are Park Place, Andiamo, Bianco Tours, Kroger at Michigan and Greenfield, The Henry Ford, The Dearborn Inn, Dennis Lark, Julie Pucci, Exchange Club, Kiwanis of Outer Drive, Eppinger, Les Stanford Chevrolet, Jack Demmer Lincoln Mercury and WestbornChrysler Plymouth Jeep.

Following the Parade, the City’s official remembrance service takes place at the Dearborn War Memorial, located on the grounds of Dearborn City Hall, and then concludes with a free outdoor concert by the Rackham Ensemble Singers. The group will be performing on an outdoor stage in City Hall Park, singing a variety of songs made famous during the “boogie woogie” era. Also being planned for City Hall Park are food and beverages for sale (including cold beer, sales of which benefit veterans’ causes), the chance to buy raffle tickets to win a new motorcycle and displays of military vehicles and exhibits from the U.S. Navy.

The Parade route is Michigan Avenue from Firestone to Schaefer in east Dearborn.

Funeral mass for Msgr. Herman Kucyk, longtime pastor of the Divine Child parish in Dearborn, is 11 a.m. Wednesday at the church. A morning prayer will precede the mass at 8:30 a.m.

Msgr. Kucyk died Friday at the Divine Child rectory of complications from kidney failure and lung cancer. He was 83.

Msgr. Kucyk’s sister, in an obituary in the Detroit Free Press, described Msgr. Kucyk, as an avid gardener with “an incredible eye for beauty and enjoyed sharing it with others.”

As pastor of the Dearborn parish, Msgr. Kucyk tended to the outdoor beauty surrounding the church and school buildings along with his spiritual and administrative duties.

He was known by students and parishioners as Father K. And he was just as familiar a figure in his farmer’s hat, blue jeans and worker’s gloves as he was in his priestly garb.

“If he hadn’t become a priest, my brother would have been a master gardener. He had an incredible eye for beauty and enjoyed sharing it with others,” his sister Jan Pierce said. “During his time at the school, he was so happy. He loved the children and mentored many of the younger priests.”

To read the Free Press article, please click HERE.

The weather may not have been perfect in the morning, but it seems a record number of people took part in the 4th annual Mutt Strut on May 16, raising some $65,000 for the Dearborn Animal Shelter in the process.

The short video below captures some of the excitment around the strut.

 We have said this before on this site, the annual walk is a good way to get some much needed foot traffic into west Dearborn, as many participants are not from Dearborn.

It is the type of event our downtown Dearborn needs to see more of. Take a look at what downtown Plymouth does on a regular basis. That city’s entire spring/summer if filled with outdoor events that get people downtown.

All proceeds from the walk went to the Friends For the Dearborn Animal Shelter, which supports Shelter operations and community-and animal-related programs. The Friends is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. For more information about the organization or if you want to make a donation, please visit www.Dearborn-Animals.com

Dearborn’s Joe Ricci Dodge, 14765 Michigan Ave., is among the 789 dealerships that Chrysler LLC says it will seek to slash by June 9, according to the court document listing the names of the dealerships.

According to the Detroit Free Press, some of the 789 dealers will try to stay in business, selling used cars and offering auto services. Joe Ricci Dodge is among some 40 dealerships in Michigan on Chrysler’s closure list.

With the dealerships now identified, Chrysler must sell the 44,000 vehicles sitting on their lots in the next few weeks without driving prices to fire-sale levels for remaining dealers, the Free Press reports

According to the Free Press, Chrysler said it would move the inventory from the rejected dealers to those that stay open and try to sell most of it over the next four to six weeks. But it’s unclear who gets the money from the sale of those vehicles.

Chrysler’s Steven Landry, executive vice president of North American sales and marketing, told the Free Press there would be no compensation to dealers who owe various amounts to Chrysler Financial for that inventory.

We have talked a lot on these pages about the many different elements that give Dearborn that homey feel even though it has a population of some 100,000 people. We can thank Dearborn’s strong neighborhood associations as being one of the key contributing elements that keeps Dearborn feeling special to so many of us who call this city our home.

Runners hit the streets Saturday in Dearborn Hills for the neighborhood's 2nd annual 5k Fun Run. For more photos from the race, click the photograph above.

Nowhere was this more evident than on Saturday morning along the tree-lined streets that comprise what is known as the Dearborn Hills neighborhood. On the streets were nearly 100 residents and non-residents, some running and others just watching, who showed up before 9 a.m. to take part in the Dearborn Hills Civic Association’s 5k Run. It was the second time for the run and the number of attendees this year compared to year-ago were up dramatically.

But to achieve a successful neighborhood event requires a lot of dedicated people to donate their time, along with some help from local businesses, which was the case here. Kearns Brothers, Panera Bread and the Dearborn Hills Golf Course, all great Dearborn businesses and neighbors, stepped up with donations and help. So did the Dearborn Police.

A big thanks goes to Dan Webster, my colleague on the Dearborn Hills Civic Association board, and his three daughters (avid runners themselves), who did the bulk of the heavy lifting to keep the Association’s 5K run on track, along with many other association members. And an extra thanks goes to Rob Seeley, our president, who carried this event over the finish line when bureaucratic obstacles began emerging, nearly stopping the race before it could even begin.

With the success of the second race under our belt, you can be sure there will be a third one, even bigger and better than this one around the same time next year.

For a list of the runners and their race times, click HERE

One of our favorite events of the year strolls into Dearborn May 16 when the Friends For the Dearborn Animal Shelter holds their 4th Annual Mutt Strut beginning at Ford Field Park at 9 a.m.

What’s nice about this walk is that the actual 1.8 mile strut talks place through the West Dearborn business district. This means that for a day our downtown is actually bustling with foot traffic. And if you own a business you might be able to leverage a few sales from passersby walking with their dogs.

It is the type of event our downtown Dearborn needs to see more of. Take a look at what downtown Plymouth does on a regular basis. That city’s entire spring/summer if filled with outdoor events that get people downtown. Tell us that doesn’t help business? I am puzzled why the Chamber and City do not do more of this here. But we digress.

In addition to the walk, the Mutt Strut will have a number of dog contests, including a “Barking Idol” contest, a Best Howler competition, where you can see if your BFF can carry a tune while competing with other doggie howlers. There also will be doggie massages or “paw-dicures”, err, pedicures.

The Mutt Strut will be held rain or shine since all weather is good dog-walking weather. What all of us can do to take part is to make a pledge to a dog taking part in the walk.

You can do that by visiting www.DearbornMuttStrut.com . The Web site also provides easy registration and on-line pledging capability, where you can create your own Web page to ask for donations.

All proceeds from the event benefit the Friends For the Dearborn Animal Shelter, supporting Shelter operations and community-and animal-related programs. The Friends is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. For more information about the organization, visit www.Dearborn-Animals.com

The Mutt Strut is sponsored by Dearborn Family Pet Care and there will be a number of fun activities for the whole family at the Ford Field Park. Some of the highlights include a Doggie Health Zone, Milt Wilcox’s Ultimate Air Dogs (dog dock diving that you have to see to believe), Dog Games and Contests, an all-day Adopted Dog Birthday Paw-ty, and much more.

If you have additional questions, please call 313-943-2697.

The Well is a hit in Detroit.

Dearbornites will have a new watering hole to visit this summer when a new bar called The Well opens in the West Village Commons development on Michigan Avenue.

The Well’s co-Owner Ross Varacalli, a Dearborn resident, said the new bar (next to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in the West Village Commons) should be open by July or at least by Dearborn’s Homecoming celebration in August. If The Well in Dearborn is anything like the one Varacalli and his partners operate in Detroit, it should be a hit in Dearborn.

The Detroit location of The Well, 1228 Randolph St., has a traditional British pub feel and has a laid-back atmosphere. It opened in 1997 and Varacalli and his team have owned it for the last four years. With its wood-paneled walls and dartboard, The Well in Detroit draws a student-heavy clientele from Wayne State University and the University of Detroit. Varacalli said the feel and look of The Well in Detroit will be carried over to the Dearborn location.

If student housing ever comes to Dearborn between the two parking decks, as is seriously being discussed by city officials and the University of Michigan-Dearborn, The Well would benefit, as would other businesses in the area.

Why Dearborn for The Well?

“We chose Dearborn because of my ties to Dearborn,” said Varacalli, a former bartender at the Double Olive bar in Dearborn. “I think there still is a market for a bar here. People want a fresh place to go in Dearborn and we can offer it. We have a good reputation with our bar in Detroit and we plan to continue that here in Dearborn.”

Separately, cigar aficionados could soon have a new place to buy and smoke cigars. A vacant building along Michigan Avenue could soon be replaced with a new cigar bar. Plans still are preliminary but the cigar bar could occupy one of the vacant buildings located between Monroe and Mason along Michigan Avenue. We will have more on this as plans materialize.