What do the cities of Rochester Hills, Novi, Canton, Woodhaven, Birch Run and now Royal Oak have in common? An Emagine megaplex movie theater in each of their downtowns.

Dearborn was supposed to get one as part of a major development project on Michigan Avenue but years after it first was pitched to City Hall still nothing has materialized.

Instead, Dearborn is left watching on the sidelines as Royal Oak becomes the sixth city to open its doors to an Emagine megaplex, which will celebrate its grand opening on Monday, May 16.

We wrote about plans for the Emagine many times HERE on these pages, as did the Dearborn Press & Guide.

Economic & Community Development Director Barry Murray said in 2010 that an Emagine Theatre was being discussed as having potential to be located on the former Vic Tanny/Bally’s site, adjacent to the Oakwood Muirhead building.

Then the proposed plan for Dearborn called for a bowling alley (the new facility in Royal Oak has 16 lanes) on the lower level and a multiplex movie theater above (Royal Oak has 10 screens). The private investment for this facility was then estimated to be $12 million to $15 million, roughly the same investment in Royal Oak.

Hakim Fakhoury, a developer in Dearborn, earlier said the theater was to be part of a larger building plan he proposed along Michigan Avenue. The theater was one reason, he said, the Fatburger chain was supposedly considering opening a location in the building at Michigan and Military.

A vinyl sign that hung outside the building saying Fatburger was “coming soon” has long since been removed.

A Emagine megaplex would be a terrific addition to downtown West Dearborn. We’re hopeful it still could happen . . .

Royal Realties, LLC, a group of overseas investors, now owns Dearborn's Hyatt Hotel.

It appears the $12.5 million sale of the Hyatt Hotel in Dearborn is finally official. We reported it had been sold back in August on these pages didn’t have the name of the buyer (see earlier story, HERE.)

In a press release issued Friday, HREC Investment Advisors says the purchaser was Royal Realties, LLC, a group of overseas investors.

The sale of the 772 room hotel was handled by Mike Cahill, CEO and founder of HREC.  As the court appointed hotel receiver, Capital Hotel Management was the named seller of the asset acting on behalf of the special servicer.

For those who have lamented the lack of a good Mexican restaurant on the west side of Dearborn (we have), the spicy side of your palate will soon have something to smile about.

A new Mexican restaurant called Frida is coming to West Dearborn.

A new Mexican restaurant is going into the building once occupied by Annam, the Vietnamese restaurant that closed in July 2009.

The new restaurant on Michigan Avenue, between Monroe and Mason, is called Frida and it will serve Mexican cuisine. It isn’t clear when the new restaurant will open but a sign outside of the business says it will be “soon.” We look forward to having a place to go in West Dearborn that serves good Mexican food. Currently, there is only the Fuego Mexican grill on Schaefer near Warren in East Dearborn that fills that void.

In addition to Frida, there is talk that the closed Maestro’s in the West Village Commons development, also on Michigan Avenue, will soon be the home of a second Mexican restaurant. Just when or if such a restaurant will open isn’t clear but Post Bar owner Fred Giordano is said to be working to make it happen.

We’re hopeful both restaurants will open soon and take two more vacant buildings in West Dearborn off the market.

Dearborn's popular Ciao Italian restaurant is expected to soon reopen on Michigan Avenue.

Two years after a fire closed the popular Ristorante Ciao in Dearborn, the chef from the popular Italian eatery is preparing to reopen the restaurant on Michigan Avenue in the building that once housed Kasey’s Salad Bar.

Hassan Aoun recently opened the iburger lounge in the West Village Commons, serving some fantastic burgers, gourmet pizzas (better than the ones Aoun served when he was chef at Ciao), soups and salads. It’s worth a visit if you haven’t done so already.

Aoun is now turning his attention to reopening Ciao. Many of you will recall the Salad Bar, which later was sold and became Parisian Bistro. Well, Ciao will move into that building in the coming weeks.

Hopefully, the second time around for Ciao will be even better than the first . . .

In other restaurant news, the new business moving into the former Little Cafe that we wrote about a couple months ago is now open for business. The restaurant is called “Good Times Caffe”. We haven’t had the opportunity to stop in yet but signs say it serves soup, subs and a host of other foods.

We plan to check out the place later this week and provide an update for all.

We were hoping for the best but feared the worst and unfortunately the latter occurred.

Borders filed for bankruptcy and with that decision will close its Dearborn store as soon as this Saturday, according to some media reports. The store at Ford Road and Mercury is one of four in Michigan that will close, including stores in Utica, Grosse Pointe and the Arborland mall store in Ann Arbor. Its flagship store in Ann Arbor isn’t on the list.

This decision leaves Dearborn without a big name bookstore. But it could translate to more business for Dearborn Music at Michigan and Monroe and even my favorite used book store, Rodegher’s Used Books on Michigan, just west of east of Telegraph.

Here is The Detroit News story.

Kudos to government officials in Grosse Pointe Woods who are cracking down on neon signs along Mack Avenue. Some business owners in that city aren’t happy but neon signs do nothing to enhance a downtown.

Cruise through Dearborn along Michigan Avenue, Telegraph or Warren and neon is everywhere. Neon lights frame grocery store windows, gas stations, party stores and the list goes on.  It simply makes our downtown look cheap. Combine that with the tasteless electronic LED billboards that adorn buildings across our city and you have a tacky cityscape.

One of many distracting electronic billboards along Michigan Avenue in Dearborn.

We’ve written on these pages once before about the need for Dearborn to pass an ordinance to have those flashing electronic billboards banned but such a request has fallen on deaf ears (Denver’s City Council recently banned all LED billboards). Does the strip bar that sits at Michigan and Oakman (the first thing visitors entering Dearborn at the east end of town see) really need to advertise beer and lap dance specials? It just makes our city seem dirty. The signs also are a major driver distraction.

In Grosse Pointe Woods, neon was first prohibited in 2002 as part of an extensive revision of the city’s sign ordinance. The business owners that are now complaining had eight, yes, eight years to remove the neon to become compliant.

We have nothing against those indoor “open” neon signs that sit in windows of some businesses. But they don’t need to flash or be larger than 12 inches across. Yes, you could argue that there are bigger things to focus on in Dearborn and its current budget issues, but making our downtown look more attractive and actually having some rules in place for what is tasteful doesn’t cost anything and can go a long way to improving the aesthetics of our city.

Ditch the neon and the jumbo electronic billboards. The last thing the streets of Dearborn need are high definition versions of a carnival barker screaming at you as you drive by.

Borders book store in Dearborn.

The fate of Dearborn’s Borders book store on Ford Road could be known as soon as Monday or Tuesday. That is when the troubled Ann Arbor, Michigan bookseller could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Filing for bankruptcy would pave the way for hundreds of Borders book store closings and thousands of job losses. It is not yet known if the Dearborn location at Ford Road and Mercury Drive would be spared. The Dearborn store appears to do brisk business, at least the times we’ve been in the store.

According to the WSJ article in today’s paper, Borders has abandoned efforts to refinance its debts, and is preparing bankruptcy papers and seeking financing agreements that would keep it operating during the Chapter 11 restructuring process. Its shares tumbled 33% to 25 cents apiece in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange trading Friday after WSJ reported its plans.

Borders will seek to close about a third of its 674 Borders and Waldenbooks stores, according to the WSJ. “Borders also would cut swathes of its 19,500 staff as it attempts to reinvent itself to compete with Amazon and its hot-selling Kindle reader, and Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation’s largest bookstore chain and maker of the Nook e-reader,” the WSJ reports.

For the full article, click HERE.

It has been more than two years since Pat and Anne Stagg closed the Little Café on Michigan Avenue.

Now the building has a new owner and burgers and hot dogs could soon be served up in the coming months.

Paper now covers windows facing traffic on Michigan Avenue as work is now underway inside freshening the place up.

It isn’t yet clear what the new business will be named or whether it will serve breakfast but with so few places in west Dearborn serving a good hot morning meal (not counting Bob Evans), it seems like it would be a missed opportunity to not do so.

We miss the Little Café and Pat’s unvarnished commentary about just about anything.

We look forward to the new business and wish the new owners the best of luck. It’s nice to see a “For Sale” sign removed from a vacant building on Michigan Avenue . . .

Separately, two other restaurants will soon open in west Dearborn. Delicioso’s restaurant owner is opening a Middle Eastern restaurant next door to his place (next door to the Thai restaurant) in the Norm Newman strip mall, just across the street from Sacred Heart Church at Michigan and Military. And down the road, just west of Telegraph, a new Thai food restaurant is opening in the former home of Harley’s Dearborn Deli.

WDIV, local news station channel 4, has nominated seven Dearborn establishments for its Vote 4 the Best contest’s Winter Guide edition.

Sponsored by Local 4 and www.ClickonDetroit.com, the contest has become a very popular hook in recent years. This year’s winter edition has more than 300 businesses nominated in 23 categories, six of which contain Dearborn businesses.

Up for “Best Ice Skating Rink” is the Dearborn Ice Skating Center (DISC) on Ford Road. It is competing against 18 other skating rinks, including Detroit’s popular Campus Martius Park.

The Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, with its leisure and lap pools, fitness area, and climbing wall, is nominated for “Best Indoor Activity Center,” along with 20 other places.

Dearborn’s Ford Field Park on Cherry Hill competes against nine others in the “Best Tobogganing/Sledding” category. Keeping in stride with the theme, Nichols Ski & Patio on Michigan Avenue is nominated for “Best Ski/Snowboard Shop”, along with seven other businesses.

Keeping residents warm this winter, Desert in Alaska on Tireman Ave and Reckinger Heating and Cooling on Monroe are up against each other and 19 others in the “Best Heating Service” category.

Also there to keep residents warm in a different way is Mati’s Deli on Monroe, nominated for “Best Chili”, along with 15 other restaurants, some of which have been featured on The Food Network.

Voting opens on January 17 and runs through February 18. It is free and open to all.

To help support Dearborn’s localities and vote, go to

http://wdiv-winter.cityvoter.com/ and search “Dearborn”, or type in http://www.clickondetroit.com/contests/ and go to the “Vote 4 Best Winter Guide” page.

Two weeks after we first posted a story about the La Shish name reappearing in Dearborn, the Detroit Free Press finally got around to writing its version, done by Associated Press reporter and Dearborn resident Jeff Karoub.

We didn’t have the name of the new owner when we first published our story but the AP story says the new owner of the La Shish is Restaurateur Carmel Halloun. Halloun told the AP he has acquired the rights to use the La Shish name and plans to open a restaurant in March in the former chain’s first location in Dearborn.

Halloun, 40, said he employs people from the former chain at his Taboon restaurants in Flint Township and Sterling Heights and uses La Shish recipes.

Halloun told the AP he is not connected to former owner Talal Chahine, who fled the U.S. in 2005 and was charged with multiple counts of tax evasion and citizenship fraud. Federal investigators, who allege Chahine skimmed $20 million in cash from his business, say they believe he’s in Lebanon.

The La Shish chain closed in 2008 after nearly 20 years in business.

Several former La Shish restaurants and its Dearborn headquarters have been acquired by a chain called the Palm Palace, including the La Shish in west Dearborn on Michigan Avenue, between Monroe and Mason. That building was purchased in a government auction last year for about $250,000. It is not clear when or if that restaurant will reopen.

Halloun’s landlord, Bilal Haidar, filed articles of incorporation for La Shish Inc. last July, after the corporation registered to Chahine dissolved, according to the Michigan Department of Labor, Energy and Economic Growth, AP says.