Mr. Fables re-opening???

Bill Lewis, Yesterdog restaurant owner and former Mr. Fables employee, apparently owns the Mr. Fables trademark and would be allowed access to the Mr. Fables secret recipes by Boyles and Faber if he wished to restart the Mr. Fables restaurant. 

A recent question posted on the Yesterdog Facebook page posed the question of why should Mr. Fables come back, leading some to believe the restaurant may be making a return.

Purple East "plus"

I was going through some of my 80s VHS and found this image I shot of the front of the old Purple East when it was on Fulton.  I used to like browsing for awesome shirts in there. I'm always impressed with hand-painted signs like this.

Sweden House

 

.... Or "Sveden House" if you prefer. I've seen it spelled both ways.

 The postcard I found above is one of the few bits of ephemera I could come across anywhere online. I remember the place having the fireplace and unusual decor that made me feel like I was in a castle or something. Was it really this over the top? 

I think of this place every so often and wish I could go there and eat and eat and eat until I become physically ill, like I did my junior year of highschool. Our class won some kind of sweepsakes put on by the company that made our class rings and the prize was having our whole class bussed out to Sveden House in Grand Rapids. I am pretty sure it was the one on 28th St. 

I went to school out in a little town in the cornfields so this was kind of a big deal, getting to come to the metropolis of Grand Rapids and feast at this place. 

Sveden House restaurants were in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin

Besides the one on 28th St. I believe there was another on Plainfield. It's been so long since the last time I went, I really can't remember the quality of the food but I'm guessing I wasn't old enough to be too picky.

I went looking to see if there were any of these restraunts still left anywhere. I would seriously get some people together and road-trip out of state if need be to dine at Sveden House once more.  Alas, the most info I could find was for one in Livonia on a few different restaurant listing/review sites. The one and only review is dated 2005. I am guessing that it can't have stayed open much longer after that year. Google street view shows a depressing-looking plaza with abandoned buildings.

The only other info I could find about it was that the owner of the chain, Keith Maxwell passed away in 2011 at age 88.

After finding most traces of Sveden House erased from existence, I was happy to score this on ebay...

With the "w" spelling." That Valkyrie is kinda hot.

So goodbye forever, Sweden (Sveden) House. I'll kinda miss you. The Schnitzelbank as well, now that I think of it.

I'm not dead you guys

Yeah, it's been a while since I've added anything substantial here. Been on a little hiatus but I foresee getting back into it soon as I get the usual winter cabin fever. 

It's been fun reading all the comments people have been leaving! I like that this thing can be a little spot where people can come and share the memories.

I think I got a little upswing in views a bit ago when I was featured on the PBS show "Under The Radar Michigan."  The guys came and followed me around over a couple days and I did my best to live up to the "cool local hipster" that they came looking for! ;) 

Aladdin's Castle Shirts y'all!

So I thought it would be cool to make Aladdin's Castle shirts and make them available to all via my etsy. I just started the etsy thing, so the shirt is all I have. If etsy turns out to be cool, I'll do some more fun GR retro junk for sale.

Bad Thrift Store Folk Art "Remixed"

Another neat idea that I'll probably start and not follow through on, lol.

Yeah, I actually sanded off the front, recreated the image "my way" and re-varnished it...

 

Sorry, Christians, don't get pissed, I'm just playin' ;)

And more....

OK Cola

 

OK Cola. A carbonated "beverage." OK Cola was an expiremental soda concept produced by Coke in 1995. The cans and bottles had artwork from popular underground (oxymoron?) comic artists of the time like Daniel Clowes, Peter Bagge, Evan Dorkin, etc. It tasted kind of awful as I recall. Like mixing from all the spigots on a pop dispenser. I was a sucker for it though because I felt "cool" walking around with the stupid cans.  They did have some pretty entertaining and unusual radio ads that they used to play on WLAV during its "Underground Radio" era.  OK didn't last very long.  File it away with Zima, Crystal Pepsi and Josta.