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Thursday, August 19, 2010 • HERITAGE NEWSPAPERS/WESTERN REGION
Hangin’ out at MoonWinks Dixboro eatery is perfect fit in old neighborhood By Terry Jacoby Heritage Newspapers
Andy Tankanow jumps out of the cart and rushes up to his golf ball in the middle of the fairway during a recent golf outing for a local charity. The Ann Arbor business owner asks if he can hit first. “I want to try and get into a rhythm,” he says. Tankanow rips a shot that lands on the green. On and off the golf course, Tankanow has been in a rhythm. The 26-year-old Ann Arbor Greenhills and Michigan State graduate is running a successful café in his hometown and also is planning a December wedding to longtime girlfriend Jennifer Schleicher. “Life is pretty good,” Tankanow says with a smile while sitting outside of his family owned MoonWinks Café. “I have always had a competitive nature, whether on the golf course or the soccer field or in business.” In other words, Tankanow doesn’t like to lose. And the MoonWinks Café has been a winner since day one, thanks not only to hard work and determination, but detailed planning and organization. The Tankanow family opened MoonWinks in October 2006 in the remodeled “Dixboro Shops at the Green” building on Plymouth Road in the Village of Dixboro, northeast of Ann Arbor. The building has housed a number of businesses over the years, including an antique store, boat shop, gas station and Michigan Saddlery. The white outside of the building, with its long front porch, is a nice complement to the historic feel of the neighborhood, which includes the Dixboro General Store,
MoonWinks Cafe Where: 5151 Plymouth Road, Village of Dixboro Hours: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Wednesday; 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Phone: 734-994-5151 Web: www.moonwinkscafe.com The name: MoonWinks Café is named after Moonwinks Restaurant & Bar in Cuba Lake, N.Y., where owner Andy Tankanow’s grandparents met. “The ‘wink’ symbolizes a significant secret many may keep in the name of love. My grandmother Muriel’s dark secret was her young age (14) at the time she met my grandfather, Oscar (21) in 1941.” Madison Jenkinson (left), Geri Peterman and owner Andy Tankanow help run MoonWinks. Gibbons Antiques and the Freeman one-room schoolhouse. The 1,500 square-foot inside is cozy and inviting — a nice place to “hang out” for a little while. “Dixboro really needed a place for people to just come and hang out,” says Tankanow. “I grew up a quarter mile down the road and was working for the woman who owned the building while I was a freshman in college. I overheard her say one day that she wanted to help develop the area and find someone to put a coffee shop in here. I went home that night and told my parents we should jump at this opportunity.” Tankanow said the planning started that evening and lasted more than three years. “We get people here in the morning who come in and do their crossword puzzles or read the paper and have
we’ve come since that first week.” MoonWinks is more than just a neighborhood coffee shop. While it does sell specialty coffee, tea and smoothies, the menu also includes breakfast bagels, soups, salads and sandwich wraps. The pesto chicken and turkey and gouda are among the more popular sandwiches. And business has been as good as the food. “For the most part, Ann Arbor has done OK during these tough economic times, especially compared to other parts of the country,” Tankanow said. “Our menu is reasonably priced, the food is very good and we make a point of getting to know our customers. I think these things keep people coming back. “Customer service has been the biggest reason for our success. We have a great staff and
which includes his sister, Alyse. “We were planning everything during the years I was going to college,” Tankanow says. “I would come home every weekend during my senior year to oversee the build and my phone was attached to my hip and it was ringing all the time.” The cash register first rang on Oct. 30, 2006, and Tankanow admits that even with all that planning, the first day was a little hectic. “We did a soft opening that first day without even advertising it and we were packed,” he said. “We didn’t even know how to run the cash register. We had a line out the door and around the corner because we didn’t have a good system in place to take the orders. But people were very understanding and luckily gave us a second chance. I still have customers telling me how far
a little something to eat,” Tankanow said. “In the afternoon, we get people in here playing card games or doing work on their laptop or whatever. I think it’s great that people want to come and just hang out.” The café wasn’t a spur-ofthe-moment idea hatched by a family looking to invest some of their hard-earned savings. Years of planning and research took place before the Tankanows ever signed the lease. They visited coffee shops and restaurants not only throughout Michigan but in New York City and other areas. Tankanow’s mother, Roberta Tankanow, is a retired clinical associate professor of pharmacy at the University of Michigan, and his father, Larry, is chief of medicine at St. John Macomb Hospital in Warren. Success runs throughout the family,
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I can’t say enough about what an outstanding job they do. Geri Peterman and Madison Jenkinson are the backbone of the business.” For Tankowski, business is also about community. And the MoonWinks staff and ownership believe that it is “our responsibility to give back to our wonderful community.” Organizations such as the Humane Society of Huron Valley, Motor Meals, Musical Societies, Local elementary and high schools, Big Sisters Big Brothers, Children’s theatre (Thurston Players) and the National Kidney Foundation have all been at the receiving end of MoonWinks generosity. “Through the support of these worthy organizations, MoonWinks Cafe is able to affirm our dedication to fostering a great community,” Tankowski says.
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