Finance + Legal Services

Standing Between You And The Machine

The system says innocent until proven guilty. David Rudoi never lets it forget that Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie Most days, when the work's finally done, David Rudoi puts on his headphones, steps out onto the streets of downtown Royal Oak, and walks home. It's just him, the city, and whatever hip-hop he needs that evening to decompress. It sounds simple enough. Until you understand what he's been carrying all day. David is a criminal defense attorney. In fifteen...

Finance + Legal Services

What's Life About?

Merchant services maverick Todd McKay's business philosophy is three words: relationships, relationships, relationships Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie Todd McKay grew up in Warren, in a modest house, with a single mother who worked seven days a week to make it happen for her family. He always had a plan to make something of himself. At 22, that plan looked like moving to Santa Barbara and becoming an actor. It didn't go that way. But what happened instead turned out...

Life + Culture

Chain of Trust

Ted Conrad's Fireboard turns weekend cooking into a precision system backyard grillers everywhere rely on Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie Somewhere between the hardware store and the soccer field your kid is playing on, a brisket is sitting in a smoker. It cost a hundred dollars, and it's been on since early morning. The cook has no idea how it's doing. That specific, domestic, slightly anxious problem is what FireBoard was designed to solve. Ted Conrad spent...

Home + Design

Paradise, Basement Level

Meet the local craftsman fashioning handmade tiki art collectors can't get enough of Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie Somewhere in Eastern Market, there was a tiki Don Peterka was never meant to own. He spotted it at an antique store maybe ten years ago. It was cement, not carved wood, weathered to a green-gray patina from decades of shade and rain.  He loved it immediately—but someone had already bought it. So Don went home and scoured the internet, chasing expired...

Life + Culture

Russ Simon Beauty Studio

Beauty Redefined Article and Photography by Celebrity Makeup Artist and Lash Guru, Russ Simon is a true leader in the beauty industry. With his unrivaled, time-tested techniques, Russ innovates with every brush stroke.  At the all new Russ Simon Beauty Studio, Russ continues to offer Xtreme & Mink Eyelash Extensions, waxing, full makeup services, and eye brow design in an upscale and modern boutique.   The studio also hosts a collection of his favorite makeup brushes, colors, skincare, and...

Style + Beauty

Color Me Seen

Dee Pineau used to hide in black. Now she helps women see what was always there. Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie For a long time, Dee Pineau didn't want to be noticed. An engineer in corporate America, Dee found herself looking at herself on Zoom during COVID, and thinking, I don't look great.   "I was wearing a lot of black," she says. "I wanted to fade into the background. I was just kind of unhappy with where I was. ‘Don't look at me’." It's a feeling she hears...

Home + Design

The Good Stuff

The furniture Amanda Burgess-Proctor restores has history. So does she. Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie When it's dark outside and the lamps are on, that's when it feels right to Amanda Burgess-Proctor. That's when the 1923 bungalow on 14 Mile returns to what it's always been, the word she goes back to time and time again in our conversation: a home. This is Dee Dee's Fine Vintage, where everything has a past… and some things, Amanda will tell you, have a way of...

Life + Culture

Interesting All The Way Through

Amy builds our magazine like her photographs: seeing what others miss Article by Marshall Zweig The first thing Amy Gillespie looks for when she raises a camera isn't the subject. It's everything behind the subject. “In every shot, there’s a foreground, a middle ground, and a background," she says. "I make sure something is interesting all the way through the frame." She learned it from meeting National Geographic photographer Sam Abell. Abell was known as the quiet photographer; his...

Life + Culture

Royal Oak Corner

Amber Poupore and The Cacao Tree Cafe Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie Can you believe there was a time Amber Poupore didn't know how to cut an onion? That's where her decades-long relationship with Royal Oak actually starts: January 2000, with Amber at the back door of Inn Season, hired for whatever they needed and willing to do anything. "Really. I didn't even know how to cut an onion,” she recalls with a smile. “I mean, literally. That is how new to food I was." ...

Local Services

Flipping Mythbusters

Two Max Broock agents are done watching good homes ruined by bad flippers — and not shy about saying so Article by Marshall Zweig | Photography by Amy Gillespie Before they were Royal Oak Realtors, Matt Bazner spent 25 years as a licensed contractor, and Justin Bercheny was an interior designer. Together, the two Max Broock agents bring something most real estate professionals simply can't offer: they've seen inside the walls. Literally. That backstage access makes them unusually...