Familiar ‘Terrain’: No place like home for new restaurant owners

By: 
Linda Gallagher, Contributing Writer

Photo by Linda Gallagher

Bellaire residents Jenna and Randy Minish – along with their sister Shana – recently realized a family dream by opening Terrain, a new culinary effort in the former location of Lulu's, where all three were employed at one time.

 

BELLAIRE – The best place to open a new business is often in a setting you are very familiar with – your own hometown.

Siblings Randy, Jenna and Shana Minish knew that, so when it came to launching their first restaurant, they chose a community all were quite familiar with – the area they grew up in. In fact, they not only returned to a familiar area, they returned to a very familiar building when opening Terrain, Bellaire's newest restaurant, which officially opened its doors on May 3.

"We all worked here when Michael Peterson owned Lulu's at one point or another," said Jenna Minish, who runs the day-to-day operations in the eatery while her brother creates culinary delights in the kitchen.

Their sister Shana, the oldest Minish sibling who now lives downstate, is Terrain's business manager and is present to help with customers on weekends.

A 2011 graduate of the Great Lakes Culinary Institute in Traverse City, Chef Randy Minish always had a dream of having his own restaurant.

"We used to joke about it all the time," laughed Jenna. But the thought remained in the back of everyone's mind.

So when Jenna heard that the terms of the lease opportunity for the former Lulu's, which closed in 2015, had changed, she talked to her sister and brother, who had been working with another former Lulu's chef, Henry Bisson, in Traverse City after a stint in San Francisco and in Detroit at celebrity chef Michael Symon's Roast Steakhouse.

"Shana pulled out an old business plan for a restaurant that she had done while studying for her Master's Degree, and we all went to work on the idea," she explained.

Read the full story in our regular edition of The Review. To subscribe to the paper for just $34 a year, which includes access to our full online e-edition, please go to the subscription page on this website at: http://www.antrimreview.net/subscribe/

 

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