(bright music) - This was the first school in this part of the county and it stayed in existence for, oh, about a hundred years, almost a hundred just shy.

- [Chris] From an 1800 schoolhouse to a restaurant and curling club, the activities inside the building may have changed, but this is still a community gathering place.

- We have numerous guests that come in and either actually went to school here or have their parents or grandparents that have went to school here.

It's kind of fascinating.

Carolyn, who is one of our servers, her mother went to school here.

So the historic significance, the community significance of that is, you can't measure it.

I've been in every type of restaurant, so I felt like, yes, it was definitely gonna work.

It's such a charming space.

And once I met the community in the first two months I was, there was no question in my mind.

Absolutely it's gonna work.

People ask what they could do for us.

- [Chris] The secret sauce in a successful venture is often the talented team that's behind the scenes.

- Maria, our head chef, is incredible.

She does a litany of charity events on her own and in conjunction with us.

She's also at times an adjunct professor at Northern Michigan College.

So she's extraordinarily overqualified, but she saw the value in the community here.

Rose Dugan, our other kitchen manager and pastry chef, very similar.

For her, she's a little younger, so it was more her getting a stage.

First time I worked with her, I was like, "Oh my goodness, you're an enormous talent.

You're 20 years old.

Do people know you're an enormous talent?"

She said, "No."

And I said, "Well, come work with me and we'll try to make a stage for you."

She now does her own roses, sweets and treats.

She is incredible.

She's as good as anybody, and she's 22 years old.

So it's kind of a cool thing that really we take pride in as well in our employees success.

- [Chris] So we know the restaurant part of this equation, but what about the curling?

While attending his daughter's dance competition, restaurant professional, Alfiero Silveri, had a chance encounter with curling fanatic, David Gersenson, and soon burgers and beers were paired with stones and sweeping.

- The short and skinny of it is, I took my first Learn to curl class and just fell in love with it immediately.

And started joined a league and started curling.

And again, almost immediately started traveling to different curling clubs throughout the state and even up into Canada, and curling brought me into the here and the now, and kept me there for my duration of it and wanted to make the career of it.

And as I started looking for places to build a facility came across this great property, and it was that simple.

It was restaurant and curling and good, good food and good beer and curling and what could go wrong.

- [Chris] David's devotion to curling was a driving force for his vision.

But if you build it, will they come?

It isn't heaven, but Alfiero and David think it's darn close.

- Got a two sheet curling facility, dedicated ice.

I've never been a maintenance man, but take pride in, in putting the work in that I've done on it.

And you know, it's a, you know, regulation size curling facility.

Our base is our members, right?

And our members are old and young, big and small, athletic, they're arthritic, right?

I mean, they're all of it, and they all just love the community.

They love the sports curling.

They love being in Maple City and supporting this club.

Then we have our Learn to Curls, which is sort of the meat and what keeps this place going.

Our Learn to Curls sessions, it's a two hour class where you come in, you can come in as a group of two and join other people.

You can come in with a big group of 16 people, and you get a crash course on the basics of curling, which takes about 20 minutes.

You get some practice throws, which takes another 15, 20 minutes.

And then you spend an hour and 20 minutes playing a game against the people that you just met.

You pick up the basics real quickly.

It takes minutes to get the basics, but then a lifetime to sort of master it.

- [Chris] Before we leave Maple City, there's still one stone we've left unturned.

What exactly does broomstack mean?

- What broomstacking is, after a curling match, traditionally they'll both teams sit down and have a beverage together.

Traditionally, the winning team is supposed to buy the beverage while the losing team is supposed to do a little cleanup out there.

- Curling's a very social sport.

It's one thing I really love about it is, these people, the curlers fill this place with just great energy, conviviality, and fun.

No one comes off the ice without a smile.

So in fact, I mean, it kind of feeds us to make our job a lot easier.

I mean, they're already having a great time.

You're doing something really fun and you're also doing something really fun.

You're eating and drinking and you're curling.

So that's, you know, that's our motto.

Yeah, eat, drink, curl.