(rock music plays) - [Announcer] On this episode of UTR, we're back with more reasons why you should discover Michigan's sunrise side.

We'll share an inn with feathered friends in Rogers City, and chow at a Red Brick Tap and Barrel in Alpena.

Then we have some cute coffee and cuisine, and a fascinating fly over in Oscoda.

Get ready to explore the cool people, places and things that make our own east coast the boast.

- [Spokesperson] 14 clubs.

That's what they tell us a legal golf bag can hold.

And while that leaves a little room for balls and tees, it doesn't leave room for much else.

There's no room left for deadlines or conference calls, not a single pocket to hold the stress of the day or the to-do list of tomorrow.

Only 14 clubs, pick out the right one and drive it right down the middle of pure Michigan.

Your golf trip begins at michigan.org.

- [Spokesperson] The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is dedicated to enabling economic prosperity.

The MEDC markets Michigan with a focus on growing businesses and building resilient communities in our state.

- [Spokesperson] A visit to the Stahls Auto Collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

- I've been around the world, but there's one place I keep coming back to.

And the more I explore, the more I realize it's the place to be.

I'm Tom Dalton.

And this is Under the Radar, Michigan.

(rock music plays) - Now, we've all seen a thousand sunsets and they're beautiful, but sunrises, most of us seem to miss and that's too bad because like Michigan's sunrise side, they could be the dawn to your next big adventure.

Every time I visit this morning, sun-soaked side of our great state, I fall more in love with its people, its pleasing places, and all the wonderful things there are to see and do.

From riverboat rides on the awesome AuSable and great golf at the gales to bountiful, beautiful beaches and some of Michigan's greatest grub, sunrise site is an easy and casual place to stretch out and make some memories.

So let's start making some right now.

Now, if you're looking for an interesting, fun and eclectic place to stay and play, you got to come here because this is an inn you'll want to check out.

It's called the Purple Martin Lakeside Inn and Nature Center.

And it's right on the beautiful shores of Lake Huron in the harbor town of Rogers City.

It's also believe it or not an inn to both man and migratory Martins.

Purple ones, that is.

That's right.

Not only do hoards of happy travelers make this their holiday home every summer, so do plenty of Purple Martins, and proud proprietors, Cindy Vezinau and Larry "Martin Man" Newhouse, make sure that both folks and these fine feathered friends feel right at home.

How do they do it?

Why do they do it?

Well, pull up a chair or pick a perch and let's find out.

I'd like to say that a little birdie told me about this place, but as you guys both know, my wife Cathy was here last summer and has not stopped talking about the experience she had here.

I mean, seriously, I'm not home, and she's probably still talking about it.

How did this all start?

- Larry and I were high school sweethearts and we were talking one day and I said, "I have Purple Martins at my house in St. Clair Shores," and he said, "I have them in Rogers City."

So he came over here, showed me the Purple Martin colony.

I was like, "Wow, this is really cool."

And I went, "Who owns the property?"

And he told me a long story.

And basically I went over to the owner within 24 hours and bought it because of this piece of property where we're at.

- Yeah.

I mean the view of the lake, the beach you have here is amazing.

Larry, this has been, you're like the third generation in your family to care for these birds?

- Yeah.

Well, my grandfather especially, my dad tried, but he had other birds, but not Purple Martins.

And so then I tried raising them at my house, but it wasn't as good.

But the gentleman that owned this building, the second owner of this building had put up the two houses and nobody was taking care of them.

So I asked if I could take care of them.

So I'd have to lower the house in October or September and clean the houses out, take them over to my house, paint them.

Then in the spring time, when they would come back September, I would come down here and I'd have to put the pole up.

See here's the goal.

The old pole is you'd put it down, it's on a pivot.

And then you put it up April.

So now I have a crank.

- [Tom] You can actually crank those birdhouses down.

And because I understand, well, first of all, this blows my mind that Purple Martins actually fly up here all the way from South America.

They actually enjoy human interaction?

- They have to have human interaction because most of the time there's other birds, predator birds, hawks, or whatever.

And if a hawk sees a human, most of the time, they get a little scared so they'll leave.

But birds, Purple Martins especially, love human activity.

There's a walk, or a path here.

It's perfect for it.

Water, open air, right.

And human.

- So what a cool unique experience to come here and be able to sit out here, watch these.

I didn't realize how beautiful they are and when they sing how cool they are and how they talk to each other.

But to be able to sit out here and see this happen, actually have them, have you bring them down.

- Yep.

I lower them, yep.

- So you can actually see the exit.

And even the fact that in the above the bar inside, you can sit and have a drink and you've got the closed circuit TV.

- [Cindy] Yeah, you can watch them on the cams.

- [Tom] And they can actually watch them in their nest.

- [Cindy] You can watch them lay an egg.

You can watch them decorate their little 12 by 12.

- Their house.

- Their house.

- Well, and again, the inside of this, of your inm, how do you do that?

How do you decorate like that?

Make something that cool and eclectic and funky, where do you find all that stuff?

- [Cindy] Well first of all, I'm a naturalist and I like Greenbelt.

I like reused things.

- The garden, the grounds around here are beautiful.

The view of the lake and the beach.

You're right in Rogers City, which is like a little- - You walk around the corner and you don't even know it.

- [Tom] And it's a great place to experience nature comfortably and still be kind of cool and funky and hip, just because of the way you've decorated this place.

- [Larry] On Lake Huron.

- [Cindy] On Lake Huron.

On the most amazing beach that, you know, when you travel the world or you travel the state of Michigan, you can choose where you want to be.

I want to be here.

I can't find water as crystal clear as this.

And it's all about the nature here, what drew me here and why I'm here.

And people who come here will like read our website or whatnot and say, "I'm that kind of person that'll fit in here."

They come.

And they want to come back.

- And relax.

Just sit it out in this garden structure and relax.

- Final question.

What do you like better, people or birds?

- Man that's a tough one.

- That's a tough one.

We love what we do here.

- We like our bird people.

- Yeah.

That's a great answer.

- There you go.

- This place really is a cool, funky, casual, yet elegant experience.

And it's quite possibly the most content and comfortable you'll ever be while appreciating nature.

So if you get a chance, treat yourself to a natural blast at the Purple Martin Lakeside Inn in Rogers City.

Oh, and if you go, tell them UTR sent you, or a little birdie, it's totally up to you.

Now say you're in awesome Alpena and you're looking for a great place to go that has awesome food and really good craft cocktails.

Well, while you're saying that, I'm going to show you where you should go.

Come on.

Now, if you're looking for big city ambiance that's tucked away in charming downtown Alpena, you're in luck and about to eat really well because Cory Knute, along with Kevin Peterson and his wife Brooke, took a historic old red brick building and turned it into a place where the hip go when they're hungry.

Heck, they even let me in.

And I hardly have hips.

It's called Red Brick Tap & Barrel.

And these three energized young people put their collective creative, and culinary co-noggins together, worked their tails off for three years on renovation, came up with an inspired food and cocktail menu.

And the rest, as they say is relatively recent history.

But before we eat and drink, methinks I should spend some time with the three Musketeers who made it all happen.

Who's married.

Raise your hands.

To each other?

Okay.

We got that out of the way.

Okay.

So those two are married, just so everybody knows.

Now, if I look a little familiar to you guys, it's because I've been here twice already, and I don't live anywhere near here because the food's that good.

But before we get to the food, before we get to the craft cocktails, before we get to the fact that you guys are third degree whiskey ninjas, tell me the history of this building.

This place is fascinating.

- Five years ago, for me, I had picked out these two buildings as a pair of old historic properties in our downtown that needed a lot of rehabilitation, a lot of help, a lot of restoration.

So that was where my vision started.

I had never tackled a building project before.

So I figured why not tackle the hardest thing first?

And this had been a bar as far as we could tell for as long as it's been a building.

So started the process of gutting it and getting it back to as original as we thought it could be.

- You can feel the history in here, you can sort of feel the past, but you're not the food guy.

- I am not the food guy.

- So you wanted to open a restaurant, but you needed somebody, you needed a food ninja.

- That's right.

- So then in comes Kevin.

- I'm the ninja.

- So you guys, you're the food people, right?

- Right, right.

Yeah.

So that's where we come in is the food and the cocktails.

So Corey and I had met five years ago and I had a dream.

He had his dream of restoring a building.

I wanted to put a restaurant into a historic building and we just collaborated.

And it happened.

- Well, how have you guys been accepted by the city, by the town?

- It's been an overwhelming welcome.

It sometimes brings us to tears how welcoming the community and supportive they have all been even through our shutdown and everything.

- Now, tell me about the craft cocktails.

- Our main focus is the bourbon and the whiskey and the hard to acquire whiskeys.

So we're trying to be as different and new as possible.

So we go out and we research and our research is fun.

We find the beer and the liquor that nobody else has.

So the vodka we use here, nobody else uses.

The beer that's on draft here, a lot of places don't have, and it's hard to actually find and acquire.

So we want to be as different as possible.

And if it's not quality, we're not serving it.

- And I was going to say your food, you guys source local?

What's your philosophy on food?

- We try to, our approach is a casual approach on upscale dining.

So we use quality ingredients, and if it's not quality, we're not serving it.

If we don't believe in it, we're not serving it.

- Well, what I love about this, it's a funky urban kind of feel in Alpena, which is in the middle of Northern Michigan paradise.

I mean, it's such a wonderful high energy urban vibe, it's awesome.

- I'm glad you mentioned that.

And when we were talking about the building, one of the things that was really important in the building project was to bring a lot of that feel that you've talked about.

I can say for myself, you know, I get the opportunity to travel a lot.

So a lot of the things that you'll see in here from my perspective came from ideas from places like Austin or Seattle or Chicago.

You know, I grew up here, you guys grew up here.

I had always believed that we can bring things like that to Alpena.

There's no reason it can't be here.

There's been a lot of good feedback from people saying the same thing.

They'll come from out of town and say, wow, this is like when I was in Chicago or when I was here.

And I'm like, thank you.

We can do that here.

- That's what I love about people like you guys is you've been all over the world, all over the United States, but you decided to come back here and make your magic here.

I know it's a long table, but cheers.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- Oh my God, we did it!

- Cheers, cheers.

- Well, we came, we sat, we ate, we drank, and we had the kind of evening I absolutely love.

Comfortable and calorie filled.

Honestly, the creative twists that they put on the food and the cocktails here will blow your culinary cranium.

So no matter what color the bricks are here, be glad you came because Red Brick Tap & Barrel is your kind of place.

And trust me, I know you.

Now, if you've watched our show before, you know that I'm always saying you're supposed to go to Oscoda.

It's a great four-season destination that's got an awesome beach, great things to do with your family.

But when you're here, if you want a good cup of joe, this is where you're supposed to go.

Now, if you were going to describe the Sunrise Kava Cafe, you'd use words like cute, quaint, comfortable, and colorful, but you'd probably also use the word satisfying because this little downtown gathering place also serves up sweet treats and sensational, savory soups and sandwiches.

Yep.

This is where the community comes to connect, share, nosh, and care.

And proud owner and proprietor Bethany Grace would have it no other way.

I understand why the word sunrise is in the name of your business, because you're on the sunrise side.

- Absolutely.

- But kava?

Why not java?

- So kava means coffee in Ukrainian.

My family is from, my dad's ancestors are from Ukraine.

- Just so you know, I looked up the word cute in the dictionary, and there's a picture of your building.

(Bethany laughs) This place is, I mean, it draws you in.

It's so cute.

- [Bethany] How could it not?

- Did you ever think you'd own a place like this?

- No, actually it's kind of like a dream that I just woke up in.

I, the first time I came in here, I fell in love with the building and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this place, is it for sale?

And then it actually had come up for sale that winter and one thing after another, and here we are.

- Well, the coffee is amazing.

- Thank you!

- But your food choices too are so...

I mean, who engineers, who's the creative person behind the food?

- [Bethany] Oh, that would be me.

- [Tom] Oh, there you go.

- Keep it simple is really kind of like our philosophy.

Just taking a lot of different, the same type of ingredients and doing different things with them.

And you know, that can easily be put together because as you know, the times that you've been here, we get extremely busy and you know, we want to get people in and out as fast as we possibly can.

I grew up working in Coney Island when I was younger.

So that's where I get my speed from, you know, the Coney speed.

- And I have to tell you your staff, I don't know where you find these people, but they're so helpful.

They're so... you walk in and you can't help but smile because everybody's so friendly and happy and that's important.

- Yes.

It's extremely important.

And coincidentally enough, they all came to me.

I'm super blessed.

Molly and Sam have been with me from the beginning and they love it here, so they don't want to leave.

You know?

So I don't have any trouble finding people to work here.

People, the girls will all want to work here.

- Well, Oscoda must be thrilled to have you here because this place draws you in.

It's almost like a little destination in this town.

It's like, because I don't know.

You just want to go in and you want to be here because you see all the people are, hi people!

See all the people are happy and having fun.

- Always.

- Not to mention the fact that you're right off the beach.

- I know.

- And it's a beautiful beach here, isn't it?

- It is gorgeous.

I feel so blessed in the morning.

One of the perks, I guess of waking up super duper early every morning is seeing the sunrise.

And it just, it blows me away every time.

It's pretty amazing.

- You also do some stuff to help out the community, don't you?

- Well, we do our best.

Yes.

We've worked with the local women's shelter.

We try to stay involved with them, Hope Tourists Alliance.

And during the holidays we did a gift drive.

And October during domestic violence awareness month, we donated 10% of our sales to them.

So we like to work with them.

They're a great organization and the stuff that they do for all these women that come from horrible situations, it's really, really cool.

- That's a rewarding thing to do.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like somebody Hollywood art directed this place.

There's little birds hopping around and everybody's happy having their- - That was me.

- Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

Well done.

- Well I've had a lot of help too.

Tremendous thank yous to so many different people.

This is not just me here.

Friends, family that have helped out in so many different ways.

My parents.

- We're going to get them on camera here.

- [Bethany] They are here today.

I'm very blessed for them and my girls.

They come up with all these different specialty drinks and they help get our social media going.

And honestly, I have to give all my thanks to them because they are really the glue that holds this place together.

They're so fantastic.

- Well I have to give my thanks to people like you, because the creative energy that you have, the positive energy, you're doing cool things in small towns that need them.

So it's like, yeah.

- Thank you so much.

- It's not just the coffee talking.

I mean it.

- I appreciate that very much.

- That's good coffee.

Well, since we're gonna be eating here cause I like the food, anything you would recommend aside from asking me to leave?

- Well, we sell a ton of club sandwiches, probably one of our hottest selling items.

Also our chicken salad.

I would recommend that over greens or as a wrap, that's really nice.

But my favorite is our vegetarian wrap.

Spinach wrap.

- That's what I'm having.

- Those are really nice.

- With my coffee.

- I eat one of those about once, one a day.

- How come your beverage is cuter than mine?

- It's a white chocolate frappe with almond milk.

- Cheers.

This place really is one of those great foodie finds that you really hope for when you pull into a town.

It's fun, they treat you like family.

The food is great and it connects you to the community.

If you want to optimize your next Oscoda excursion, check out the Sunrise Kava Cafe.

Bethany and her super staff will be waiting for you.

Man, this place is cute.

Well, since the coffee and great food at Kava had us flying high, we thought we'd continue the motion and head over to a place that flies under a lot of people's radar, literally.

Now if I said Kalitta Air, you'd say, isn't it that huge air freight company that ships stuff all around the world> Ah, but if I said they've got a huge base right here in Oscoda, you know what you'd say?

Wait, what?

That's right Kalitta Air has a gigantic fleet of mammoth jumbo jets right here in Oscoda that move massive amounts of anything all around the globe at a moment's notice.

And if I said the name Connie Kalitta, you'd probably say, hey, wasn't he that famous drag race driver back in the seventies and eighties who was nicknamed the Bounty Hunter?

Well that, my friends, is also true.

So how did a kid from Mount Clemens grow up and go from drag strip to international airstrip?

Well, I took a trip out onto the tarmac with Bob Nolan and Don Fabian to find out how he formed such a fantastic and high powered Michigan made destiny.

I've been driving to and through Oscoda for years and years.

And I didn't even know this huge operation was here till recently.

How long has Kalitta been here?

- Since 19, I believe, 1993.

- So you've been here for awhile.

Actually my first question is the obvious one.

How did a guy, a kid from Mount Clemens grow up to become a world famous dragster racer, and then end up with this?

- He started off flying auto parts in a small aircraft, him and another guy and his racing, that's legendary.

He's been doing that forever.

- Oh, he's world, he's decorated.

I mean, he's in the hall of fame.

What was his nickname?

The Bounty Hunter.

So this is your main maintenance operation, and you guys have bases or I don't want to say bases, but spaces at airports around the globe, right?

Yes.

Our main one's down in Cincinnati, CVG.

We have them out in LA, Los Angeles, Anchorage, Honolulu, Miami, Newark.

Those are our main ones.

And then we have some overseas.

- Right.

I mean, you're not shipping marshmallows.

What do you guys ship in these giant planes?

- Whatever the customer wants.

- What's the weirdest thing you ever shipped?

I had to ask you that.

- I was a ride on, we had a 747 full of Burger King toys.

- Burger King toys, seriously?

Do you ship like giant animals?

Do you ship- - Yeah.

That there was a story about the giraffes.

They were hauling giraffes and one of them wanted to go up in the cables.

Control cables are flying along over the ocean.

They had it on autopilot.

He went ahead and started scrubbing his head on the flight control cables.

And the plane started going like this.

So they had to go down there and give him a shot of something.

I guess the handler did.

Took a nap.

- (laughs) Well, how many people man one of these, these big fellows when it goes out with cargo?

- Two, just two pilots.

And then there's usually a ride on flight mechanic, flight maintenance engineer.

- [Tom] No flight attendant.

How do they get their peanuts?

- Self-serve.

- They're catered very well.

- Oh, I can imagine.

But the county still fly that little plane that he used to fly the parts around in?

- No, he doesn't fly anymore.

- No, doesn't fly anymore.

How often does he come around here?

- He was here earlier today.

- Was he really?

Well, I don't suppose, was one going out today?

I can take- - Midnight tonight.

- Midnight tonight, one's going out?

Where's it going?

- Cincinnati nonstop.

- Cincinnati?

I was hoping for like Hong Kong or, I don't know.

- Well, they reposition to Cincinnati.

They may go to Germany.

- Oh, okay.

Okay.

I'm on board.

- Okay.

- Well, when it comes to Michigan made success stories, Kalitta takes the cake.

And when I found out later that they even flew Shamu the famous whale, I was duly impressed.

Kalitta Air really is just one more reason why you should be proud to be from the Great Lake state.

So next time you're looking for fun and adventure, venture up Michigan's sunrise side, because the more you explore it, the more you'll adore it.

Hey, that rhymes.

Bonus.

- [Spokesperson] 14 clubs.

That's what they tell us a legal golf bag can hold.

And while that leaves a little room for balls and tees, it doesn't leave room for much else.

There's no room left for deadlines or conference calls, not a single pocket to hold the stress of the day or the to-do list of tomorrow.

Only 14 clubs.

Pick out the right one and drive it right down the middle of pure Michigan.

Your golf trip begins at michigan.org.

- [Spokesperson] The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is dedicated to enabling economic prosperity.

The MEDC markets Michigan with the focus on growing businesses and building resilient communities in our state.

- [Spokesperson] A visit to the Stahls Auto Collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

(rock music playing)