It’s better in Burdickville

Glen Arbor Sun

“I would characterize Burdickville as the great big little community,” says Mary O’Neill, owner of the Laker Shakes Burdickville Market and, one day last week, the owner of a very sore right wrist, from scooping rock solid ice cream.

“Though we are, for the most part, rural and a very small community, we have a school, a church, a park, four thriving businesses, many thriving home-based businesses, a few farm stands and, of course, access to beautiful Glen Lake.”

O’Neill goes on to mention that Burdickville — the semi-autonomous community on the east end of Big Glen Lake — is home to a Pulitzer Prize winner (Taro Yamasaki), an award-winning restaurant (La Becasse) and a former Lieutenant Governor (Connie Binsfeld). “I would say that the nature of Burdickvillians is one of community and neighborliness. We take care of each other.”

Since acquiring Laker Shakes nearly two years ago from longtime icon Rich Hargreaves, O’Neill has offered the community humor at the direst of times (Remember her “Tent caterpillars, You Pick” sign out front during those icky May days?) and now music too. She and the Binsfeld brothers Greg and Mike got together last summer to jam (She and Steamboat, Col. resident Greg play guitar; Mike plays bass, and his wife Mindy accompanies on the harmonica), and now Laker Shakes boasts “Music Mondays” outside in the side garden, from 7-10 p.m., weather permitting.

“We welcome anyone to play instruments along with us,” invites O’Neill. Greg routinely sets up bongos, drums and a PA system. And people just stop by. They bring their music, and some offer a solo performance.

“People come to the stop to get ice cream, and they often hang around and listen. … An employee of mine has a rap band and threatens to show up.”

“We want real live professional musicians to show up,” jokes Greg Binsfeld. “Just make sure the audience has no rotten fruit to throw at us!”

Laker Shakes offers more than just good jokes these days — though no longer the insanely inexpensive milk shakes for which the destination was famous, particularly among Glen Lake students up the hill. The store’s interior is updated with soft hues. Quality beer and wine, lunch items, local food products and upscale snacks line the shelves, and cold ice cream fills the coolers — sometimes to the chagrin of O’Neill’s right wrist. The paintings on the wall were done by her brother John.

“I’m doing Gabe’s hotdogs from Maple City, Food for Thought jam from Honor, and we’ll soon get Michigan beer and Michigan-made potato chips,” promises O’Neill. “We’re in an evolutionary stage.”

Naturally, the presence of two world-class European restaurants in the neighborhood (La Becasse and Funistrada) were clear incentives to bring in local produce and high-quality foods to satisfy the local culinarians. O’Neill says that one day she’d like to have an outdoor farm stand here. To many beachgoers, families and bike riders, however, Laker Shakes is still the ice cream pit stop.

O’Neill moved to this neck of the woods from Denver when her parents passed on (and a job at Lockheed-Martin fell through). In 1980 her mother opened that restaurant across the street where Guillaume Hazael-Massieux now makes his famous hangar steak. La Becasse won best restaurant in Michigan in 1987 before she sold it to Peachy Rentenbach before the decade’s close. With the profits, O’Neill’s mom bought a cottage on Big Glen.

And now, in addition to scooping ice cream, jamming in the garden and striking fear into the tent caterpillars, O’Neill is the community scribe. She pens the weekly Burdickville column for the Leelanau Enterprise, the county’s paper of record.

“I approached them a year and a half ago and said, ‘There’s an Omena news, and a Glen Lake news, so why not do Burdickville too?’ To me the tone is that of a Garrison Keillor-like Lake Wobegon, with my own little twist. I like to be a little self-deprecating.”

O’Neill once made her living as a writer, at Detroit Monthly Magazine. She also worked at a dealership, doing advertising, television, radio and print ads.

“I write the column to bring attention to little Burdickville, which is often in the shadows of the Thriving Metropolis of Glen Arbor. We like to say ‘It’s Better in Burdickville’ and I like to highlight the quirky things that happen in life that have universal appeal but that are also specific to our little corner of the world.”