The Next Chapter

Some things take a long time to become public.

Not because they’re uncertain, but because they’re already in motion.

For a while now, we’ve been under contract to purchase The Local Epicurean in Grand Rapids. The work has been steady and largely invisible—documents, diligence, conversations, timelines. The kind of progress that doesn’t announce itself, but accumulates all the same.

Last week, that changed. The news became public, including coverage by Crain’s. For most people, that’s the beginning of the story. For us, it’s somewhere closer to the middle.

There’s a particular feeling when something you’ve been carrying privately crosses into the open. Not excitement exactly. Not relief. More like recognition. A quiet acknowledgment that a thing you’ve been working toward now exists beyond the room you’ve been sitting in.

We’ve written before about the early days of The 601 Group—where it came from, how the businesses took shape, what we were trying to learn along the way. Those essays were about starting. About building momentum. About learning by doing.

This moment feels different.

Not because it’s dramatic. Because it’s settled.

Purchasing the Grand Rapids location isn’t a sudden move or a reaction to recent events. It’s something we’ve been working toward over time, alongside the day-to-day work of operating East Lansing, refining the model, and understanding what this business actually demands when you live inside it long enough.

There’s nothing flashy about that process. It’s repetitive. It’s detailed. It’s often quiet. And it’s where most durable decisions are made.

When we opened East Lansing, we learned by doing. When we began operating multiple concepts under The 601 Group, we learned by managing complexity. This step reflects another phase entirely—the kind of learning that comes from staying with something long enough to understand its weight.

Ownership changes the nature of responsibility, even when the work itself looks familiar. Decisions carry further. Timelines stretch. Consequences compound. You feel the difference not in a single moment, but across a series of ordinary ones.

That shift doesn’t require interpretation yet. It just requires attention.

There’s a temptation, when something becomes public, to explain what it means. To declare what comes next. We’re resisting that.

For now, this is simply the next chapter.

The work continues much as it did before. Same focus on experience. Same care for the people doing the work. Same long view toward building something that holds up over time.

What may change, we’ll learn by doing.

This moment doesn’t require interpretation. It just deserves to be marked.

- Mike

On continuity, responsibility, and the work between the headlines