Larry Bell’s Purchases Food Dance Building For His Foundation

It's funny how real estate and areas change. Twenty-five years ago, Food Dance at Michigan and Pitcher Streets in Kalamazoo was a fairly new restaurant on the cusp of what would become a thriving downtown restaurant and bar/beer scene in Kalamazoo. Across the street was The Warehouse, which, at the time along with Bourbon Street and Wayside West, was one of the most popular bars in the city of Kalamazoo. But times change, even in a short span of twenty-five years. Bourbon Street is no more, as is Wayside West. The Warehouse was redone as fancy office space for the Arcus Foundation. And now the same will happen to the building that housed Food Dance.

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Food Dance just closed its doors for the last time a month ago, and now Larry Bell has told MLive that his foundation is buying the building, and it will be home to the Larry J. Bell Library Foundation. The plan is for the foundation offices to be in the building, along with a personal library and galleries that will be open to the public.

The MLive story says Bell purchased Michigan author Larry Massie's "massive" collection, some 40,000 volumes, of history. That collection as well as Bell's own will be housed at the site.

It's funny how perceptions change. A year ago, Larry Bell was a guy who made really good Kalamazoo beer, and a big Chicago Cub fan. Now, since selling the brewery, he's made donations to his alma mater, Kalamazoo College, and shown he has a deep interest in history and is going to pass that interest forward to generations to come.