Novelty and nonconformity mark 2025’s new businesses

Every business reflects its owner, and some are more than just a new twist on an old form. This year, the Lansing area’s new business landscape was marked by unique concepts that challenged expectations, enriched the culture and, above all else, helped to keep Greater Lansing weird. Here are four ventures that highlight, particularly well, the diversity and creativity seen throughout the area in 2025.

 

Chengdu Teahouse

Elyse Ribbons spent most of her career in China, where she learned that teahouses were much more than the country’s equivalent of Starbucks.

“It was the place where ideas were shared, where culture was passed down,” she told City Pulse in June.

Known in China as Liu Suying, Ribbons has run theater festivals, appeared on TV as a reporter and actress and even been the COO of a Fortune Global 500 company.

She said her Chinese fans often comment that her American approach distinguishes her Chinese writing. In the same vein, she hopes that her American approach to a Chinese teahouse will help distinguish it from others who have tried, and failed, to bring Chinese tea to the US previously.

Equal parts authentic teahouse and social hub, Chengdu is an experience not quite like any other in mid-Michigan.

Loewen Studio & Gallery

In 2016, noted American quiltmaker Nancy Crow told her student Pamela Loewen that the world needed a gallery promoting quilts as art, and that Loewen was the one to do it.

At the time, Loewen laughed it off.

Ten years later, she opened Loewen Studio & Gallery in Williamston.

Like other artists, art quilters often create bodies of work centered around motifs or ideas. But the opportunity to display such a body is a rarity, with quilt shows often limited to one or two pieces per artist. Loewen’s gallery is an opportunity for quilters to display an entire collection.

Loewen hopes to foster a community around quiltmaking and create a “destination gallery” that will attract people from out of town to Williamston.

 

Dungeons & Flagons

Playing Dungeons & Dragons can be accomplished with as little as a set of dice, a book of rules and some vivid imaginations.

But those wanting to take their tabletop role-playing experience to the next level might be interested in Dungeons & Flagons, an upscale D&D room with just about every amenity a player could want, from miniatures to a projector to a custom-built table. Oh, and co-owners Colton Hughes and Wyatt Russ made the room look like a dungeon, too.

Renting out the space isn’t cheap. A six-hour rental of the room, which can accommodate a seven-person group, is $340 total. The price is even higher if you want to rent either Hughes or Russ out as game masters.

But they aren’t trying to replace the classic D&D session in the DM’s basement with a stack of pizzas. They’re writing a love letter to the form for those celebrating a final session or birthday, or who just want to take their experience to the next level.

 

GiantMouse Knives

When Michigan State University alumnus Jim Wirth moved back to Lansing in 2020, he brought his business with him.

Wirth founded GiantMouse Knives in 2015 with Danish knife designers Jens Ansø and Jesper Voxnaes. Originally a side project between friends, the venture has grown into an international operation.

In August, Old Town became the operation’s epicenter when GiantMouse opened its first showroom just across the street from Chengdu Teahouse.

The showroom gives locals an easy way to learn more about the brand itself and the world of luxury knives.

And for the less outdoorsy, the business recently restocked its kitchen knife collection, too.