Restaurants & Dining
A restaurant (/ˈrɛstərənt/ or /ˈrɛstərɒnt/; French: [ʀɛs.to.ʁɑ̃] (
listen)) is a business which prepares and serves food and drinks to customers in exchange for money, either paid before the meal, after the meal, or with an open account. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services, and some only offer take-out and delivery. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of cuisines and service models ranging from inexpensive fast food restaurants and cafeterias to mid-pricedfamily restaurants, to high-priced luxury establishments. In Western countries, most mid- to high-range restaurants serve alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine. Some restaurants serve all the major meals, such as breakfast,lunch, and dinner (e.g., major fast food chains, diners, hotel restaurants, and airport restaurants). Other restaurants may only serve a single meal (e.g., a pancake house may only serve breakfast) or they may serve two meals (e.g., lunch and dinner).
Midland
Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan in the Tri-Cities region of Central Michigan. It is the county seat of Midland County.[7] The city’s population was 41,863 as of the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area, part of the larger Saginaw-Midland-Bay City Combined Statistical Area. In 2010, Midland was named the no. 4 Best Small City to raise a family in by Forbes magazine.[8]
By the late 1820s, Midland was established as a fur trading post of the American Fur Company supervised by the post at Saginaw. Here agents purchased furs from Ojibwe trappers. The Campau family of Detroit operated an independent trading post at this location in the late 1820s.[9]
The Dow Chemical Company was founded in Midland in 1897, and its world headquarters are still located there. Through the influence of a Dow Chemical plant opening in Handa, Aichi, Japan, Midland and Handa have become sister cities.[10] The Dow Corning Corporation and Chemical Bank are also headquartered in Midland.
In 1969 the city unilaterally defined a Midland Urban Growth Area (MUGA), which at the time was a territory two-miles around the city limits of Midland in an attempt to control urban sprawl. [11] The central policy was that as the only capable supplier of drinking water, the city would provide water services to commnities outside the MUGA such as the nearby village of Sanford, but would not provide to water services to the area within the MUGA without annexation to the city of Midland thus controlling most of the growth in the county. Since 1991 however, the policy has since been revised with a series of Urban Cooperation Act Agreements with surrounding townships which has allowed case-by-case redrawings of the MUGA line to allow Midland to sell water to the surrounding townships without annexation.[11]