The Ann Arbor News notes that Bello Vino gets a significant share of its vegetables, fruit, and lamb from the owner's local farm:

At the busy Bello Vino food market in the Plymouth Road Mall, customers are used to getting fresh, locally grown produce much of the year. They just may not know how local.

About 4.5 miles from the store, Bello Vino owner Louis Ferris has turned 85 acres of his 107-acre estate in Superior Township into a farming operation that includes a 1-acre-plus vegetable garden, an orchard with peach, pear, apple, cherry and plum trees, 750 blueberry bushes, raspberry bushes, strawberries, a 2,100-square-foot greenhouse, eight bee hives and a flock of 128 breeding ewes to produce lambs.

All of that food is used to supply Bello Vino with up to 30 percent of its produce over the course of the year.

Where have we seen the name Louis Ferris before? That's right - he's the guy who bought up the Great Lakes Central Railroad a year ago and wants to run passenger trains on it.

"Our intention is to bring passenger rail service to the state of Michigan," said Ferris, who spoke to the gathering on the train when it stopped at Eight Mile Road. "It's a natural for us, because we have what it takes to put this together in terms of tracks, cars."

The company owns engines and 52 cars adaptable for commuter service, Ferris said.

Eventually he wants to extend passenger service from Ann Arbor to Traverse City, Ferris said.

Local agriculture *and* intercity passenger rail? You know, this guy lives in my State Senate district...