D’Mar Banquet & Conference Center

“SIXTEEN WEDDING receptions are already booked for this year, and I’m taking bookings for 2016,” said Dianne Rodgers, CEO, of the soon-to-open D’Mar Banquet & Conference Center, 1488 N. M-52, in the Shiawassee Towne Centre plaza speaking Thursday morning just after she had talked with the couple whose reception will be the first on May 16. Her displays are at Theodore’s Superior Coffee, a short walk from D’Mar, which opened earlier this year where a bank branch office had been for decades. “Our first event will be The Arc Shiawassee’s Crystal Ball Saturday evening, March 21, in an area we have renovated at the southern area of the plaza (near Kiwanis Village),” said Rodgers. “I have hired an executive chef, a souse chef and a baker. The date has not yet been set for an Open House.”
In addition, Café D’Mar, operating Monday through Saturday, will be to the right of the main entrance, which is beneath a large new portico. One of her employees, Mary Phillips, has been with Rodgers the entire 24 years she has been in the food service business. “She was with us when we had Mike’s Munchies in the BingoHall (which was in the northern area of the plaza). I told her ‘If you stay with me, some day we’ll make it big. She has and we are.’” Rodgers and her husband, Mike, operated food services at Baker College until his death a few years ago. The new banquet and conference center will have seating for 500 people, with areas for smaller events and parties.