Mark’s Carts is quite the scene on Friday nights. The outdoor food court yard on Washington Street has become populated by more than the independent food carts that serve up eats all week long: Now Friday Night Live music performances populate the pavement behind Ann Arbor Home & Garden with a diverse, all-ages crowd of local music fans.

A relatively small patch of slightly sloped pavement and the driveway leading to the back of Downtown Home & Garden gets transformed into an intimate concert venue in the fresh air of the early evening. Each Friday from 7 to 9 p.m., local bands and DJs perform. Framed by the greenhouse on one side, construction on another, and the back of Mark’s Carts, the space is unlike any other in town.

It is more like a gathering to watch a busker perform on the street than a stage in any traditional sense. That is what gives the space a lot of character. The vibe there is something like a large family barbecue or an extremely condensed version of gatherings like Top of the Park. Food, fresh air, music, and all sorts of people—they have got a good thing going.

On a recent Friday, the often humorous and always eclectic electronic pop musician Charlie Slick entertained the crowd with bandmates Micah Vanderhoof on saxophone, and Molly Mascow, who played one of the groups homemade electronic instruments.

This Friday, June 8, douglaslaneallen presents WOW! WOW! which “combines string orchestra elements, hoppy, synthetic beats, and funky, eastern melodies with old time lyrics,” as the schedule states.

“There are always two scenes going on here on Friday night,” says Phillis Engelbert, the food cart co-owner who started Friday Night Live and books the music. She saw an opportunity to bring live music into the relatively small and intimate corner of downtown shortly after setting up her vegan food cart, The Lunch Room, last spring.

“There is the scene in the courtyard where you can sit at the picnic tables to eat and socialize, and then music in the back. As the night progresses, the scene becomes bigger as people finish eating and filter in out to watch the music,” Engelbert explains.

She thinks “there is a cool vibe here outdoors. It's like a party that anyone can enjoy, that your kids can come to because it's early in the evening. The food, music, and all the people who come out make it a real Ann Arbor thing,” she says.

The Lunch Room cart started as a pop-up restaurant in rented retail spaces, and “we had live music at those,” which gave her some experience coordinating live music, Engelbert says. But she also gives a lot of the credit to her son Ryan Shea, a senior at Community High School, who has played a big part in bringing music to Mark’s Carts.

“It all started very informally with me, friends, and other musicians in the Community High School Jazz Band program,” Shea says. CHS Jazz Band students and some former members who have already graduated started playing for tips during lunch. After a while, other local bands wanted in. “We started making a schedule as it became crazier because other bands wanted to play too. We didn’t want it to be only a CHS Jazz Band thing. We wanted it to be music in the court yard featuring CHS Jazz Band musicians,” and Friday Night Live thus grew into what it is today, he explains.

Shea has been a big help because at the age of 18 he is already plugged in to music in Ann Arbor. He plays guitar and is the upright bassist in local band Wire in the Wood (performing on June 1) and recently started a new band called Straw McGraw.

And the thing he credits most is his involvement in the Neutral Zone teen arts center. “This year I was the facilitator of Youth Owned Records, their record label, and I learned how to engineer music with Studio Manager Carlos Garcia at the Orpheum Recording Studio. And I also booked shows for about a year and a half at the B-Side (the Neutral Zone’s performance and exhibition space),” Shea says. His plan for college is to go into the Performing Arts Technology program at U-M.

The mother and son team proudly report that the new scene is catching on. “Last year, we had to look for bands. Now it's kind of the scene and around half of the bands we both come to us,” Engelbert says. Shea adds that they are pretty much booked up through the summer, and he expects “it won’t be long” before they have a full lineup through fall.

When Mark Hodesh, the owner of Downtown Home & Garden, started the food courtyard, he “never expected” Mark’s Carts to be a place where people hang out for hours. But he is extremely pleased by the way people have embraced the space and how cart vendors like Engelbert have made it their own.

“Honestly, I thought this was going to be a carry-out place, where you get your food and take it away,” Hodesh says. “I didn’t know groups would stay to sit around the picnic tables or come to see the entertainment. But I’m sure glad to see so many different ethnicities, people how bring their babies and young kids,” he explains.

The city recently approved a liquor license transfer for Bill’s Beer, a beer garden planned for Home & Garden’s Ashley Street Parking lot. Bill’s Beer and Mark’s Carts would be connected through a corridor. Hodesh and business associate Bill Zolkowski are waiting for state approval but hope to open this summer. It seems likely that the downtown gathering spot will have this new addition soon, and construction on a storage and restroom building in the potential beer garden is already well underway.

“What continues to fascinate me is the good-natured spirit of the whole thing. It has built a community around it, which is a good path to follow—friendship and the community coming together,” Hodesh says.