[Model D] Two James Spirits, Detroit's first licensed distillery in nearly 100 years, now distributing

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

After months of excited buzz, Two James Spirits in Corktown is now open for business.

Mostly.

The production facility and tasting room, at 2445 Michigan Avenue, has been under renovation since last July. Earlier this month, Two James started distributing its 28 Island Vodka, named for the 28 islands on the Detroit River that were used as hideouts by bootleggers during Prohibition, to bars, restaurants, and liquor stores in metro Detroit and Ann Arbor. Soon their Old Cockney Gin and Grass Widow bourbon will also be available, and they have more bourbons and whiskeys currently aging in barrels for future release.

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The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

ICYMI:
~The new Two James Spirits distillery is the first licensed distillery in the city of Detroit since before Prohibition, and they are now ready to start serving you. Here's a look inside, and keep an eye out for their grand opening in the next month! [EID]
~Hamtramck is getting a new table d'hôte restaurant called (revolver), which is now accepting its first reservations for Hamtramck Food Week. [Model D]
~Interested in learning more about this new concept in Hamtramck, (revolver)? Want a sneak peek at opening week menus? Check out this Q+A with co-owner Tunde Wey here. [EID]
~Last week a story I wrote on coffee squatting ran on Fox News. While the edited version was appropriate for Fox readers, my nature as a writer is to give things a bit more cultural context. Here is the full version of that story, which reads a bit...differently. [EID / Fox News]
~The impact of metro Detroit's ethnic Arab population is hugely significant on our culture and heritage. A new FREE walking tour of Eastern Market Corporation called YallaEat!, hosted by the Arab American National Museum, takes you through the history of the market's many Arab vendors and producers. Visit the market's Arab-owned businesses and meet the owners on this tour highlighting just one aspect of what makes this multi-cultural market so great, and one of the most culturally interesting things about living in metro Detroit. [EID]
~Remember when Tour de Troit was just a few dudes on bikes with a cooler? TdT is this weekend. Here's a goodie from last summer in which I profile one of the organizers, Bil Lusa, along with other biking beeries like Steve Johnson of Motor City Brew Tours. [Metromode]
~Dig cocktails? Check out the Old Smokey at Urban Cellar inside The Jefferson House. [RDW]

With respect to the usual suspects for being really good at media outreach, it's rather refreshing to see a pizza of any other origin get named the best in the state (on a list that wasn't researched by typing "best pizza in Michigan" into Google). Motor City Brewing Works "Mary Did Have" 'za gets the nod from USA Today as being the definitive Michigan pizza. [USA Today]

American Coney Island is profiled as one of 6 historic hot dog joints in the company of meat tube giants like Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, Superdawg, and Pink's Hot Dogs. [Fox News]

In case you've lost track, here's a great big reminder of all of the restaurants and bars opening in Midtown v v soon. [MLive]

Check out the new sexytime website for Dine Drink Detroit! All the details (the whos whats wheres and whens) are on there plus a few categorizations to help you tailor your experience to your own interests. (Like beer. And what places have the most of it.) Starts October 10! #DineDrinkDetroit [DDD]

Detroit Restaurant Week starts this week! Have you made your reservations yet? 'Cuz you might want to get on that. [DRW]

I have a serious crush on Eastern Market Corporation and how the folks in charge have completed redefined that district since they took over in 2006. Randall Fogelman is one of those people. Read about him and his work at the Market in Urban Innovation Exchange. [UIX]

Another old bar has been destroyed by a fire; this time it was Hippo's Bar in Hamtramck. [Freep]

Surely this HAS to be fake, right? [Craigslist]

Now the question remains: do headlines translate into customers to sustain such high wages at Moo Cluck Moo in Dearborn Heights? [The Daily Beast]

Crain's Detroit Business asks the question and Moo Cluck Moo says yes. They even want to open more locations. [Crain's]

Can Whole Foods save your love life as well as Detroit? Writer Ryan Patrick Hooper thinks so. Here is this Whole Foods Cassanova's guide to picking up girls at Whole Foods LIKE A GENTLEMAN. [HuffPo]

And now we have reached phase 2 of Detroit 2.0: from corporate philanthropy to corporate bullying. [MLive]

The founder of Shatila Bakery has passed away, after years of battling cancer. Truly an example of a tireless entrepreneurial work ethic, Mr. Shatila grew his business into one of the best-known Arab-owned sweet shops in the U.S. with a thriving mail order business. They also make some of the best ice cream I've ever had. The store has a huge selection of delicate Arabic and European pastries and savory items, as well as Arabic coffee, smoothies and raw juices, and THE ICE CREAM. Definitely one of the best food businesses in metro Detroit, hands-down. [Freep]

Vegans, etc. [AnnArbor.com]

Northern Lakes Seafood Company is moving to Troy. [Freep]

Absinthe and Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. beers? Sounds like the good kind of trouble. Or just the straight-up bad kind. [Freep]

SO MANY fantastic people and projects on this list: $2.1 million total is being distributed to 56 winning local arts programs and projects, both new and existing, including (but certainly not limited to) Alonso del Arte's ice cream truck which will play Anton Bruckner’s March in E-flat major, the new Detroit SOUP truck, Public Pool's Good Tyme Writer’s Buffet, the new Trinosophes museum, big-time winner (receiving $100,000) Theatre Bizarre, and so so many more! [Knight Arts]

The third-annual Detroit Design Festival kicks off this week. This is probably one of the most exciting events in the city, always way more on offer than the usual bands and booze and food trucks (not that there's anything wrong with that). Very cool stuff happening as part of this event. [Crain's]

Oh, Detroit. [Freep]

Oh, Detroit. (Redux.) [Detroit News]

According to DBusiness, Prime29 Steakhouse in West Bloomfield is trying to get on MAN VS. FOOD with their $240 "Colossal Surf + Turf" which features 7 pound of meat and potatoes. Oh, Michigan. #XTREME [DBusiness]

Nice title, Bloomberg. [Bloomberg]

Interested in TEDxDetroit? Here's the speaker lineup for the Oct. 2 event. Lots of Detroit doers involved, including Amy Kaherl of Detroit SOUP. [Yahoo Finance]

Tickets to one of the country's most wicked Halloween parties, Theatre Bizarre, are now on sale through the online store. Zombo thanks you in advance for your support. [Theatre Bizarre]

Beerie
~I support the more beer movement. #morebeer [Detroit News]
~Witch's Hat Brewing Company came out strong, but overall Warren wins with each of its three breweries - Kuhnhenn Brewing Co., Dragonmead Brewery, and Falling Down Beer Company - making it into the Final Four in MLive.com's best Michigan brewery search (the public voting round). [MLive]
~IS IT FALL YET???? Start making plans for all of the fun fall things happening this year! Like the third annual Great Pumpkin feast at The Root Restaurant and Bar, with beer pairings from Jolly Pumpkin Brewery. [The Root]
~MLive.com will be in Detroit and A2 for their best brewery search this Thursday and Friday! [MLive]
~Downtown Royal Oak's Michigan Beer Stroll is happening this Saturday, tickets are $40. Lots of Michigan breweries, lots of Royal Oak restaurants. [Royal Oak Patch]
~Tashmoo Biergarten and other stuff is happening on Belle Isle this Saturday from 12-6. [Tashmoo]
~Powers Distributing is once again in the running for Craft Beer Distributor of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival next month. The Michigan-based distributor won the award in 2011 and is the only Michigan distributor nominated this year. [Detroit News]

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[Real Detroit] Urban Cellars

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

In the last couple of years, craft cocktail culture has exploded in metro Detroit. We went from just a handful of restaurants with an exceptional selection of craft cocktails both classic and those created in-house that only those who REALLY knew would really appreciate, to dozens of cocktail-focused bars and restaurants from Ann Arbor to White Lake that emphasize fresh, house-made ingredients and artisan spirits on their drink menus.

Urban Cellars is now open inside the newly-renovated Crowne Plaza Pontchartrain Detroit located across the street from COBO Center. The common areas of the hotel have gone through a serious remodeling, including the lobby and the hotel's main restaurant and lounge located on the lobby level. The restaurant is the Jefferson House, led by ambitious up-and-coming Executive Chef Justin Vaiciunas, who is also the hotel's director of food and beverage overseeing the full dining program.

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[NEWS BITES] YallaEat! New walking tour reveals Eastern Market's Arab history, merchants, food

Olives at Gabriel Import Co.

There is a new free walking tour series starting next Tuesday at Eastern Market. YallaEat! celebrates the history of Arab merchants in the historic market district. Find everything you need to make a traditional Arabic meal in the market, learn the history of Arab entrepreneurs in the market, visit the market's Arab-owned businesses and meet the owners. The greater Arab community is one of the largest ethnic cultures in metro Detroit (if not THE largest) and its impact on our culture and heritage is hugely significant. This tour will help show you why. Here's more info:

Who’s hungry for history? The Arab American National Museum (AANM) says, “Yalla (Arabic for ‘let’s go’) eat!”

AANM’s YallaEat! Culinary Walking Tour is a new, immersive cultural experience being offered free of charge this fall as a pilot program and next year as a fee-based program. The docent-guided walking tours of Detroit’s historic Eastern Market in September and October 2013 will help refine future tours, including those the Museum will conduct this spring along Warren Avenue in Dearborn, amid the largest concentration of Arabs outside the nations of the Arab World.

Those who register online for the Tuesday and Saturday afternoon tours this fall will hear the story of Arab Americans in metro Detroit while exploring the long history of Arab merchants in and around Eastern Market. Participants will visit diverse Arab and Middle Eastern businesses – all founded by immigrants and family run – meet and talk with the owners, enjoy some free samples and do some old-school shopping.

“Before supermarkets like Kroger and Meijer, you would have to visit multiple family-owned stores to secure all of your groceries,” says Dr. Matthew Jaber Stiffler, AANM researcher and culinary guide.

“Our tour participants will visit businesses that, taken together, sell all of the ingredients of a typical Arab American meal: from olives, cheese and cucumbers as an appetizer, to meat, rice, and bread as a main course, to coffee and nuts for after dinner,” Stiffler says.

Well-known Detroit-area community leader Ed Deeb, a proud Arab American, wrote the introduction for the YallaEat! Eastern Market tour. In 1972, Deeb founded the Eastern Market Merchants Association to help vendors get more recognition from the City of Detroit. He was also a co-founder of the Eastern Market Corporation and founded the Michigan Food and Beverage Association in 1987.

“You will note during your tour that the Arab American merchants and shop owners are friendly, personable and eager to see you,” Deeb says. “They are always proud to meet people of their own heritage and to introduce others to Arab American traditions. What stands out most is how they are intermingled with the other ethnic business people throughout the Market.” 

Tours run approximately two hours and 30 minutes; comfortable walking shoes are required. Opportunities to shop are offered at most stops. Tours begin and end at Germack Coffee Roasting Company, Roastery & Espresso Bar, 2517 Russell St., Detroit. Founded by Armenian immigrants from Syria in the 1920s, Germack offers fresh roasted coffee and nuts from across the globe.

Tour registration is free but an online RSVP is required at www.arabamericanmuseum.org/yallaeat. RSVPs will be accepted until each tour date’s 15 slots are filled or until noon the day prior to each tour.

YallaEat! Culinary Walking Tours: Eastern Market

Presented by Arab American National Museum

1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013

1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013

2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013

1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013

2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013

1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013

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[Fox News] The return of café culture and the retaliation against coffee squatters

LAMILL Coffee Boutique, Los Angeles. 

This is the original version of a story that ran in Fox News with the much more dramatic headline, "Cafes declare war on Wi-Fi squatters." You can read the published version here. 

In the '90s (remember them? weren't they nice?), it was not uncommon to see hordes of teenagers and college students at your local Friends-style second-wave coffeehouse chain-smoking cigarettes and sucking down $1 cups of coffee. They would spend hours on end doing this, every single day. And they weren't sitting in silence staring mindlessly at their iPhones uploading "selfies" (now in the Oxford Dictionary!) on Instagram. They talked. To each other. As in, engaged in meaningful dialogue with other humans.

But a lot has changed in the last two decades. Now, we're all wired. Endlessly wired. Phillip K. Dick post-apocalyptic-cyberpunk-novel wired. We have our laptops and our smartphones and our iPads and we are on them ALL THE TIME checking Facebook and Twitter and Instagram or on Snapchat or playing Candy Crush. (Some people even do work.) Bars and restaurants are regularly filled with people blatantly ignoring each other, so much so that "phone-stacking" is a thing that now exists.

And cafes, the standard-bearers of quality social interaction amongst strangers and thinkers and activists and eager young adults since 14^th century Turkey, are now full of "coffee squatters" – those who set up shop with their laptops and spend interminable hours gobbling up the café's bandwidth and available seating, making it so that other customers can't find a place to sit and negatively impacting the shop's business, all so they can do important things like update their Facebook status and download new albums from iTunes.

It wasn't always like this. Cafés offering free Wi-Fi did so with the best of intentions, trying to provide their customers with an additional value in the hopes of bringing more business. It started innocently enough – college students researching essays; business people checking emails (bear in mind, smartphones with email access are still a relatively new thing on the timeline of human existence). But the service is now being broadly abused, and café owners are fighting back.

In San Francisco, Luigi Di Ruocco, owner of Coffee Bar, recently made headlines after restricting access to laptop users during peak times and creating "laptop-free" seating so customers simply trying to have lunch will have somewhere to sit. Fellow café owners all over the country have chosen to place time limits on Wi-Fi use, require an access code to the wireless network (available only with purchase), cover their electrical outlets, or eliminate Wi-Fi altogether. Ben Popken of NBC News writes, "While the measures may seem a bit gruff for coffee shops that have long promoted themselves as a friendly and counter-cultural alternative to the mainstream coffee joints, they're an economic necessity. Coffee shops rely on a high volume of low-price items. Stores can't afford to provide temporary real estate to people looking for a remote office for which they only pay $1.85 in daily rent."

Forbes also warns of the financial threat of squatting. "A coffee shop will never make enough money to pay the bills from coffee sales alone," says Peter Baskerville in answer to the question, "What's the secret to a successful coffee shop?" He instructs café owners to worry less about offering things like Wi-Fi and more about increasing turnover and takeaways. "Takeaway customers pay the same price as the sit-down customer, but without any of the occupancy costs, and you will serve ten of them by the time your sit down customer has finished sipping on their first cup of coffee as they enjoy a chat with their friends on Facebook using your free Wi-Fi."

Jane Shihadeh previously owned Shoe's Cup and Cork in Leesburg, Virginia, a café by day and full fine dining restaurant and wine bar by night. "It's difficult to generate profit from coffee sales alone," she says. "Ultimately it's more about your average check in general. You really need people coming in to eat." She wanted to balance the restaurant with a relaxed coffeehouse vibe, and offered free Wi-Fi to encourage that. "What we found was that there were lots of people that would come in – if you were lucky they would maybe order a large coffee but sometimes they would just demand water – and would sit there for hours." She found that these customers were also the most demanding, and some would even use her café to solicit business from her other customers, engaging them in conversation about their web design needs. Eventually she sold the café (it is now operating under new ownership) and opened a much more straightforward Wi-Fi-free sandwich shop, Philly Rabe's.

In the hipsterific Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake, LAMILL Coffee Boutique, referred to by USA Today as "the white-tablecloth restaurant of coffee shops," has a two-hour time limit on their wireless access because, as manager Dave Alfaro states, "It frees up space. We don't want people sitting there all day long while we have people who want to come in, get a coffee and eat their food." The Boutique also serves a thoughtful selection of wine, beer, and sake, as well as a full breakfast, lunch and dinner menu. Coffee squatters aren't just taking up space and bandwidth (Alfaro has noticed many use the café's free Wi-Fi for large file downloads) from other would-be squatters looking to do the same, but are actually turning away other customers who have nowhere to sit. At Abraco in New York, which also serves a selection of house-made small plates and baked goods, it's standing-room-only – ensuring squatting isn't an issue.

Coffee shops that don't serve food or have only a limited menu of pastries available, like Verve in Santa Cruz, seem to fare better than those that are also restaurants. Ashley Epia, shift lead at the 41^stAvenue location, says the Wi-Fi network is password-protected but the password is given out freely and there is no time limit for usage. The café has a small selection of pastries and does not offer table service. She says that "squatting" isn't really a problem and that people cycle out pretty well. But Verve is also a roaster with a strong wholesale business to support its cafés. Additionally, cafés like this that rely almost predominantly on coffee sales tend to be significantly smaller, thus offering significantly less seating – perhaps making the squatter a bit more self-conscious about taking up one of only a handful of seats.

But the hostility towards "squatters" isn't just about people taking up seats – though the lost revenue for businesses that rely on dine-in food sales is definitely a primary concern. For many it's also about the atmosphere they wish to create. New York's Café Grumpy doesn't offer Wi-Fi or allow laptops in four of their five locations. "For us, yes, it's a space issue, but it's also about the atmosphere it creates," says Café Grumpy owner Caroline Bell. Though the cafés only serve their own house-made pastries and don't face the same challenges as full sit-down restaurants, Bell wanted to create an atmosphere that was "more inviting," allowing for actual conversation to occur rather than the pitter-patter of laptop typing being the dominant sound. "It's less about turnover and more about the experience. People appreciate it." 

Walking into a café and seeing table after table of laptop zombies, faces bathed in blue from the glow of their screens, is a much different experience than walking into a café buzzing with excited conversation, whether it be about politics or the latest episode of Breaking Bad. In recent decades coffeehouses have evolved as much as technology. The ubiquity of smartphones has made the original intent of free Wi-Fi (as an additional service for customers to use sparingly as needed) obsolete, and third-wave coffeehouses are increasingly mindful of encouraging a sense of community – that centuries-old café culture in which cafés served as primary community gathering places.

While you could easily make a case that the squatters of decades past – the Beat writers of 1950s San Francisco, the postmodern philosophers of 1960s Paris, the goth and grunge kids of 1990s America – probably weren't producing high ticket averages, they were producing the kind of human interaction missing from the modern laptop mafia (and let's not get started on "co-working," i.e., ignoring each other in groups while taking up multiple seats). In an age of endless connectivity, sometimes people just want to feel connected; the retaliation against coffee squatting is just one manifestation of a growing social movement.

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[EID Feature] Q+A with (revolver) co-owner Tunde Wey

Today in Model D I reported on the opening of a new table d'hôte restaurant opening later this month in Hamtramck called (revolver). But co-owner Tunde Wey, one of Nikki's Boys, isn't into the whole brevity thing. His answers to my emailed questions were so snappy I felt that they deserved to be shared in their entirety. Here is the full scoop on (revolver) - how the concept was born, how it has evolved, who is involved and what they're setting out to do. Make your reservations during Hamtramck Food Week!

EID: Who is behind this concept? 

(revolver co-owner Tunde Wey): (revolver) is operated by Tunde Wey and Peter Dalinowski. Peter and I used to be flatmates in Woodbridge, where Peter lives. At first our relationship was a little tenuous: you see, Peter is meticulous and a natural gourmand with exquisite taste in everything (sometimes it's overbearing because we can’t go anywhere without Peter pointing out how things could be better). I am, on the other hand, more intuitive, freewheeling, passionate, and not entirely particular or concerned with the details. One such detail I was uninterested in when I lived with Peter was who owned what in our refrigerator…so I kept eating Peter’s delicious and tasty foods. He wasn’t too pleased. Anyway, we soon rallied and became good friends. There was one night especially, after ingesting something unfortunate, Peter spent three hours from the early morning into dusk comforting me. He’s a lovely man, with great taste in food and friends.

Anyway, a few months ago, sometime in April, after I had decided to scuttle my plans to move to Chicago to finish up school, Peter and I met up for lunch. We started talking about various ideas we had for businesses that would be wonderful for the area. Peter has been self employed for almost six years running a ticket brokerage business, and I had “entrepreneured” my way through a couple of fiscally challenging situations, so we are both business-minded. Peter and I had always talked about getting into business together because our tastes and aesthetic values matched considerably. So when we started talking in late April, it seemed the time was right; his daughters were going into school so he had more time on his hands, and I was resuming my adventure of living in the city. We spit into our palms, shook hands firmly and jumped into business…the restaurant business. Peter loves food and design, I love entertaining around food and design, so we are a balanced pair in that sense.

Our discussion eventually settled on the (revolver) concept after we came across our current location. Shout out to Jason Friedmann, [former] Economic Dev director at the city of Hamtramck; he was integral to helping us secure the location. The space really catalyzed our decision to try our concept. It seemed to call for it, with its large kithcen and intimate dining area.

We are currently working with five wonderful chef partners. Jessika Rae Warren, Oliver Honderd, Brad Greenhill, Alla Dihes and the team of Thom Ingram and Nate Bankowski.

Menu for Thursday, September 26. 

Describe the concept of (revolver).

(revolver) is our take on a table d’hote restaurant. Back in the day -- caveat, I am not a gastronomical historian, but from our research, as early as the 1600’s, countryside inns would serve a large family style meal to their guests. Basically the host would decide what to prepare and all guests would be invited to his table, hence "Host’s Table" or table d’hote -- if you want to get all fancy with it.

Our concept is similar. We are inviting people to our “table” so to speak, and offering them a chance to eat delicious food sourced locally, and fresh, prepared by people who LOVE and are experts at what they do.

We offer a very reasonably priced multi-course prix fixe menu. Our menu is always changing, which is exciting because we traverse a variety of food styles and genres, allowing our patrons to explore different cuisines and interpretations of food. We are also very conscious about accommodating different preferences so we include vegetarian (and sometime vegan) courses in each of our dinners. We have communal seating, so folks are eating next to other folks, talking (hopefully while not chewing) and really enjoying good company and food.

We have two seatings per night. Seatings are by reservation only. To reserve a seat at the restaurant diners have to prepay for the meal through our website. When you dine with us, we know exactly what you want to eat, so it's hassle-free and barring a catastrophe (knock on wood) there is no ungodly wait for your food. The plates come out on time, and in order…so as the expression goes “the food and drink flows” uninterrupted.

We call our kind of food casual artisanal fare, meaning our meals are prepared with the most sincere and thoughtful attention from ingredients, sourcing, prep to plating, but we are still fun and informal. No starched collars here…well maybe some starched collars, 'cuz Peter loves to dress up.

We want folks to leave feeling satiated; brimming with good food, buzzing from great company and excited to have learned and tried something new.

And our name (revolver)... yes, that's (revolver) spelled in parenthesis: we think this parenthetical variation should be an official entry in the dictionary. (If “twerking” has made it, so should this.).

We think of (revolver) as an adjective, an opportunity to do things differently, when it comes to food and the customer experience. It is not an allusion to guns at all. It is strictly a reference to our revolving menu and concept.

What sort of items can we expect to see on the menu? What is the culinary influence?

Our menu is really diverse. Because we have different chefs cooking on different days, each brings with them their own history, influence and preference. Part of what we are trying to show folks is that maybe the customer isn’t always right. Maybe, when you come to a dining establishment, you should trust the chef, this person who has spent their lives thinking about food, tasting, experimenting, learning and refining their craft. Maybe you should just come in, sit down and open yourself to a culinary adventure, through edamame and peanuts, sticky rice stuffed with pork and wrapped in fragrant grape leaves or a lacinato kale cut with apple, radishes and baked cheddar. Or a zucchini pancake, or handmade sausages or even chicken liver crostini. Our menu is diverse, bold and inventive because our chefs are interested in exploring new ways to serve different ingredients.

We want our patrons to deeply enjoy the benefits of our chefs’ own adventures and in this process learn new things about their own tastes.

Menu for Friday, September 27.

Where did the chefs go to school or learn to cook?

We have a mix of professionally trained and self-taught chefs. However the similarity between all our chef partners is their love and commitment to cooking. This is what they do. Most of them have been cooking for years, catering or in restaurants. They are working with us because they are interested in our concept which allows them to share the best of their culinary repertoire while also giving them room to explore new food concepts. One of our chefs, Ollie, says, “Cooking is what I do when I’m procrastinating.” That struck me as such a profound statement, firstly because I identify deeply with the procrastinating part (editor's note: LORD is this true) but more seriously because it is interesting to consider that thing which we think a distraction, as maybe the thing that is our passion. So like Ollie, for all our other chef partners, this is their “work-lust”-- if i may quote Seamus Heaney, a poet I was recently introduced to. They are passionate and open about cooking and entertaining.

Describe the space.

The interior of our space is simple, minimalist. We have an open box space that is really our canvas to continue to grow. We want our space to also be revolving, to be flexible enough to change around and reconfigure depending on our meals or events. Our real focus is the food, and the conversations around the food, so we are careful to make sure we don’t lose sight of this. We do have some mural plans, so...that should be cool.

What was in the building previously? 

The building has mostly always been a restaurant at least for about 30 years. It was in its first incarnation, sometime in the '70s/ '80s a fast food family dining restaurant. Most recently the last tenant was a Thai Food restaurant. (Editor's note: most recently the space was going to be Ootie's, and breakfast and lunch spot, then Acme Food Company, which was going to follow suit. Neither concept ever opened. For reasons.)

When will (revolver) open? 

We will be open during Hamtramck Food Week, which is September 23-28. After that we plan on going to a weekend schedule serving Thursday, Friday and Saturday dinners. We are open to the public by reservation only, so folks can’t just walk in and place an order. We have two dinner seatings, one at 6:15 p.m. and a later seating at 8:45 p.m. We do not have a bar. We are currently only taking reservations for 35 seats a seating. We plan to gradually grow into our full capacity of 60 seats per seating.

And now for the obligatory biggies: why Hamtramck, why Detroit, why now?

The Detroit question is probably the most important question. First of all, we see Hamtramck as its own distinct and vibrant community; however we see it also as intimately part of the Detroit community. And our definition of Detroit is the city; the struggling city with its challenges and charms. Hamtramck is a unique, almost satellite city of Detroit. It is dense and diverse, with the sort of retail storefront stock not available in other parts of Detroit. Its downtown is walkable, historic and raw. But it is suffering from considerable fiscal afflictions; a state appointed Emergency Financial Manager was recently instated.

Its downtown does not offer very diverse retail options and is mostly a succession of smaller, basic goods stores, so the potential here is incredible. As an immigrant I am drawn to Hamtramck (editor's note: he's not the first of Nikki's Boys to mention this), its diverse and ethnically comingled population are such a wonderful cultural gift. Peter is Polish so he has many fond memories of eating paczki at local bakeries and duck blood soup at restaurants in Hamtramck -- he made me try the duck blood soup, it was delicious.

We really decided on Hamtramck because it has all the prerequisite ingredients (that was a purposeful pun) for a financially thriving commercial district, but it's not quite there yet…there are other newer businesses, and restaurants moving into the area as well. I think (revolver) along with the new cadre of businesses and the long-standing establishments already here can begin to make an important difference in Hamtramck and also Detroit. We would love to see Hamtramck as another arc of success in the larger detroit story.

What is (revolver) adding to Detroit's culinary scene? What sets it apart from other concepts?

(revolver) is really a concentration of Detroit’s upstart culinary talent. There are now a lot of chefs working out innovative menus and sharing this with the public through pop-up dinners. We are taking all this raw (another intended pun) talent and focusing their creativity in one place. We are also a collaborative really, that allows all these chefs to come together and learn from each other. We think there is a yearning for more local and diverse food. More delicious vegetarian and vegan options; more adventurous dining. There are folks around town doing this in their own way, and our little contribution will be gathering all these disparate maverick cooks/chefs/food enthusiasts to really weave together a singular dining experience for our customers. Peter and I, while we will not be preparing the food, are cooks in a way; we have taken all this culinary talent, combined them with an eager dining public to create (revolver), this place where good food meets great company meets learning. And a restaurant or establishment is great when you can’t unstitch these constituent experiences; you just leave feeling great about everything. This is (revolver) baby!

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[Model D] (revolver), a new table d'hôte restaurant, will open during the first-ever Hamtramck Food Week

Hamtramck has long been known for its diversity of ethnic culinary offerings, but new concepts opening this fall promise to elevate this neighborhood to a new level of gastronomic savviness. First there is 2012 Hatch Detroit finalist Rock City Eatery, a new American restaurant serving locally-sourced items made from scratch with a Anthony Bourdain-like culinary sensibility (think: offal, and items like bone marrow fritters). It will be open this fall, pending final inspections.

But one concept you haven't heard much about yet, as the partners haven't said much about it yet, is the new (revolver) in Hamtramck.

Read more.

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[EID Preview] Two James Distillery

All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

The newly-opened Two James Spirits in Corktown is the first licensed distillery in the city of Detroit since before Prohibition (it won't be alone in that sandbox for long though; Detroit City Distillery will open in Eastern Market sometime in 2014).

The distillery was founded by Peter Bailey and David Landrum; third partner Andy Mohr came on board later. They purchased a large industrial building on Michigan Avenue on the other side of Roosevelt Park from Slows et.al. last July. Renovations on the 7,000-square-foot building, which was previously a taxi cab storage and dispatch center and originally a doughnut manufacturing plant when it was built at the turn of the century, took a full year to complete.

But the work is done, and Two James is already welcoming their first customers in a super soft opening, allowing them to get their feet wet as you wet your whistle, as it were.

Bailey and Mohr. 

The space is a production facility for their Two James label spirits, which includes 28 Island Vodka, named for the 28 islands (some now underwater) in the Detroit River which were used as hideouts during Prohibition; Old Cockney Gin, a London-style dry gin created to honor Bailey's father, a Brit; and Grass Widow Bourbon, named after an old whiskey brand once manufactured in Detroit, which was once a leader in premium whiskey manufacturing. There is also a 100% rye whiskey, another bourbon, and a reserve single malt whiskey (these all need to age in barrels and won't be released for at least a year). Future plans also include Two James Calvados and Two James Absinthe. They try to use as many local products as possible; the rye for the 100% rye whiskey all came from a farm in Jasper, Michigan, and they also plan on making some eaux di vies with local fruits in the future (like an apple brandy).

Bailey and Landrum took a distilling class together in Chicago. After long considering opening his own restaurant, it became more and more clear to Landrum - who was already really into craft cocktails and was already making his own bitters and cocktail recipes at Cafe Felix in Ann Arbor - that it was possible to make a really high-quality product locally and have a sustainable business. The two forged a business partnership and after considering different parts of the country for the distillery, eventually decided that Detroit city is the place to be. Mohr says local businesses like Slows and Sugar House have been exceedingly supportive.

Two James is named after the founding partners' fathers, both deceased (and both named James). The name is their tribute to the values of hard work and the importance of family instilled in them by their fathers.

Two James products are available for purchase in their tasting room and are also now hitting the shelves of stores and local bars through their distributor Great Lakes Wine and Spirits. Distribution will start in Michigan and eventually expand out to the Midwest and East Coast with hopes of breaking into international markets. Their 500-gallon copper still can produce a lot of booze; for their first year of production they are looking at 2,500-5,000 cases and can grow from there.

The quality of their products doesn't just stop at what's inside the bottle: the bottles themselves are works of art. The packaging for their vodka and gin was designed by New York-based Stranger + Stranger, which specializes in packaging design for wine, spirits, and beer. The bottles feature the words "Corktown" molded into the base of the bottle and "Two James Spirits" on top, a coin with the Two James branding fused into the bottle, and exquisitely detailed labels modeled after pre-Prohibition marketing pieces. This packaging without a doubt has a few design awards in its future.

That attention to detail and quality of design work has also been carried into the tasting room. Architect Piotr Kolacz designed the space. Bricks are either original to the building or reclaimed from other historic buildings. The original steel beam overhead was simply repainted, and the garage door in front was replaced with a glass one. Wood for the floors and benches came from Reclaim Detroit. A massive circular concrete bar designed by Brian Schmidt was framed and poured on-site: this thing, all one piece, will NEVER leave this building. It will be one of the only things left standing after humanity blows itself up and all that's left is rubble, cockroaches, and this bar.

Overhead is a circular steel ring with metal globes hanging from it. The globes came from a bazaar in Egypt that Kolacz came across while traveling; the welding of the steel ring and the decidedly steampunk Two James sign out front was done by metalworker Taru Lahti. Inside they will also hang works from local artists for sale (100% of sales go to the artist) and they also have a projection which can only mean one thing: movie nights!

Two James is now open for limited hours with a limited cocktail menu featuring their spirits. Landrum is currently out of the business (his wife just had a baby), so look for the grand opening in the next month with regular hours and a more extensive cocktail menu with fresh ingredients from Eastern Market and and house-made items like vodka infusions with yellow raisins and Afghan figs. Hours will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings to start as they gauge demand.

An unofficial opening last month with the Oily Souls Motorcycle Club showed them that demand could in fact be quite high - about 1,000 people came out, many in no way affiliated with the bike club but came only because they saw something was happening over at the new distillery. Next spring the back lot, now covered in gravel, will be transformed into a patio and event space with the dramatic Michigan Central Station as its backdrop.

Want to see more? View the Flickr set here. 

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