[EID Feature] Crunch in! Two Detroiters open Chip 'n Wich inside Midland Mall

This post was originally published on May 6, 2013*

Barbecue chicken sandwich from Chip 'n Wich. All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

Have you ever put potato chips on your sandwich before? Of course you have. Because it's awesome.

Chip 'n Wich is built on the idea that potato chips are even better on sandwiches than just relegated to the side of them. Partners Jonathan Neely and Craig Jones both love to put chips on their sandwiches – and are themselves huge proponents of the art of 'wiching (Joey Tribbiani would approve).

They began developing the concept for Chip 'n Wich about three years ago, working on branding and menus while looking for a space suited for their particular style of sandwiches. Now, this Tuesday, they are celebrating a soft opening of Chip 'n Wich inside the Midland Mall. Which, okay, Midland – it's smack-dab in the middle of Michigan, which is every bit exactly what it sounds like. But an opportunity presented itself that these Detroit boys couldn't pass up, and they couldn't be more thrilled about it. "It's a dream come true," Jonathan says with a huge smile, and I absolutely believe him.

Chip 'n Wich isn't just any old sandwich shop, and not just because they put chips on them. Jonathan and Craig are both professionally-trained chefs with years of industry experience. They are passionate about supporting the local foods movement and local farmers – of which there are plenty out there in the Michiganian Heartland, including a great farmers market open Wednesdays and Saturdays through the end of October right there in downtown Midland.

Each sandwich is paired with its own potato chip flavor (there are five sandwiches for this initial run, with eight planned once they open permanently). The chips are all fried fresh in their kitchen, then tossed in their house-made seasonings. Jonathan and Craig create all of the different potato chip flavors themselves, and plan on offering a whole variety to customers – you can get the chips they selected to pair with their sandwiches, are you can go rogue and mix-and-match your own flavors, which might include peanut butter…or bacon…or peanut butter AND bacon. You'll also find more "traditional" potato chip flavors, like their twist on sour cream and onion, and all of the flavors are made with fresh herbs from local farmers.

Almost everything on the sandwiches at Chip 'n Wich is made in-house, including their own aioli (oh yes, these are the kinds of sandwiches that have aioli – not mayo) and Craig's own signature BBQ sauce, Craig's Jones'en Barbecue. At a test-run held on Sunday, they served barbecue chicken sandwiches dressed in this sauce topped with caramelized onions, bacon, cilantro ranchero chipotle chips, and also bacon, on two thick pieces of Texas toast slathered in butter and grilled up nice and toasty. Along with this, they served Faygo Red Pop floats – the ubiquitous soda with a color for a flavor. It's a Detroit thing, y'all.

See, you can take the boys out of Detroit but you can never take Detroit out of the boys: in addition to offering several different sandwiches, they'll also be offering ice cream floats made with century-old iconic Detroit brands Faygo and Vernor's, and using Ray's Ice Cream, one of metro Detroit's favorite locally-made premium ice creams.

The boys in front of their soon-to-be new home inside the Midland Mall.

This Tuesday, you can either "crunch in" or "crunch out" – meaning you can either opt for the more adventurous chips inside the sandwich, or ease into the concept by getting the chips on the side. No judgment. "At the end of the day, it's just good, fun food," Jonathan says. "It's something you can be interacting with."

After sitting in for their test run and having the chance to talk to Jonathan and Craig about their concept and respective culinary backgrounds, I have to say: I'm all crunched in.

If you're out in Midland on Tuesday, be sure to check these guys out. If not, keep an eye out for them – once a permanent location is secured, it's only a matter of time before Chip 'n Wich becomes one of Michigan's favorite sandwiches and before we start seeing Chip 'n Wich brand potato chips and Craig's Jones'en Barbecue on store shelves McClure's-style.

*So yeah, this was written as part of my appearance on an episode of the Food Network's Food Court Wars which originally aired on Sunday, July 28 at 8:00 p.m. which was a secret. TEE-HEE-HEE, FOOLED YOU!!! Aaaaand that's why I was in Midland a couple of months ago. And, of course, Nikki's Boys won, as should be expected.

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[Model D] Ford Field to get two more Slows stands, also adding Russell Street Deli and Corridor Sausage

Detroit Lions fans are in for a real treat this fall at Ford Field; the stadium will be increasing its partnership with local food businesses to include two more Slows' outposts, a Corridor Sausage cart, and a satellite location of Russell Street Deli.

"We want to provide a better local experience for our fans," says Joe Nader, Executive Chef of Ford Field. "There are a lot of places around downtown that people go to before and after games. I could do a barbecue stand inside the stadium but I could never replicate Slows or their branding and wouldn't try to."

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[Real Detroit] You Don't Know Shit from Shinola

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

The antiquated idiom "You don't know shit from Shinola" originated during WWII and referred to the American-made Shinola brand shoe polish (the implication being that a person is too stupid to know the difference between shoe polish and feces).

The original Shinola shoe polish is no longer made, but that doesn't mean the brand is dead. In 2012 the brand was resuscitated under new ownership. Tom Kartsotis, the formerly retired founder of Fossil (you know, that other watchmaker), established Shinola with the intention of bringing quality hand-crafted watch manufacturing back to America, and based it in Detroit – the heart of American manufacturing.

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[Model D] Whole Foods in Midtown gets ready to open, has distinctly Detroit flair

The new Whole Foods in Midtown – set to open on June 5 – is not just another grocery story. It's not even just another Whole Foods store.

Tremendous efforts were made to ensure that this Detroit store reflected the personality of the city itself. While the five other Michigan Whole Foods locations are relatively generic, this location aims to be deeply and distinctly Detroit. "We took the time and effort to really reflect Detroit," says Amanda Musilli, Whole Foods Market Community Liaison.

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[EID Preview] Stella Good Coffee and Good Design

All photos from Stella Good Coffee.

It could easily be said that the best-designed public spaces in Detroit right now are the new breed of coffeehouses that keep popping up. From the citrus-soaked modernism of Urban Bean Co. that looks like it could have been plucked straight out of the pages of Dwell (in fact, and this surely is no coincidence, issues of Dwell are displayed on a magazine rack – "displayed" really being the best word to describe it), to the west coast aesthetic of Astro Coffee (which looks like pretty much every uber-trendy coffeehouse in San Francisco, Santa Cruz and L.A. but with a distinctly Detroit flair) and the modern rustic design of Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Co. in Midtown, coffee houses are no longer the shabby chic student flopping grounds of the '90s but the aesthetically-appealing refuge of the design-obsessed MacBook set. As the coffee has gone from thoughtless drip to compulsively mindful pour-over, so too have the spaces been made over. Stella Good Coffee inside the Fisher Building is the latest example.

Stella Good Coffee, previously known as Stella International Café, closed last fall and is reopening today after going through a redesign that could easily qualify for a segment on Extreme Makeover: Coffeehouse Edition. Kevin Borsay and Shawn Santo, founders and owners of Pure Detroit, the Rowland Café, and both Stella Cafés (there is another location inside the Guardian Building), oversaw all of the work themselves, along with James Willer of Reclaim Detroit, which works with a number of local Detroit nonprofits to deconstruct old, abandoned homes and repurpose the materials for new projects – both a sort of philosophical and literal honoring of Detroit's past while looking forward to the future. (Willer also did some work at Great Lakes.)

This café has been open since 2007, at a time when Detroit's coffee scene was a bit … well, sad. ("Underserved" is a nicer way of saying it.) Certainly long before Detroit became the new Seattle. But in the last several years the coffee culture has been ramped up significantly, and to stay in the game, Stella had to step it up. Borsay explains that the old Stella "didn't have the look and feel we wanted," and that a redesign was always part of the plan. Finally, the time was right.

After a complete gut down to the bare walls and floor, the new Stella is about as completely different as it could possibly be while still retaining the same name (and even that is only partial). Gorgeous century-old wood comprises the completely rebuilt counter, tables and ledges. The floor is the original floor from 1928, buried under layers of concrete. "I saw a picture of that historic floor and wondered if it was still under there," says Borsay. He chopped through all the layers on top of it and "sure enough, it was there." Part of the renovation work included grinding down to the original floor and polishing it up, but the manual labor was worth it: "Albert Kahn had a hand in this floor."

Through Reclaim Detroit, Willer helped Borsay and Santo source materials and, since he is also an architect, worked with them on the new design and the construction. "Without him we couldn't have done it." The wood came from 2644 Cadillac Boulevard on Detroit's east side. The house was disassembled brick by brick and, instead of throwing it in a landfill, remilled it and sold it to Stella.

Willer explains that the wood from these historic old Detroit homes came from native Michigan forests. Michigan now only has about 5% of its original native forests left, which is all protected land. The only place you can get this original native lumber is from these old houses. Additionally, at the time these homes were built – the early 1900s – they used mostly old growth timber that was already 50+ years old. So the wood you see inside the new Stella Good Coffee is at least 150 years old. This Douglas fir is a completely different material than what you could buy commercially, almost an exotic species that is available for a relatively low cost locally (through businesses like Reclaim Detroit, who had to establish their own mill and train people to work it because no other mills could work with these old materials).

Borsay says, "This is a good balance of maintaining the look of the building while also bringing a more modern look. This is beyond just an amenity to the building and a place to get coffee, but about a larger mission: creating vibrant, active Place 3 locations in the city." "Place 3" refers to the places where people socialize, with Place 1 being home, Place 2 being work, and Place 3 being everything else. "For us it's these really cool café environments where people meet and socialize. The more you have in the city, the more vibrant it becomes. That's our mission: to create these sorts of environments to make the city more vibrant. Rowland Café was our first foray into that."

The historic wood and floor are complemented by design elements that include custom-fabricated lampshades from Detroit Wallpaper Company featuring designs by local artists that will rotate regularly. "Instead of having art on the walls, we will have this shades done by different local artists." The happy yellow cloud design currently on display was done by local painter and musician Davin Brainard, an artist whose most recognizable work is probably the "Cloud Bridge" overpass in SW Detroit (though you've undoubtedly also seen his concert posters). The neon "Drink Good Coffee" sign on the back tile wall was fabricated by Spectrum Neon Sign Company, a Detroit business that has been around for over 30 years. "We're trying to use as many Detroit companies as we can," Borsay says.

And that includes the items that they'll serve. They'll have a selection of soups from Russell Street Deli, baked good from Avalon Breads and Traffic Jam, plus a selection of high-quality juices and yogurts in the cooler. This year, to celebrate their seventh year, they are introducing a celebratory espresso called Stella Sonic, as well as some new craft micro lot, micro-roasted coffees which will rotate seasonally.

The new space also has more seating inside (with lots of additional seating in the Fisher lobby) and also offers free WiFi. But a new look also means a whole new identity: Stella International Café, so named because when they first opened they served all illy coffee from Italy and Panini sandwiches and had more of an "international" flavor, is now Stella Good Coffee. Over the years they have migrated more towards local producers and now serve their own coffees (roasted by Detroit's century-old Cadillac Coffee Company, with some additional micro blends from Populace Coffee in Bay City). They want this new iteration to be less grab-and-go and more about the coffee itself, reflected in the new name – and so they will serve only pour-over coffee made to order, certainly a much slower process but one much more in keeping with their own philosophies of slow food and slow design (which they joked about being the process by which the new design happened, only to find out it is an actual thing).

"In my architecture background, everything has to be about speed and is pre-planned," Willer says. "Compared to this where it was more an exploration of both our personalities and engaging local artists in the community. It was a slow evolution of the design." Borsay adds, "It took us awhile because we were building it all ourselves … [but with slow design] the quality at the end is actually better. It was almost like clay art; we were molding it as we [went] along."

Another new "slow" product they are excited to offer is their loose-leaf teas sourced directly from China.

But a new name also means a new logo, and this is something the math nerds, not just the design nerds, will enjoy: the new logo incorporates the Moravian star, also known as the Great Stellated (get it?) Rhombicuboctahedron (a complicated geometric form that is meant to represent a three-dimensional image and thus is asymmetrical when drawn flat).

The Stella location inside the Guardian Building will also undergo a similar renovation and rebranding in the coming months, though they won't be closing it as they did the Fisher Building location.

Stella Good Café is celebrating a soft opening starting today, with a grand opening coming later this spring when their lobby chairs arrive.

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[Model D] Urban Bean Co. set to re-open in Capitol Park next week

Detroiters will have another spot to grab a coffee and snack this week. Urban Bean Co. will open next Monday, April 15 at the corner of Griswold and Grand River.

For those of you who remember the old Urban Bean Co. that was located at the corner of Griswold and Grand River up until 2008, yes, this is the same one, and in the same location. With the redevelopment of Capitol Park now underway, its re-opening is also a comeback story. Co-owner Josh Greenwood has had the space since 2000 and operated the first incarnation of Urban Bean Co. for eight years.

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[Real Detroit] Falling Down Beer Company

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

Let's just get this out of the way: yes, there is a brewery opening in Warren that is called Falling Down Beer Company. Yes, this is actually its name. Yes, it is meant as a joke – an inside joke, in fact, referring to a time co-owner Mark Larson tripped after having a beer and his friends from that point forward forevermore would jokingly ask if he was "falling down drunk yet" after one beer.

So how's that for an origins story? Not quite X-Men: First Class, but as far as anecdotes go this will definitely be a good one to share with all of the new friends you will surely make once Falling Down Beer Company opens to the public on 3/29.

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[Model D] Whole Foods in Midtown on-track for summer opening, hosting local vendor fair and job info sessions

If you've driven by the corner of Woodward and Mack recently, you've seen the speedy progress the new Whole Foods Market in Midtown has been making. The walls are up, the concrete floor is poured, and right now they’re totally on-target to open at the end of May or beginning of June.

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[EID Preview] Palate

All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

I lived in Waterford what feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, there really wasn't anything worth visiting the area specifically for. You made do with what you had, and otherwise drove to other cities for what you wanted. West Bloomfield, Commerce Twp., White Lake, Wixom, Highland and Milford were all relatively close ("relative" because no matter where you go on that side of town, you have to drive around a bunch of lakes to get there). Commerce Twp. had It's a Matter of Taste. Keego Harbor -- the tiny byway town connecting Waterford and West Bloomfield through Cass Lake, Sylvan Lake, Orchard Lake, Pine Lake and a few smaller lakes -- had Jeremy Restaurant and Bar. West Bloomfield had a great wine bar and steakhouse that, much like every other place of real quality that opens in West Bloomfield, closed after a couple of years. At the time Brian Polcyn's Five Lakes Grill in Milford was still open and hadn't yet changed over to Cinco Lagos, and right across the street there was Sean O'Callahan's, a great Irish pub that served proper pints of Guinness and lots of Irish whiskeys. And that ... that was pretty much it.

But now! I rue the day I gave up that $375/mo. one-bedroom apartment (gas and water included; true story) because now the area is getting pretty cool and it is FAR (both geographically and metaphorically) from the hipster-riddled downtown Detroit I now call home. Now White Lake has the Root Restaurant (a short 15-minute drive from my old apartment, which would have meant MUCH more frequent visitations), and Milford has craft beer bar and sustainable from-scratch restaurant Palate.

The last time I was in Milford was a little over two years ago. Downtown Milford is a charming Michigan Main Street that, like so many other charming Michigan Main Streets, was decimated during the recession. Polcyn kept afloat by rebranding; a lot of other places weren't so lucky (O'Callahan's was one of them). On my last visit it seemed like every other storefront was shuttered and Milford was a dying downtown; now, Milford is once again a bustling downtown with nearly every storefront occupied with adorable independently-owned boutiques, cafes and restaurants. There is a flurry of foot traffic and lots of people happily dining on sidewalk patios. And inside the space that was once home to O'Callahan's, an enthusiastic couple are opening the bar/restaurant of their dreams.

When I sat down to chat with Bristol Arnold, who is opening the much-anticipated Palate (get your head out of Planet Detroit, people) with her soon-to-be husband Joe Hibbert, I experienced that moment when my professional decorum (as it were) was promptly discarded and I fell absolutely and entirely in love with them, their concept and their whole entire ethos and began to gush. These are Good People. And while there are quite a lot of Good People in this business locally (Michigan as a whole doesn't really realize how fortunate it is in this regard), it can be downright heartbreaking when Good People don't have good product. (And also when absolute bastards manage to get it right.) But Palate is Good People with good product, and now I have yet another place an hour drive from my home that I wish I could support on a daily basis. (Hey, apartments in Milford are damn cheap!)

Joe and Bristol met while both were going through some major life changes. A professional dancer who had worked for Disney, Royal Caribbean and even toured with Cirque, Bristol was looking for a more stable professional life which she found as a dance teacher in Walled Lake. At the time Joe was still a partner in Uptown Grille in Commerce Twp., a place that received rave reviews for its craft beer program and from-scratch kitchen when it first opened but ultimately took a direction Joe wasn't happy with, prompting him to leave. Bristol met Joe in the course of planning a friend's bridal shower at Uptown Grille, and if you think the whole concept of love at first sight is cheesy ... well yeah, probably it is, except for when it's true and then it really is beautiful to see. (Even for a stone-cold cynic like me.) These two are the real deal, and Palate is the product of their shared passions.

When Joe left Uptown it was without any animosity. "He left because he wanted to focus on his mission versus someone else's and not have to worry about someone else changing his plans," Bristol explains. And this steadfast refusal to compromise his own integrity is a professional trademark of Joe's: he grew up in Canada and got his start in the restaurant industry at Wendy's when he was 13 years old. When corporate America took Wendy's over and the food became all boxed and frozen, he left. He has since opened many restaurants and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the place functioning well and keeping the customers happy, whether that means cooking on the line or cleaning toilets.

Bristol herself had always had the dream of opening a coffee and wine bar and the name she had in her head was always Palate. "Palate" is a bit of a play, as the word (which refers to the roof of the mouth and is used colloquially to describe one's refinement of taste, though one technically has nothing to do with the other) is often confused with its homonym "palette," which refers to a painter's tool or collection of colors. "It's the part of your body that tells you what you like and what you don't," Bristol says. "But an artist draws on a palette, and food from the farmer comes on a pallet" -- referring to large, flat wooden shipping mechanisms, and yet another homonym.

To fully incorporate the palate/palette/pallet theme, Bristol and Joe worked with local artists for every detail in the restaurant -- from the used Dragon's Milk bourbon barrels from New Holland Brewing that were hand-painted with other local brewery logos to the repurposed pallets made into art pieces in the shape of a wine bottle and glass that are the focal point of the main dining room. Because they are also a family-friendly establishment (the main wall of the secondary dining room is adorned with the words "Be our guest," a nod to Bristol's days at Disney), kids get a chalkboard "palette" to draw on, which ties in with the theme but also has the added advantage of reducing waste.

"We're trying not to leave a huge imprint," states Bristol. "That’s why I chose not to give kids crayons and paper and instead give them a chalkboard and chalk. I’m doing everything I can to be paperless, even encouraging our vendors." They have participated in several fundraising events and festivals, including catering the VIP tent at the Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival, and they always use compostable products for off-site events. (In fact it was through the MBG's Executive Director Scott Graham that Bristol learned a lot about leaving a carbon imprint.)

That same ethos can be seen in various touched throughout the restaurant, from the repurposed pallets and barrels previously mentioned to the reclaimed wood bar rail from a barn in Hamburg Twp. At the very heart of all of this is a commitment to using "what's around [us]," to procure as much as they can locally and work with local people, from farmers to artists to tradesmen. "It’s so much more than food; it’s education," Bristol explains. "We want to educate our consumers. We want people to support Michigan and bring a new economy to life here [by educating] everyone in our community about what they’re consuming and who they support." She adds, "We’re really grateful to have the resources we have in Michigan."

They buy produce from small, local farmers who can't afford the "organic" label. They make everything in their kitchen from scratch -- no microwaves, nothing frozen, nothing boxed. "Our team here is a labor of love. They like to make things from scratch. They know it’s time consuming but that’s what they’re passionate about."

Joe's own dream has always been to offer farm-fresh food with craft cocktails and craft beer at an economical price so that anybody can eat at his restaurant a couple of times a week; a kid-friendly place that the community would love and want to be a part of. The food at Palate is all farm-to-table, offering small plates and different types of cuisines from all over the world made from scratch using local products. Items include an "exquisite" hand-packed burger, cherrywood-smoked-bacon-wrapped scallops, lamb chops, and "true" Neapolitan pizza. (Bristol spent some time learning how to make Neapolitan pizzas in Italy, and upholds Antica Pizzeria Fellini as the local gold standard.) To further their goal of customer education, their iPad menus are interactive and show pictures of the food, the farms, the vineyards, and allow the customers the opportunity to find out more information on where everything on their plate and in their glass is from. (And once again, this wholly electronic system significantly reduces paper waste.)

Their craft cocktail menu was designed with assistance from mad scientist mixologist Dave Porcaro from Cafe Muse. They're offering 40 bottles of wine from small producers under $30 and all available by the glass. And of course, there is a huge emphasis on Michigan craft beer.

Thanks to Joe's many years in the industry, he has developed strong relationships with local brewers and distributors and has access to some pretty cool stuff ... but, spoilers! You'll just have to follow their Facebook page for those updates. Their staff are all Cicerone-certified beer servers and they have a $50,000 custom-built stone beer wall. The entire tap system and bar is optimized for maximum beer enjoyment.

And all of this is really the culmination of everything Joe has worked towards as a restaurateur all along. "Joe is adamant about quality; he’s not going to sacrifice quality," Bristol says of her future husband (they're getting married -- and moving, and opening the restaurant -- this month). "A lot of people have closed doors in his face. The charity work he’s done is endless; he has raised over a million dollars over the past four years [for local charities]. He raised $30,000 one night alone at a spaghetti dinner at Uptown. He’s just awesome! It’s not just what he does for a living; it’s the driving force that he has to help people. All of our leftovers go to Forgotten Harvest -- the breads, anything dry. [We're really] major into charity work and community!" Long-term Joe and Bristol hope to do even more to embrace and educate their community, like working with local schools on field trips to teach kids about kitchen safety and how to bake bread.

Both Joe and Bristol view Palate as a collaborative effort of many people, not just themselves. "I put so much time into including other people in this project," Bristol says. "It's not just about Joe and I. It's about employing local artists, local contractors, using all of our Michigan resources, and getting it going so when people look at it they can say, 'Hey, I was part of that.' Tons of people were part of this project and we’re proud of that and want them to be proud of it because that’s what’s it about."

She admits it took them a long time to get the restaurant ready to open (apparently some locals took to the almighty grousing grounds of the Internet to complain about it), but she simply says, "Good things take time and attention to detail. When you rush a project like this it doesn't do anyone any favors." As they get ready to open, Bristol is bubbling over with excitement. "The people we’ve been surrounded with are just magical. With us together and the people we have here the possibilities are endless!"

Palate opens today.

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[EID Preview] Local Kitchen + Bar

All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

As much as chef-partner Rick Halberg tries to underplay the cuisine at Local Kitchen + Bar as "everyday food," avoiding the word "comfort" since upscale comfort food is all the culinary rage right now (particularly in this region), Local is quintessentially American, and there's no shame in that game.

Local celebrates Americana in a way that is appropriately fashionable for Ferndale. Partners Rick Halberg and Brian Siegel are both long-time area restaurateurs, and while Local has been on the lips of food bloggers hungry for bloggy buzz for some time now, they’ve taken the time to do things right. (Which is another way of saying it’s taken a lot longer than initially planned/announced, but that’s hardly news in the restaurant industry. See also: Astro, Sugar House, Green Dot, etc.)

Rick has been out of the restaurant industry for six years now and has been "dying to get back in." "We wanted to do a neighborhood place to eat that was really for the community," he explains. "We found this space and it seemed to fit perfectly with our partnership," referring to Local's relationship with event planning company Star Trax, which will be responsible for much of the booking in the sizable event space upstairs (where Via Nove used to throw techno parties, only this time it will be more like weddings, showers, bar/batmitzvahs, etc.).

The concept for Local is "to do a restaurant that is for everyone ... everybody's doing comfort food; we're trying to shy away from that package. It's really just about everyday food prepared extraordinarily well. We really want to focus on the community." The word "local" of course signifies a commitment to the use of locally-sourced ingredients and local suppliers (as much as possible) including Michigan beers and wines, working with local artisan food producers like Corridor Sausage, sourcing from Michigan farms, and even having their own share in the Ferndale community farm. "We want to do [this] the best way we can and offer product[s] that [are] accessible to as many people as possible."

The event space upstairs.

So what might "everyday foods" with a local emphasis look like? Chicken-fried chicken. Mac and cheese. Burgers. A pig platter with various different pork presentations. "Super fresh" fish. Hearty salads. And just about everything made from scratch in their kitchen, including honest-to-goodness American desserts like seasonal pies, cobblers, Devil's Food Cake, and other "bake sale items" (like brownies and Rice Krispies treats) that will be on display in their vintage rotating dessert display. Oh, and POUTINE. The focus is all on "super fresh, super clean" food, and not fancy presentations.

As a long-time chef and restaurateur himself, Local marks a return to form for Rick. A graduate of the CIA back in the '70s (when "it was just getting cool to be a chef"), Rick jokes he was "on the cutting edge of cool for one moment in my life." He had earlier endeavors in West Bloomfield and Birmingham, but his crowning achievement thus far was Emily's in Northville, which offered extremely high-end dining that at one point held the highest Zagat food rating in the United States (a 28 on a scale of 30, a ranking Emily's shared with only a few other restaurants in the country).

Diners remember the Emily's name and are excited to see the new concept emerge. As for Rick, while he will still be working as a chef in his restaurant (a chef's table in the kitchen with seating for 8-10 guests will be personally attended to by Rick himself), he has built up an impressive team of culinary talent including sous chefs Ricky McCormick, formerly of Cafe Muse, and Nick Schultz, who will be weekend moonlighting with Brew Jus. "It's really exciting to me to have the opportunity to influence another group of young cooks and chefs," Rick says. "It's kind of a nice reward for me to be able to do that." And he adds, "I'm very focused on quality and service. We're not going to slip at all here."

Diners can look forward to weekly specials, a late-night menu, a bar menu, craft cocktails, craft sodas and more. But one thing that might steal the thunder from the food is the fabulous indoor/outdoor patio with a towering wood-burning fireplace as the centerpiece. "We'll really have a 12-month feel to the patio," Rick notes, half of which will be closed off in the winter months so guests can still cozy up around the fireplace for cocktailing and dining.

The space, designed by none other than Ron Rea (a longtime friend of Rick's and Brian's), has a cozy Americana feel to it: wicker furniture on the indoor/outdoor patio, vintage pieces Rick has collected over time (including an antique hutch from an estate sale), an old park bench, stools that look like they came straight from a high school chem lab. The palette is soft and suits the stylish-yet-homey motif, like something you might find in the pages of Country Living. Where the trendy upscale comfort foot joints are universally gunning for urban-rustic, Local brings with it a certain bit of southern gentility, classic country without being corny. "Brian and I both had a very specific image in mind," Rick says. "We wanted it to be super-casual, not over-designed in any way. We wanted to have a lot of integrity in the feeling of this place. Ron's great like that."

The building itself used to be a gas station “a zillion years ago.” Part of the design aesthetic was to strip it down to some of the more iconic design elements, like the original wooden beams in the ceiling and the original brickwork. A communal table built of reclaimed wood will separate the bar from the dining room space. "Our space will be truly iconic for the neighborhood," Rick states. "Our food and service will be excellent, and our commitment to hospitality will be second to none."

Local opens later this month.

 

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[Real Detroit Weekly] Bazaar Foods

Pete's Chocolate Co. All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

The second-annual Detroit Holiday Food Bazaar will be held this Friday, 12/9 from 5 to 11 p.m. in Eastern Market above Cost Plus Wine. Launched in 2010 by Noelle Lothamer, co-owner of Beau Bien Fine Foods, the Detroit Holiday Food Bazaar is an event that celebrates Michigan's independent artisan food producers. While you might recognize names like McClure's Pickles, some of these vendors are only available via direct sales at events such as this. Consider the Food Bazaar a well-curated selection of the best of Detroit's micro food producers – it doesn't GET more local than this.

This year's list of vendors has increased from 16 to 25, and there will be some non-food vendors as well: the winner of the first-ever Hatch Detroit competition Joe Posch will be representing his winning concept Hugh with vintage dishes and cookware; there will also be other cooking accessories like cutting boards, aprons and linens available for purchase (can you say Christmas presents?). Detroit photographer Marvin Shaouni will be selling prints, and DJs Ash Nowak (from Haute to Death) and Amy Kaherl will be tag-teaming the event. Cost Plus will be open too, and be sure to come hungry and bring cash (most vendors are cash-only)!

Here's a sneak peak of just some of this year's vendors:

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