[EID Feature] The Poutine Prophecy is Fulfilled at Brooklyn Street Local

All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

Dee Gifford and Jason Yates are Detroit n00bs, but they seem to have the hang of it already. They just opened a brand-new diner on what is now the hottest stretch of business real estate in Detroit: a place where lighting has struck not once, not twice, but at this point three certifiable times with a couple more still dangling as question marks in the air. (Will Mercury Burger Bar be a huge hit on the level of Slows/Astro/Sugar House, or do they lack the appropriate booster connections to make them buzzworthy? With the media/restaurant dream team behind Gold Cash Gold will it be Huge Ass Huge? Will the Bagel Brothers open to as much acclaim as they received when just working out of their kitchen in Corktown a year ago and FORTHELOVEOFMAN WHEN WILL THAT BE???)

Yep, for a business owner or would-be entrepreneur, Michigan Avenue is the place to be to capitalize on the magic leprechaun juju of Corktown. But for Dee and Jason, who moved here in January from Toronto (Other Fake New York, but a better one), it was simply a golden opportunity for a young couple to open their own business.

Why? Because buildings are cheap and the dream of the ‘90s is alive in Detroit.

“I wanted to open a restaurant,” Dee says. “It’s been my dream for about five or six years now. When Jason and I met he also wanted to open a restaurant so that worked out very well.”

Jason had lived in Toronto his whole life and Dee had lived there on and off for a decade, but they didn’t have the capital to open a restaurant in Toronto. “It is prohibitively expensive to open a restaurant [there],” she explains. “It’s really competitive; every block has 10 restaurants. It’s a fun place to be a server but I didn’t have $500,000 in tips lying around [to open a restaurant].”

So they started thinking about different places they could go, and Jason – who is also a musician and had Detroit on his radar from that world – suggested they check out Detroit. “I had heard of the local food scene, the urban farms, and we knew property prices would probably be cheaper.” And how!

Over Canadian Thanksgiving in October 2010, Dee and Jason came down to check it out. They drove around the city, went to bars, saw bands play at PJ’s Lager House, and kept coming back for more. “There was no real structure to our visits,” she says. But eventually they stayed at Hostel Detroit shortly after it opened last spring, and that was really when they started to get serious about looking at properties. “We met a whole bunch of people through that. It was definitely a big influence on us; everyone we know in Detroit we pretty much know through the people we met through the hostel.”

In most cities the opening of a hostel barely raises an eyebrow, but in Detroit it signified what many here already knew to be the dawn of a new Detroit – a Detroit not just attracting business travelers with the Big Three and conference attendees at Cobo Hall, but a Detroit that was attracting curious young people from all over the planet who had heard the stories and wanted to see it for themselves. Sure, that whole conversation is sooooo last year, but in the example of Dee and Jason the hostel provided exactly what founder Emily Doerr had always intended for it to do: create a community hub, a place for locals and visitors to converge, for relationships to be made and ideas to evolve. It’s not JUST a hostel; it’s the only hostel in a city that in just 3-4 years has become a source of fascination for the rest of the world (even if that fascination did start out somewhat inadvertently as Schadenfreude).

Dee and Jason had spotted the building that would become Brooklyn Street Local on Michigan Avenue and thought it was a great location. But there were no signs indicating if the building was even available or who to call to inquire about it. Through their connections from the hostel, they got connected with Ryan Cooley of O’Connor Real Estate who showed them the space. “We thought it would be a good fit and it absolutely was.”

Dee’s mother made the investment in the building and they are renting-to-own from her. “We feel very lucky to have parents who were supportive [of our idea],” Dee says. “When we were telling people who weren’t familiar with the city they’d say, ‘WHY are you moving to DETROIT?’ Our parents were like, ‘Awesome, that sounds like a really fun project!’” They closed on the building in December and moved to Detroit on January 16.

Work began on the inside; they kept the kitchen but redid most of the interior space. They trolled Craigslist and thrift stores for chairs, bar stools and other interior elements (like the old church pew). Graffiti artist Reyes painted a mural on the side of the building as part of the “Detroit Beautification Project.” There were some minor repairs that needed to be done and other area businesses rallied around them with recommendations and general support.

“Another thing we found very different from Toronto when we came here was how other business owners [were asking us] ‘What do you need?’” Dee comments. “They were all very supportive. It doesn’t even feel like competition in the traditional sense.” She remembers taking a small business management class in Toronto and making a business plan for a restaurant which including having to “scope out” the competition and get “the competitive edge.” “[This] didn’t feel like competition in the traditional sense ... everyone was very collaborative and really supportive. The way we’re thinking about other businesses [here] is not in an ‘us vs. them’ sort of way. It’s all very supportive and awesome!”

Whether it was people they hadn’t even known for two months putting in a 12-hour day slinging poutine at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade or fellow business owners lending a helping hand (sometimes two hands), Dee and Jason were given a big fat friendly Detroit welcome.

Brooklyn Street Local official opened for business on May 17. If you’re wondering about the name, there is no great mystery: “Brooklyn Street” is the name of the cross street on Michigan Ave. where the restaurant is located; “local” refers to their emphasis on local products. “We definitely wanted to include local and organic food; we’re very passionate about it.”

As for that food, they make everything in-house themselves. They aren’t formerly trained as chefs – Dee learned a bit from working at a specialty grocery store that had a prepared foods section and Jason just loves to cook – so what you get is truly the home-style home-cooked experience. They make all of the sauces, dressings, and mustard; all of the pastries and the quiche; anything and everything baked; the veggie burgers and hummus (Jason’s own recipe); even the pea meal bacon. What they didn’t already know how to do themselves, they learned. You want to know about Detroit-style DIY? This is it right here.

Whatever they don’t make themselves they get from local producers, like tempeh from the Brinery and jam from Slow Jams Jam. They get produce from Brother Nature Produce not even half a mile away. They have a wide selection of vegetarian and vegan items on their menu, and a lot of items can be made vegetarian and vegan – like their poutine made with hand-cut fries, which can be made with mushroom gravy. (Their vegan bacon is very popular.)

Right now they are only open for breakfast and lunch Tuesday through Friday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (and cash only). Dee has a lot of ideas for them down the road – dinner events, workshops on canning and making their signature mustard, really any number of different fun things. But for now they’re focused on getting their initial business down and bringing poutine (and other stuff) to the hungry masses.

OHMYGOD LET’S TALK ABOUT POUTINE.

A year ago I was in Toronto and I posted a picture of poutine to the EID Facebook page. People were like “LOL WUT” and “Ew, sounds gross.” And so I began to beat the poutine drum, seeking it out in whatever meager capacity it existed in metro Detroit and often wondering aloud to followers why the F no one around here makes it or even knows what the hell it is with Canada so close by. I prophesized poutine was going to be a thing here (saying, literally, “Poutine: it’s gonna be a ‘thing’”), and then? Green Dot Stables announced they were going to have it. And then Mercury Burger Bar announced they were going to have it (they even put a it on a window cling). All of this while Dee and Jason were getting their place ready and wondering themselves how no one else had thought of it.

Well, a couple of people did (and I’m not saying I had anything to do with it, I’m just saying let’s not discount the possibility), but fact is fact so brace yourselves: much like Mexicans make the best Mexican food and Japanese people make the best sushi and black people make the best soul food and drunks make the best beer, Canadians make the best poutine. At long last, the poutine prophecy has been fulfilled.

Want to see more? View the Flickr set here.

 

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The Dream of the '90s is Alive in Detroit (Or, When Did We Become Europe?)

"Do you remember the '90s? You know, people were talking about getting piercings and getting tribal tattoos, and people were singing about saving the planet and forming bands? There's a place where that idea still exists, as a reality, and we live in it. Detroit."

Well, swap out "planet" with "city" and "getting piercings and getting tribal tattoos" with "making pickles and roasting coffee" and you've got Detroit. Detroit as the new Portland? You bet. See, back before Portland became a caricature of itself, the city was pretty sincere about its whole schtick. And now it's more sincere about it than ever - never imply to a Portlandier that Portland maybe isn't as great as Portlandiers make it out to be. And the same goes for Detroit.

"...when people were content to be unambitious, sleep 'til 11, just hang out with their friends, and they had no occupations whatsoever, maybe working a couple of hours a week at a coffee shop ... Detroit is a city where young people go to retire."

When the dot com bubble burst, Portland was awash in creative types who, in one fell swoop, lost their jobs and their collective asses overnight. Because of the low cost of living, more unemployed creative types from all along the west coast fled to Portland seeking asylum. What rose from this was a sort of hipster utopia, a place unlike any other in the country. A place where the dream of the '90s lived on.

Enter Detroit circa 2008-2009. The "renaissance" was already underway, but then the bottom fell out. And - like a bearded, mustached, plaid-clad phoenix rising from the ashes - the hipster colonizers came. Like they did in Brooklyn. Like they did in San Francisco and Venice Beach. Like they did in New Orleans post-Katrina. They came in waves. They came from the suburbs, from other cities and other states, from other countries. They came ... and they started making pickles.

Yes, Portland, we too can "pickle that."

If necessity is the mother of invention, the economic collapse and double-digit unemployment rates of just a few years ago certainly spurned on the surge of entrepreneurial energy and creativity we see here now. Those of us who hadn't already fled to Fake New York were stuck, whether we wanted to be or not. So we launched blogs and started making clothes. We reclaimed empty structures and opened art galleries. Everyone became a DJ or started a band. Those that didn't started making pickles or roasting coffee. Many did a combination of these things. We heard of this thing called a "pop-up" and ran with it like the wind. "DIY" wasn't so much a call to action as it was a means of survival.

Most of my Detroit friends are merely partially employed, or we work as freelancers in the fields of journalism, photography, graphic and web design, PR. At any point in time we're juggling half a dozen different "projects" that may or may not add up to one full-time job, and we work in bars in the middle of the day and spend our nights going to techno shows and art gallery openings hosted by our other somewhat-employed friends. Also, we drink. A LOT.

I recently sat down with Dee Gifford, a recent transplant from Toronto who, along with her partner Jason, just opened the Brooklyn Street Local diner in the hipster colony of Corktown. One of her many gems of Detroit observation included, "People really like to drink during the day here!" Yes. Yes they do.

The night before that, I was at Foran's where I met a couple from Portland who had just moved to Detroit. They had no jobs here, no family here, they just decided "What the hell, let's move to Detroit!" And why not? The best thing about living in Detroit is the cheap rent and cheap booze. One can easily be partially-employed here and still have a grand time. This couple from Portland joked about how Portland is EXACTLY like Portlandia, and the guy quipped that no one really "does" anything for a living there. They make their way as bloggers and artists and spend the rest of their time in bars. "'Okay, it's noon, I wrote my blog post for the day, I think I'll go to the bar now.'"

I like to make fun of these people. (To be fair, I like to make fun of everything.) Until I look in the mirror and see myself wearing skinny jeans with 15-year-old Converse All-Stars at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday as I'm about to go "work" at the bar on one of my half a dozen freelance "projects" and realizing that my primary self-identified gig is as a blogger and it dawns on me, sweet mother of Jack White I am one of these people. I am a hipster colonizer living the dream of the '90s in Detroit.

I like to call us the modern-day Beatniks. We work just enough to pay our bills and enable our drinking habits (actually that probably puts us a bit ahead of the Beatniks, which was basically another way of saying, poetically of course, "homeless people who read poetry"). We hoard enough money to be able to flitter off whenever we feel like it in order to explore the progress of our kind's colonization in other cities. We eat at their restaurants and shop at their farmers markets and troll their live music venues and come home with many tales to tell that inevitably end with a firm and sincere proclamation that Detroit is still better, and post it as a status update on Facebook.

This phenomenon isn't really unique to Detroit (oh, I know, what happens here only ever happens here and has never ever happened anywhere else in all of history ... except, no). It's been happening all over the country, for at least a decade now ... really, and this surely can't be mere coincidence, since the sun set over the greatest decade our generations have ever known - the '90s. What's really happening is that we are becoming Europe. We only want to work 20-30 hours a week and make a full-time living doing it. We want a bottle of wine at lunch every day and a nap in the afternoon. We want two months off every summer and be able to come and go as we please on our own time as it is convenient for us otherwise. We just want to make pickles.

But Detroit lends itself particularly well to the dream of the '90s. Where the cost of living in post-colonized cities like Portland et.al. has skyrocketed (some would use The 'G' Word to reference this, but I know how Detroiters like to quibble over the exactitudes of that definition in a way that is indicative of a rather systemic forest-from-the-trees mentality that is, yes, very unique to Detroit and congratulations there), Detroit is still a dystopic "blank slate" utopia. Rent in hipsterific neighborhood pockets like Hamtramck and Corktown is as cheap as it is in Tijuana (aka "Mexican Detroit," or where Detroiters should winter), booze is cheap, entertainment is cheap, whole buildings are cheap if you want to buy one and open your own gallery or coffee shop ... for the young person in search of early retirement, there is no place like Detroit.

Alright, I've written my blog post for the day, I think I'll go to the bar now.

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[Prosper] "The Family Business": Bon-A-Rose Home Style Foods

Bon-A-Rose Home Style Foods is the product of family: a family business, family recipes, the family name. “My parents purchased a 19th century home 30 years ago with the intention of opening a restaurant in it,” explains Anna Hoffman, owner of Bon-A-Rose. At the time they purchased the house, it was used as an upper and lower flat. In the ‘80s Anna’s parents converted it into a full-service, seven-day-a-week upscale Italian restaurant using all of Anna’s grandmother’s recipes. “It was always my mom’s dream to have a restaurant,” Anna continues. “Her parents had a restaurant in Detroit so she wanted to honor that.” The original restaurant, also called Bon-A-Rose, remained open for several years until Anna’s mother was forced to close it about 10 years ago due to medical issues.

The family kept the property and at the time Anna was doing bookkeeping for her father. It so happened that both of her daughters were having showers (bridal and baby) at about the same time, which triggered in her a passion to re-launch the family’s restaurant – but doing things a little differently this time. “When our last tenant left I talked mom into redoing the restaurant,” Anna says. “[I told her], ‘We already had the commercial kitchen so we can cater parties on-site and use grandma’s recipes.’” For her daughters’ showers, which they held in the old Bon-A-Rose space, Anna didn’t want to give the usual cheap trinkets as party gifts for guests, so she and her mom made their own salad dressings and marinara sauce with custom labels under the “Bon-A-Rose” name and gave them out as gifts.

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[Real Detroit Weekly] Vinsetta Garage

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

There have been a slew of new restaurants opening in metro Detroit lately, and most have been met with some measure of excitement and media frenzy. But none has been so eagerly anticipated as Vinsetta Garage, a new restaurant located in a historic old garage on Woodward Ave. in Berkley.

Part of that is because the owners have kept such a tight lid on it. Curt Catallo (a respected restaurateur who also owns Union Woodshop and Clarkston Union, both of which recently appeared on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network) and KC Crain (vice president and group publisher of Crain Communications and overseer of AutoWeek) have only allowed a scant amount of media coverage prior to the opening, which naturally fanned the flames of interest. Both partners have their own backgrounds in the auto industry (Catallo on the ad agency end, Crain on the publishing end) and both are huge auto enthusiasts. The iconic garage was important to each of them, so when Catallo approached Crain (who had recently purchased the building) about doing a restaurant concept inside, it was pure serendipity.

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[HOT LIST] Wings

Sweetwater Tavern. All photos from EID.

I have but one rule when it comes to chicken wings: NEVER order wings to go. It is a crime against food tantamount to microwaved pizza and mayonnaise (which, as you all should know by now, is disgusting). The whole enjoyment of your wing-eating experience hinges upon the crispiness of said wing. You know what happens when you throw a freshly-fried chicken wing in a styrofoam container and let it sit in there steaming in its own little hotbox for 20 minutes until you get it home? It becomes soggy and disgusting. This is no way to eat a wing.

A good wing starts with the chicken: plump and juicy, not tiny like some embarrassing little pigeon wing. If fried, they should be crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. If other (smoked, oven-roasted) they should have a clean, smokey flavor without char. Some of the best wings really don't need a sauce to dress them up, but the sauce itself can make or break a wing (so to speak). These places get it all, or at least most of it enough for it to count, right. Oh, I should also mention, blue cheese and ranch dressing are for pussies. Skip that shit; you're ruining your wings.

#1 City Wings (New Center)
14 different flavors of meaty Amish chicken wings fried fresh to order in one of the most immaculate dining environments you could ever hope to stumble across. Seriously, it smells like fried chicken and clean inside. There are hospitals that could aspire to their level of cleanliness. And I appreciate that: it shows respect to your business and to your customers. So, okay, maybe not everyone will be as impressed by this as I am, so let's get back to important stuff: these are the best wings you will find anywhere in metro Detroit right now. Everything is fried up fresh to order in their open kitchen (so CLEAN!) and the wings are perfectly crispy, just that right amount of crunch at the edges without being burnt, with juicy meat inside with none of that nasty ridge of fat under the skin and fantastic sauces to boot. (Try the parmesan garlic or the lemon pepper if you can't take the heat.)

#2 Sweetwater Tavern (Detroit)
Ladies and gentleman, in a massive upset Sweetwater comes in second! Yes, that's right, what are usually voted as Detroit's best wings are coming in second to City Wings, which has only been open for a little over a year. And why? Sweetwater has been resting on its laurels for awhile. They too serve plump, juicy Amish chicken wings that they get daily from Eastern Market and rub in their own secret blend of spices, fry up crispy fresh to order in their own dedicated fryer and in oil that they say is changed daily, and douse in their signature sauce which is both slightly sweet and slightly tangy ("hot" isn't really the right word, but the flavor of the spices certainly comes through). These are stellar wings, no doubt, and sometimes you just can't (and shouldn't) mess with a classic. It's also a full bar that is open for lunch and late-night with a full menu of other options to choose from as well; City Wings has food only. So why City Wings over Sweetwater? YOU GUYS, IT'S REALLY REALLY CLEAN. Also when speaking strictly about the wings themselves, the quality is directly comparable which means variety wins out.

#3 Your Mother's (Mt. Clemens)
There is not much fancy or special about Your Mother's in the Clem. It's a sports bar, and not a particularly snazzy one at that. But good GOD they have good wings. 17 different flavors of house-made sauces includes five different kinds of hot sauces, which in turn include my personal favorite spicy garlic (they call it "hot garlic" - tomahto) and the they're-not-kidding bright-ass-red "I Dare You." (And seriously, I do. Shit is HOT.) Big big big meaty wings roasted, fried in oil and sautéed in sauce with each order. It's a veritable rainbow of flavors both on the palate and as a palette (you know, like when you order a whole bunch of different flavors and set them next to each other and it looks like a rainbow). If you're hardcore about wings, this place is well worth checking out.

#4 Seoul Street (Ann Arbor)
First, it's impossible to find. Don't even bother with your GPS because it won't be able to find it. There's a really good chance that you'll end up at Seoul Garden, which is in fact the wrong place but the helpful woman who works there will kindly tell you that this happens all the time when after you spend a solid 10 minutes flipping through the menu you finally ask her, "Uh, someone told me you had wings?" When you finally approach your destination, you will not see a sign for it in front of the massive strip mall complex it resides in. Instead you must know that when you see the signage for Panera Bread and Great Plains Burger Co. that you must turn into that parking lot and drive to the far corner. And there it is. Tiny. Nondescript. About 8 seats in the whole house. And real, genuine, bonafide KFC - Korean fried chicken. They describe their sauces as "glazes" and that seems pretty appropriate as they look almost glassy - the wings are fried up crispy and then "glazed" in a soy-based sauce (choose from "hot and spicy" or soy garlic - I recommend trying both) and served with pickled radish or corn salad. And yes, they have other Korean dishes too (kimchee, bibimbop, etc.).

#5 Cass Cafe (Midtown)
A place best known for their vegetarian cuisine has some of the best wings in town? You betcha. Their Asian Sriracha Wings are the bomb-diggity: deep-fried wings glazed in honey and sriracha, served with peanut sauce (which quite frankly you won't even need ... unless you're a pussy). This might actually be the best thing on their whole menu (with apologies to vegetarian friends who might beg to differ). Plus they usually have really awesome broke college student/artist/hipster drink specials, which is always nice.

Bubbling under Nikola's (Southfield), Tipsy McStagger's (Warren), Anita's Kitchen (Ferndale), Slows BAR BQ (Corktown), Union Street (Midtown), Bookies Bar and Grill (Detroit)

Honorable mention Detroit's Turkey Grill, while not serving "wings" in the traditional sense of it being chicken, still deserves a mention for their massive barbarian-sized turkey leg drumstick (suggestion: skip the fried legs and go with the smoked version rubbed in herbs and spices).

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EID's First Birthday Party!

It's my party and I'll get drunk if I want to.

My, how fast we've grown ... help EID celebrate turning ONE YEARS OLD on Friday, June 15 starting at 6pm! We'll start with a beer tasting at 8 Degrees Plato Beer Company in Ferndale from 6-8pm, followed by drinks at the Oakland's spankin' new tiki bar Honi Honi opening that night! No cost to attend, just come hang out.

The evening will start with a beer tasting from 6-8pm at 8 Degrees Plato Beer Company in Ferndale (this is a come-and-go kind of thing; you're not obligated for the full two hours). In honor of my own Belgian heritage, we're going to be sampling some Belgian and Belgian-ish beers:

-New Holland Farmhouse Hatter
-Brewery Vivant Big Red Coq
-Delerium Tremens

Afterwards we'll ramble on over to the Oakland for some proper outdoor tiki drinking!

NOTE: Neither of these places are restaurants; please be sure to eat before you come out. This is not a regimented thing - you are free to drop in whenever you want, so don't skip dinner just to show up right at 6! Because I am not going to feed you!

Please RSVP here if you plan on attending so we know how many to plan for! Please do NOT RSVP if you do not actually plan on attending. (Seriously, why do people do that?)

Please excuse your HBIC for the lack of content this week - I am still recovering from Post Bacon Stress Syndrome and various other tedious things that are time-sucks. Hot Lists and Features will be back on track next week, just in time for the big shebang-bang!

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[Real Detroit Weekly] Baconfest Michigan

Royal Oak, meet bacon. Bacon, meat Royal Oak (see what I did there?). For fairness' sake, let's not just limit this to Royal Oak, Oakland County or southeastern Michigan. Everyone should be able to enjoy bacon. And they shall! On Saturday, June 2, from 6 to 10 p.m., the first-ever Baconfest Michigan will be happening at the Royal Oak Farmers Market. You'll find over 30 restaurants, celebrity chef demonstrations (local celebrities anyway, like our very own Joe Hakim of the Hungry Dudes), live entertainment from the Reefermen and bacon. Lots and lots of bacon. A veritable ocean of bacon. Bacon as far as the eye can see and the mouth can eat. Endless, flowing bacon.

Chicago has its own Baconfest (and, predictably, it's an overpriced shitshow where the chefs act like they're doing you a favor by being there); it's high time Michigan had its own! Not only a celebration of all things bacon, with everything from pork belly to prosciutto to duck bacon to vegan bacon (a nationwide Baconfest first!) on hand, it's also a celebration of all things Michigan. Many participating restaurants smoke their own bacon in-house and source from local vendors using meat raised on Michigan farms. Bars will be stocked with Michigan products including Valentine Vodka, McClure's Bloody Mary mix, Michigan craft beers and a selection of Michigan wines. Baconfest is also striving to be a sustainable festival, utilizing eco-friendly and biodegradable Michigan Green Safe Products for all plates, napkins, cups and utensils.

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