The Lost Detroit (and Michigan)

JohnVF said:
There’s a place in Chicago (Pro Musica) that’s insulted my Harbeths and the Pass amp I was running at the time.
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I had no issues with them at AXPONA, but I was only listening to their setup in the room and not actively engaging them (and not visiting them on their home turf, so to speak). That would turn me off also. Especially if I didn't like what I was hearing, and was supposed to think their way was better.


JoeThePop said:
I didn't drink coffee at the time, so I didn't really understand the hubbub.
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That would have gone over my head also. To me it was just the local appliance chain hustling their wares using the promise of free coffee. 😁

That reminds me of H&R Hardware (?) who promised to take back their snowblowers if we didn't get X number of inches per snow that winter. I remember seeing him on the news in the second year of his promotion, where he had foolishly increased the amount of snow...and took back quite a few snowblowers. To his credit, he honored his deal, but he looked a bit crestfallen in the report and mentioned that it would probably be the last time he ever did a promotion like that.
 
I bought a set of JBL L-88+ at Schaak in Brookfield WI back in the day. Couldn't afford L100s and didn't want the same Marantz Imperial 7s my buddies had, so the upgradable L88+, just add the M12 expander set of LE5 mids and crossover plug in, and there you go.

I had those L88s for quite a while and don't recall what happened to them? Probably flipped or parted when I started flipping stuff 25 years ago.
 
Another long-lived restaurant closes. My better half told me a few days before the end of the year that Portofino, the restaurant in Wyandotte, was closing at the end of 2023.

We didn't go there often, but have some fond memories. We had a couple of holiday dinners there, my graduation dinner (which my youngest also remembers quite well), and it was just a nice place to hang out at the water in the summer.

Thankfully places like Mr. Paul's and The Brewery are still around (they are owned by the same family), and closer to us, Luigi's Italian in Harrison Twp. is still going strong (he's a cousin of the family that owns Mr. Paul's).

It's a shame that our local restaurants have become a revolving door over in the Nautical Mile. It's like every year or two, something fails, and something new takes its place. We now have an uber-expensive seafood place on the water, in what I think was Brownie's. And that wasn't the original Brownie's location...the quonset hut building was originally Jack's, and Brownie's used to be next door to that. We still miss Achatz Burgers. They had a place on the west side of Jefferson, and when the landlord got greedy and doubled the rent, they bailed...and the building sat for about two years without a tenant. 🙄
 
FWIW, restaurants are noted for failure, especially trendy ones. The link below gives an 80% fail rate in the first 5 years; just because one can cook, doesn't mean they can run a business.

We have a building that used to be a Mountain Jacks on 12 mile just west of Mound that's been perhaps a half a dozen or more businesses since we moved here; most recently it closed as The Louisiana Crab Shack, but it was a coney place before that and a Shield's at one point too.

 
Andyman said:
FWIW, restaurants are noted for failure, especially trendy ones. The link below gives an 80% fail rate in the first 5 years; just because one can cook, doesn't mean they can run a business.
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And it doesn't guarantee that they can cook, either. 😁

I have no feelings of loss for the various Andiamo restaurants that failed. The food was decent, but very overpriced. We weren't impressed for the menu price (but at least we got to eat on someone else's dime.)

Andyman said:
We have a building that used to be a Mountain Jacks on 12 mile just west of Mound that's been perhaps a half a dozen or more businesses since we moved here; most recently it closed as The Louisiana Crab Shack, but it was a coney place before that and a Shield's at one point too.
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I'd been there a few times when it was Mountain Jack's, so it's been a while! There's another restaurant on 12 Mile not far from there, between Van Dyke and Mound, which I forget the original name of...it has the covered entryway on the side, and as of Oct 2021 it was the Golden Harvest Chinese restaurant. All I remember is that my mother liked the beer-battered perch. I'm thinking it was German name...?

Remember Juliano's on Van Dyke, near 11 Mile? I found out one of my classmates from school owns it now--Simple Palate Restaurant. They held our 40th HS reunion there but unfortunately I found out about it a couple of weeks before it happened, and already had a trip booked.

Also...I drove past Kavan's on Hayes, and it closed up at some point in the past year or two--the building is for sale. And also going back to the 70s...remember Sixpence? They had a location on 12 Mile just east of Hayes. And they had another up Van Dyke somewhere. Finally, Bodega Steak House, somewhere south of 11 Mile on Van Dyke. I always remember they played a lot of Paul Desmond as background music. 😁 It kind of had a dark wood/wine cellar atmosphere.
 
Rudy said:
And it doesn't guarantee that they can cook, either. 😁

I have no feelings of loss for the various Andiamo restaurants that failed. The food was decent, but very overpriced. We weren't impressed for the menu price (but at least we got to eat on someone else's dime.)


I'd been there a few times when it was Mountain Jack's, so it's been a while! There's another restaurant on 12 Mile not far from there, between Van Dyke and Mound, which I forget the original name of...it has the covered entryway on the side, and as of Oct 2021 it was the Golden Harvest Chinese restaurant. All I remember is that my mother liked the beer-battered perch. I'm thinking it was German name...?
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The Schmid Haus. I worked there as a dishwasher during my junior year of high school. 1977-78
 
I used to go to the Detroit Auto Show for work for a few years in the mid-90s. I would always go eat at the old Cafe Roma, it had such a cool used-to-be-a-mob-hangout vibe. Plus old school good Italian food and glasses of Chianti full to the brim. And they could pull an espresso.

I bet there are some stories behind the old hidden door to the basement...
 
gortnipper said:
I used to go to the Detroit Auto Show for work for a few years in the mid-90s. I would always go eat at the old Cafe Roma, it had such a cool used-to-be-a-mob-hangout vibe. Plus old school good Italian food and glasses of Chianti full to the brim. And they could pull an espresso.

I bet there are some stories behind the old hidden door to the basement...
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I interviewed for the job that brought me to Detroit at Cafe Roma in 2014. I loved the vibe and the service was great. The food was very average but the place itself made up for it. I was sad to see it close …my gateway to Detroit.
 
gortnipper said:
I used to go to the Detroit Auto Show for work for a few years in the mid-90s. I would always go eat at the old Cafe Roma, it had such a cool used-to-be-a-mob-hangout vibe. Plus old school good Italian food and glasses of Chianti full to the brim. And they could pull an espresso.
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Roma Cafe had a good run, 127 years in business.

It's now Amore da Roma but still has ties to Roma Cafe, as the executive chef took it over and reopened it under the new name in 2017 when the family that owned it decided to sell out.

And sure...it looks like something was going down... 😁

1704812097086.png
 
Rudy said:
👆👆 What the last two posts said. New name, same chef. 😁
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Has anybody eaten there since? I’m just curious. It was not great in 2014 and 2016, the two times I went there. It wasn’t bad just …very generic Italian food, and pretty empty. Maybe not a popular opinion but I think restaurant food has improved dramatically since I was a kid, and it just felt like one of the place I'd go to as a kid, with the same quality of food.
 
We've driven past it on the few occasions we've gone to Eastern Market, but I've never felt the urge to stop in.

My buddy every so often likes to eat there when he comes to town, though. I think his family used to go there when he was young, so it is more of a nostalgia trip. There is also a place he goes on Gratiot in Eastpointe, Villa Restaurant, that has also been around a while.

When we still went to restaurants, we used to like going to Salvatore Scallopini on Mack in GPW. For my better half, there was "that one entree" she liked, plus it was prepared wheat/gluten-free and was one of the few things she could eat when we went on "date night." It's also about trust. She has found that although some restaurants claim to cater to dietary needs, we have caught them too many times making a mistake. So, she felt safe eating there.
 
@Rudy We’ve only lived here since 1991 and don’t eat out much, but that old Mt. Jack’s just reminded me of how some places are just a revolving door of businesses. There’s another big place on the NE corner of 12 and Ryan that has been at least 3 restaurants IIRC, and currently is Middle Eastern/Bengali.

Actually, it’s amazing at how some facilities get repurposed too. The chapel we got married in used to be a bank, then the chapel, and now it’s a HVAC shop, Strange bedfellows for sure….
 
Andyman said:
Actually, it’s amazing at how some facilities get repurposed too. The chapel we got married in used to be a bank, then the chapel, and now it’s a HVAC shop, Strange bedfellows for sure….
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We had a Verizon store at the end of our street. It sat vacant, then turned into a coffee beanery of some sort. Sat vacant again, and now it's a dental office. My youngest kept telling me to buy it and open up a restaurant. 😁 (For whatever reason, she likes my cooking. 🤷‍♂️)

Seeing our old office on Mack Ave. transform was interesting. We were just a sales office, then took on inventory, and eventually rented the building next door. But when we moved to Harper into a more appropriate building, a cousin on my dad's side rented it for his insurance business, then in recent years it has been a tailor shop, and now it's a kitchen/bathroom remodeling company showroom.

I can't think of it right now, but a nearby building was a long-time restaurant and, like you say, it may have changed hands as a restaurant once or twice, but now it's a completely different business, and it's so odd to see it that way. The same happened to a fomerly popular place--remember Friendly's? I don't know what year they pulled out of our part of the country. Ours on Harper turned into a credit union many years ago. Closer to @Andyman, back when Jack-In-The-Box made a brief appearance in our area, they built and opened a location at 12 Mile and Schoenherr; surprisingly the building has been operating as a Thrifty Florist for as long as I can remember.

We have a shish-ke-bob place at 9 and Harper that when I was a kid, was a Red Barn restaurant. We still see remnants of that chain around, as the unique roof design is hard to miss. This one is partially hidden behind the facade but, from the sides and rear, it's Red Barn.
 
Rudy said:
We have a shish-ke-bob place at 9 and Harper that when I was a kid, was a Red Barn restaurant. We still see remnants of that chain around, as the unique roof design is hard to miss. This one is partially hidden behind the facade but, from the sides and rear, it's Red Barn.
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I can't seem to find it but there used to be a website that cataloged photos of establishments that used to be Red Barns. Spotting them is kind of a thing with me and my friends back home in Ohio (there really wasn't a lot going on between Akron and Canton).
 
The restaurant changes along the 4 mile stretch of Hall Road between M53 and Romeo Plank Road is dizzying.
Here’s the building that a friend and I joke is cursed because even among all the changes along the stretch this one stands out as the most changes by far.

Started out as a Sign of the Beefcarver and then rotated through more changes then I could keep count of. Hall Road just east of Schoenherr*.

Vacant once again.

IMG_1109.png

* that’s pronounced Shane - er for all you non-natives.
 
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