Metro Detroit: Northville Downs Trotside Restaurant
In roughly 1911, a piece of property was purchased, roughly 40 miles from downtown Detroit, at 7 Mile and Center street in the small community of Northville . At the time, Northville was a rural community, which was home to roughly 1600 residents. It’s original intended purpose was a private 9 hole golf course.
A few years later, a group of men, lead by Ed Starkweather (this may be a familiar name if you are familiar with the Plymouth and Northville area) started an Athletic Park where harness racing occurred. The site was later turned into the Wayne County Fairgrounds, the location where Joe Louis trained for his world Championship bout later that year.
In 1944 Northville Downs was born. This part is based on my memory of what I learned about the place when I worked there in the 80’s and 90’s: Northville Downs was founded by John Carlo a prominent attorney and his partner and “Doc” Snow, a local veterinarian. In the 80s, operations were turned over to Lou Carlo, John’s nephew. He ran it until the 90’s, when he turned it over to his sons Mike and John, who currently run it today. Northville downs was the first race track to run nighttime racing in the state, and they have been racing there ever since.
In their prime, they were one of 3 race tracks in the metro Detroit area with Hazel Park Raceway and The Detroit Race Course aka DRC. The tracks did not compete with each other, DRC was primarily thoroughbred racing and Hazel Park and Northville Downs split the harness racing each operating 6 months out of the year. Northville would run from October through the first week in April and Hazel Park would run their meet From April to October.
So, why is this such a big deal to me? This place has been in my life as far back as I can remember. In 1973, when I was 9 my mom, Mary, was hired as a server in their Clubhouse. In 1978, when I was 14, I was hired to work in the kitchen as a pot washer, and to do light prep work a couple days a week. When I turned 16 I was able to move into the dining room, as a bus boy, and at 18 I became one of the first male servers in their dining room. I worked there, as a server, until 1993. (Just to be clear, we didn’t actually work for the race track, we worked for Sportservice. They actually oversaw all of the racetracks and some of the sports venues like Tiger Stadium.
It’s hard to not get caught up in the excitement of live horse racing! You could go out on the track, at the grandstand level, and watch the horses run by.
Here’s some photos of the track from “back in the day”. The track was open every day except sometimes on a Sunday or a Monday, and was always pretty busy. Companies would have their holiday parties there, and the clubhouse would be at full capacity most of the time.
It was working at the track that actually made me want to get into the food industry. In the off months I would work weekends at DRC. In the 80’s there was a chef named Ray Bertschy who was doing a private party at DRC. My mom was working the event so I was able to get into the kitchen and watch him work and that is what made me want to get into cooking. While I am not still cooking for a living I love to cook and we have raised 3 children who all love to be in the kitchen.
Working here was like being part of a big family. We would dress up for Halloween and the track photographer would take our picture. We had holiday parties and for a while there was always an afterhours New Year’s Eve party. We would all be there till 4 or 5 in the morning. One year, when I was probably 19, a group of us had the grand idea to race each other, around the ½ mile track, in the dark. Needless to say, I made it 1 furlong before I thought I was going to die. So, I jumped the rail and cut across the infield back to where we started and waited for the rest of the fools I was with to finish. A few actually did.
We had regular customers that we got to know, on a personal level, and would occasionally do things outside of work with them. We had the regular customers we called “the gamblers” who actually had their own section and they were there every night. (And yes they had ties to organized crime.) We would get sports figures and local celebrities that would come in on occasion, and there were lots of horse owners that would come out and on occasion we would get invited to the winners circle if their horse won.
If you are familiar with the Northville Downs of today you are probably thinking wait! They had an actual chef? Yes! In their prime the clubhouse was actually quite a place to go to eat and have an enjoyable evening. There was a corporate chef who did oversee operations and create menus. Today it is ran by The Ansara Restaurant Group, the same owners of Red Robin and 2Booli Restaurant in Farmington Hills. It is not as fancy but the food is still respectfully good and it is still a fun night out.
There are 3 levels: Lower Level is the grandstand area, Mid Level/Second Floor used to be called the cocktail lounge, and then the Top Level was referred to as the Clubhouse. The clubhouse area is a great place to spend the entire evening and enjoy a sit down meal while you enjoy the races. There are TVs at every table, so you can flip thru the many simulcast races . . . that you can also bet on. Check out their menu below. You’ll see the prices are reasonable and they have a decent selection.
You don’t have to dine in the clubhouse (Trotside) you can also get something to eat, including awesome pizza, in the lower cocktail lounge concessions. Check out that menu, below.
My brother Don is also a track rat . . . shocker, I know! He joined us a few weeks ago. We made some wagers, had some good food and had a nice stroll down memory lane. Don spent a fair amount of time here when he was younger, as did the entire family. Rumor has it, that Don was the result of a post win celebration in the back of our family station wagon. You could say that if it wasn’t for the race track, he maybe wouldn’t exist. I don’t know how he ended up being named Don Becker Junior, instead of 1-3-4.
While the future of the Downs is uncertain at this time we will be sad to see the current location go. We have many memories there, mostly good, some not so that I wont speak of but the most memorable is that it is the place where Teresa ad I got engaged on April 1st of 1994 and as they say…”The Rest Is History”!!!
Until next week . . . live well, eat well and enjoy life!
-Keith & Teresa Becker