In 2013 Bob & Dorothy Ostendorf, and their business partners Jim & Kathy Sulllivan, took over a pub located at 860 Fralick in Downtown Plymouth.  It was an old Irish Pub  and the Ostendorf’s and Sullivan’s were not crazy about what the place was, even though they frequented it regularly.  They changed the name to Stella’s Black Dog Tavern. The name comes from the Ostendorf’s Bernese Mountain Dog Stella. 

If you are a long time Clinton Township resident you may remember a place called Fazzalari’s which was located at the corner of Moravian and Utica roads. It was nothing fancy, but a typical club of the 80’s with “new wave” music and inexpensive drinks. In 1993 the Kourelis family, who are not strangers to the restaurant industry having owned the St Clair Shores Inn for many year, bought Fazzalari’s. They tore it down to make way for their new venture: Great Baraboo Brewing Company, this weeks fun food Friday adventure.

This week we are going to Art & Jakes Sports Bar & Grill in Northville.  What is Art & Jakes?  We didn’t know either until recently.  Art & Jake's is a chain of sports bars, founded by Victor and Brenda Trpcevski, in 2002 in  Shelby Township.  7 years later they opened their 2nd location in Washington township and then followed with other locations which were opened in 2014, 2016, 2017,2022 and now their latest endeavor in Northville in 2023.

In 1996-97 Mark Rieth, a lover of beer, founded a little brewery in the Rivertown District of Detroit.  Fast forward 26 years later and they have grown into a multi-million dollar craft beer powerhouse.  They were purchased in 2020 by the Tenth and Black Beer Company, the craft beer division of The Molson Coors Corporation.  Mark promised to keep operations as normal but needed the revenue and experience Tenth and Black Beer brought to the table. It helped expand their brand nationwide selling their signature Dirty Blonde and Vanilla Java Porter, 2 of their signature beers. While their Rivertown location is the original location, they currently have other locations in Grand Rapids, Detroit Metro Airport and Grosse Pointe Park. Which takes us to this week’s Fun Food Friday location . . . Atwater in The Park.

Many of us will spend time downtown at a ball game this season, and if you do you may want to visit one of Detroit’s many new exciting restaurants or bars or maybe one of the old time favorites.

Every now and then we are reminded that a place, that we have known for years, has really good food and a fun lively atmosphere. The Royal Oak Brewery is one of those places. We have known of their existence since they opened in 1995 but we rarely ever eat there, at least not in the past 10 years…until recently.

We stumbled across Jezebel’s Saloon while walking back from a different destination in Brighton. We were walking back to our car and as we were walking by some people came out and we heard them saying how much they liked it so we had to go in and check it out. What we loved about this place, is just as much about the vibe/décor as the food and drinks that we saw. It was so cool we had to make a special trip to go back the following weekend.

We’ve heard from a ton of people that this place had the best Friday fish fry. Since it used to be Harold’s Bar, where our parents hung out when we were kids, living in Redford . . . we were a little skeptical. Turns out, they were right! AND this is not your parents dive bar any more.

When I am out showing houses, sometimes Teresa will join me when she can detach from her phone and computer. While I am driving, and in the houses doing my thing, she’s on her phone Googling to find a cool or unique location for us to stop for some food or drinks near where we are going. I will admit that with this one she outdid herself. She programmed the GPS to just give me directions. I had no idea until we were pulling in where we were going. We were in Roseville, so the options for places we’ve never been to before were endless, since it is not a city that we find ourselves dining out in regularly. Our destination? The World’s End Craft Burger Bar…she literally had me at BURGER!

Normally, we steer clear of “chain” restaurants and focus completely on unique, one of a kind, places to review.  However, this week’s Fun Food Friday is very cool chain restaurant that has ties to our area and the automotive industry…Ford’s Garage. We first came across Ford’s Garage in 2016 when we were staying in Cape Coral Florida, we didn’t know much about it so we thought we would check it out and we really liked it. 

Is there is a bar or restaurant that whenever you happen to be in the area, you feel it drawing you in? With us that is Second Best, the most misnamed bar in the City . . . because, to us, it is the First Best! We find ourselves coming here all the time and we love sharing it with all of our friends and their friends. There are times when we are the only ones there, and times when we can barely find a place to sit. In the summer, they roll up the garage doors and you can enjoy the open air.

Happy Friday! I guess it is time for this weeks Fun Food Friday! As you may know, every week we like to feature non chain or corporate owned places (even though we occasionally let one slip in). This week we are going to one of the local Livonia golf courses - 1 Under.