The Craft Grill, at Schoolcraft College, is a new and exciting Brew Pub featuring beers made in house by the Schoolcraft Brewing and Distilling program at the college.  The Brew Pub has been there for a few years, but their recent multi-million dollar renovation has allowed them to expand from being open 1 day a week for 3 hours to being open 5 days a week for 10-12 hours 5 days a week. They now offer food as well.  This is a great hidden gem in Livonia since no one would think to go to a school for lunch or dinner.  The brew pub is located at the north end of campus in the Vista Tech Center and is attached to the American Harvest Restaurant.

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 roughly 1911, a piece of property was purchased at 7 Mile and Center street in the small community of Northville . . . roughly 40 miles from downtown Detroit. 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.

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.

It was a Thursday, March 29th to be exact.  It was Opening Day for the Tigers in 2018 and the weather was not good.  The game actually was rained out.  But that didn't stop all the pre-planned opening day parties and celebrations from happening.  My last destination was the Corktown Tavern, yes in Corktown.  Due to the weather and the game being canceled they closed down early.  I parted ways  with the group I was with, and suddenly realized I could not find my car keys.  Yes, I had locked them in my car.  The Corktown Tavern was closed.  It was raining, cold, and my phone was on life support.  I was able to get someone to rescue me, but they couldn't be there for over an hour.  I couldn't wait outside in the rain and I needed a place to stay dry and warm. So…I stumbled into Bobcat Bonnie’s . . . this week's Fun Food Friday feature.

This week we are visiting Coriander Kitchen and Farms, in Detroit’s Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood of canals . . . sometimes referred to as “The Venice of Detroit”. Coriander is a farm to table restaurant that not only uses locally sourced food in their dishes, but they are also the farm that grows the food, making them the only restaurant in the city that owns the farm and the table.

This week we are going to the Hudson Cafe.   We have known of the Hudson Café for many years and have eaten at their downtown location a few times.  Just recently, they opened their 2nd location in Northville . A 3rd location is coming to Troy, later this year or early next year. 

In 1963 Dick Portillo invested $1100 (around $10,000-$11,000 today) in a 6 x 12 trailer and named it “The Dog House” in Villa Park, IL 2 miles west of Chicago. What started with hot dogs out of a trailer, has grown to the establishment they are today. With over 70 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is a fun and exciting destination for some delicious Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago Dogs and their famous chocolate cake and chocolate cake shakes.

What’s the saying? When life gives you lemons make lemonade? In the case of Ryan and Erin Cottingim, when life gave them lemons, they decided to make beer. It was around 2008-2009 when Ryan and Erin both lost their jobs and decided to write the next chapter in their lives. They wrote up a business plan and on December 26th, 2011, Witch's Hat Brewing Company in South Lyon was born. It was in the height of the real estate and banking crash of 2008-2013 and opening a new business had to seem like an insurmountable achievement . . . but here we are 12 years later and things seem to be going strong!

We love good success stories . . . and this one is definitely that! We know that any food or restaurant venture entails a lot of hard work and dedication. Nothing shows that more than Detroit 75 Kitchen.  Opened in 2014,  by 2 brothers Mike & Ahmad Nassar, in the parking lot of their family’s truck stop not far from the Ambassador bridge. Detroit Kitchen 75 is a must visit destination in the Detroit food scene.  They were named as one of the top 3 food trucks in Detroit in 2017 by ThreeBestRated.com and one of the top 100 places to eat in 2019 by Us Weekly magazine. We figured they must be doing something right. After trying their food, we agree that they are!

The big game between Michigan and Michigan State is tomorrow and we wanted to share some of our favorite tailgating food for the big day.  These recipes are not only delicious but also easy to make.  Teresa’s Buffalo Chicken Dip is super creamy and delicious and can be served with anything. The Chili is really hearty and not too sweet or spicy.  The Caprese is so good and refreshing as well as easy to make and the Philly Steak Quesadillas are a nice twist on an old classic.

We are back with this week’s Fun Food Friday adventure which takes us back to another local gas station. This time it’s an Exxon station on the NE corner of 6 Mile and Haggerty, inside is Zo’s Good Burger. We have had a handful of people ask us about Zo's so we had to make sure to get there. Zo’s has been around since 2015ish in their Dearborn location but only opened earlier this year in Livonia so of course we had to add it to our list of Fun Food Friday adventures.

This was our first time attending the Detroit Burger Battle so we were not sure what to expect. It didn’t disappoint. The Burger Battle is a burger competition between local restaurants, showcasing their signature burgers. Each participant could sample as many burgers as they could handle and then were asked to vote for their top 3 choices.

This week we are going with something simple, yet almost everyone seems to love...submarine sandwiches AKA subs, heros, grinders or hoagies. We are not talking about any sub, but more specifically the “oven baked” variety. Teresa and I love a good hot oven baked sub . . . not a hot sub cooked and thrown into a cold bun, but one that is actually baked in the oven on a good Italian or French roll or maybe a nice ciabatta bun.

This week we are venturing to Plymouth, specifically Plymouth’s Old Village, to Hermann’s Old Town Grill. We don't know how we haven't featured Hermann’s in the past. It is the type of place we are drawn to, and only a few miles from where we live. It is a great neighborhood bar/restaurant that has everything we look for when we go out. A great selection of domestic and craft beers, nice pour of bourbon, good food, lively atmosphere, game room and a moose head over the bar.

his week, for Fun Food Friday, we are venturing to The Charlevoix in Grosse Point Park. Our intention was to get to the Cadieux Café . . . but they were not open at the time we were in the area, so we happily called an audible and ended up here and what a good audible it turned out to be.

Matt & Mo’s, which started as a food truck, has the most delicious Italian Beef we have ever had. We actually found them by accident in 2017 or 2018 while on a day drinking adventure in Corktown. It was one of those days that you don’t think eating is your top priority until it is almost too late. When we decided we were going to eat nothing was open near us and we saw a line at a food truck parked the next block down so why not…let’s give it a try.

This week we are talking about gas station food. In the past few years it has become a thing to open a takeout restaurant inside gas stations, offering fresh cooked burgers and sandwiches. I have seen a number of different places in the area but have only tried a couple. The only one worth mentioning is Pump 5 Grill in Livonia.