The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

One! One restaurant. Two! Two restaurants.

The "Castle Building" will have not one but TWO new restaurants inside. [Curbed Detroit]

Corktown: one of the 50 most stylish neighborhoods IN THE WORLD. The WORLD. [Complex]

It's Greek Week in metro Detroit! KouZina Street Food opened in Royal Oak, and Santorini Estiatorio in Greektown (the remodeled Mosaic) isn't far behind. [Crain's / EID FB]

Jon Carlson and Greg Lobdell are the BEST. [Freep]

People are the WORST. [Detroit News]

When I first moved to Lafayette Park there was a cafe in the strip mall on Lafayette called Paris Cafe. It was merely okay, but at least convenient. A few months later it closed. Now, 5 years later, FINALLY, someone else is opening a coffee shop (if only temporarily), and YAAAY it's Jordi from Cafe Con Leche! Meet Cafe con Leche de Este, a pop-up coffee shop in the LP opening 11/4. [CCLDE FB]

Is it possible for a business model to be "viral?" If so, such is the concept of a pop-up. The Villages are being a thing and using pop-ups to show it. [Curbed Detroit]

The Caucus Club will serve their last lunch next Wednesday, October 24. Guys, did you "get" my string of Barbra Streisand references in the post that first mentioned their closing? It's really important that you realize how clever that was. [CC FB / EID]

Michigan once again had some big winners at the Great American Beer Festival: Kuhnhenn Brewing Co., Bastone and Redwood Lodge all took home medals. (Kuhnhenn and Bastone both seem to be GABF favorites.) Which is awesome! Except that none of these guys distribute (except Kuhnhenn in VERY limited quantities), so you actually have to go to the brewery. Which is awesome is you live near-ish Warren, Royal Oak or Flint. And not if you don't. [GABF]

And here is the line-up for next weekend's Fall Beer Festival. Start planning. [MBG blog]

Which also means Detroit Beer Week is now upon us. [EID]

And for those "out west," Bill's Beer Garden in Ann Arbor is now open. [BBG FB]

More beer news from the Ace Deuce: World of Beer, a Florida-based craft beer chain, will be opening in Ann Arbor. But don't get too excited: A2 is not without its share of stellar craft beer bars and there's no promising this chain will focus prominently on Michigan crafts, which is what the locals will demand most. (I see a lot of Sam Adams in their future.) Plus, IT'S A SPORTS BAR. *shudder* [AnnArbor.com]

And even more from Ann Arbor: dude behind Mani Osteria still opening a Mexican joint, still doesn't have a name for it. Mario Batali loves it already. [Concentrate]

The Freep does a game day round-up of places that have opened in A2 in the last two years and includes Lena. I also wrote about Lena. So there. [Freep / EID]

Between Lena, as-yet-unnamed Mexican Mani Osteria, and 2012 Hatch Detroit winner La Feria, it would seem the Latin invasion is upon us once again. Here is a pre-preview of La Feria. [Model D]

The Sugar House is now open at noon on Saturdays and Sundays with a special "Eye Opener" menu. [SH FB]

And Local Kitchen + Bar is now serving brunch on Saturdays AND Sundays. [Local FB]

Market Studio Kitchen + Detroit Emergent Future Lab are the latest concepts taking shape in Eastern Market that support and promote our local food system through community engagement and hands-on education for both youth and adults. [HuffPo]

Nationally distributed PBS show "Start-Up" is based here in metro Detroit, produced by Parliament Studios in Clawson, and has already profiled some favorite local start-ups like Astro Coffee and McClure's Pickles. [HuffPo]

City Wings is cleaner than some hospitals. Meet the guy behind it. [UIX]

Welll ... we want to be known as "design-savvy." Soooooooo... [Detroit News]

Why yes, in fact I am incredibly selfless. [Metromode]

Got money? Feel like giving it away? Here are three current Kickstarter campaigns for you to do just that:
~Belle Isle to 8 Mile. An "insider's guide" to Detroit with some 750 listings (a few authored by yours truly!).
~Chartreuse. A raw vegan organic local food business looking to expand.
~The Brinery. Trying to buy and preserve 12,000 pounds of locally-grown cabbage using lacto-fermentation: "40 barrels in 40 nights."

Eat It GR
So there's been a lot happening in Grand Rapids lately which I haven't been posting because some people get sand in their vaginas if I take one out of my 10+ posts per day to discuss something that isn't happening within 15 miles of the Royal Oak epicenter, so here is a collection of news bits from Beer City USA:

~The Grand Rapids Public Museum's "Thank you, BEER!" exhibit opened this weekend and will remain through December 30, exploring the importance of beer throughout human history. Or, as they say, "Celebrating beer, brewing and the meaning of life." [GR Museum]

~During the course of organizing the above exhibit, museum curators (with the help of several Grand Rapids craft breweries and private collectors in the community) combed through their own collections of local brewing history, a history that started 15-20 feet below the current city streets. This is a great article on the city's long brewing history. Also, the historic Grand Rapids Brewing Co. will re-open next month (from the folks behind HopCat). [MLive]

~Here are some coordinating events that go along with the exhibit. [MLive]

~And here is more more about Founders' commemorative "Furniture City Stock Ale" brewed specifically for this exhibit, only available in west Michigan, and with all profits being donated to the Grand Rapids Public Museum. [Founders]

~And here is a video with 16 breweries celebrating Grand Rapids as Beer City USA. [Whiskey Neat]

~For whatever random reason, Trillium Haven was getting a lot of love (at least on Facebook) this week from various persons-about-town. Founders is doing a "Beer and Butchery" five-course dinner there next Sunday and Monday and the GR CVB also made this great video. [Founders / GR CVB]

~UPDATE: In the 20 minutes since I posted this something else happened. This Tuesday the "Grand Pumpkin," a Beer City USA collaboration brew between 11 Grand Rapids breweries, will be released. (Each brewery has their own version, all different recipes with the same base ingredient: pumpkin.) [MLive]

[EID Preview] KouZina

All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

Of all the buzzy words in the buzz-centric realm of foodiedom, “street food” is probably the buzziest. We’ve adopted the trend quite readily here in metro Detroit over the past couple of years, and now we have a pretty sizable collection of food trucks (the literal sense of the phrase "street food") and restaurants with street food-style menus (the brick-and-mortar interpretation of the trend). And what this has ultimately meant is tacos. Lots and lots of tacos. Tacos are far as they eye can see and the mouth can eat. El Guapo, Jacques’ Tacos, Taco Mama, Imperial (and let’s not forget the entirety of Southwest Detroit, where the early adopters and Yelp Elites first started charting new territories in search of the most “authentic” street foods) … oh yes, we have tacos.

What we don’t have is Greek food. Not real Greek food, anyway. As Greektown itself has slowly transitioned into something less than “Greek” – the old family businesses have moved or closed or sold, leaving barely a handful of “Greek” restaurants left, and even that is a source of quibbling as the chefs of these “Greek” places tend not to be Greek themselves – Greek families have spread out across greater metro Detroit. While some might bemoan the fact that the culture is no longer condensed to one colorful city street, the culture has been wholly assimilated into the surrounding suburbs – and honestly, that’s one of the things that makes metro Detroit so great: the fact that ethnic cultures are so fully incorporated that they no longer draw notice. If we didn’t have a Greek coney island and a Middle Eastern shawarma shop on every street corner, metro Detroit would be a very different place. A place bereft of cultural diversity. (...a place like Chicago.) And that’s actually pretty awesome.

But Greek coney islands have been through their own share of Americanization and the food they serve isn’t what any Greek would call “authentic.” Now there is KouZina.

KouZina opens Monday in Royal Oak, in the tiny little building that was home to the Zumba Mexican Grille for so many years. Partners Bobby Laskaris and George Xenos have repainted the walls, opened up the front by adding garage doors that will open to the patio during the warm months, and otherwise spruced the place up a bit with cool colors and stainless steel accents. (Please note: photos were taken mid-September while the building was still under construction.) The result is a modern, stripped down, somewhat industrial chic space that will serve stripped down street food.

“A lot of the Greeks complain that there’s nowhere to eat,” Bobby says. “These coney islands butchered the Greek cuisine!” Bobby is a long-time restaurateur from a family of chefs and restaurateurs. His father Panagiotis (Pete) studied at a culinary school in Athens and worked in high-end hotels and restaurants all over Greece before coming to Detroit in 1968. He worked at Hella’s (RIP), Grecian Gardens (RIP), and the Bouzouki Lounge (back when it was a Greek supper club, not a strip club … RIP). Pete is part of the Old Guard of Greektown, but would ultimately find success in opening restaurants in the suburbs (where Greek families were happy to not have to drive to Greektown to get real Greek food). He opened Athenium Cuisine in Southfield then Olympian Café in Allen Park. He then launched a concessions business in 1984, working at ethnic festivals at Hart Plaza and growing from there.

Bobby, now 40, started as a busboy in Greektown at age 15 (a job his dad made him get). It was in the family’s concessions business that Bobby really took off. He took over the business and made it bigger, catering events at stadiums and convention centers (including the Superbowl, the All-Star Game and the World Series that were all held in Detroit over the last decade). In the meantime, dad sold his other restaurants and retired.

Bobby never had any intention of opening a restaurant. “Growing up I saw my father working the hours and the days he worked and I was always afraid to get involved in a business like that,” he says. “I decided about a year ago to open a small store with Greek fast food but on an authentic level; no one’s doing that here.”

So now Bobby is opening his own restaurant, and he’s dragging his father out of retirement. “He’s been retired 10 years; he’s 73 years old and coming out of retirement for us!”

“I’m not working with your dad in the morning,” says Yianni (John), a college-age employee and cousin of Bobby’s. He turns to me to explain: “I’ll come in and say, ‘Hi Uncle, how’s it going?’ No ‘hello,’ no ‘how are you,’ just, ‘Why are you smoking? Don’t be like that dumbass over there.’” (Gesturing to Bobby.)

We all laugh. Bobby says, “He’s great in the kitchen though!”

There’s a jovial familial vibe here that will really be a defining element of this restaurant, the same sort of friendly family vibe that the old Greek restaurants of Greektown once had. Bobby plans on maintaining that at KouZina. “It used to be in the old days all the Greek restaurants had Greek waiters, Greek owners, Greek cooks. Sabas at Pegasus is the only Greek chef left. Greek culture permeated the suburbs, which is why Greektown is not so Greek anymore. The Greeks started downriver and spread out. The parents started restaurant businesses and the kids got educated, but the kids who got the education but grew up in the industry are going back to the restaurants. We’re going to hire a few young college-age Greek kids. ”

For the concessions business, everything is made fresh on the spot. Bobby wanted to translate that to KouZina – a small menu of fresh, simple items made from scratch. Pete will be in 4-5 days a week making everything in house. “It will be kind of cool seeing him in chef coats again doing what he loves!” Bobby says.

The menu will be very simple: gyros made with lamb and beef, chicken breast, and pork tenderloin, marinated for a couple of days in olive oil and hand-stacked every morning. The sandwiches will be served the traditional way with tomato and house-made double-strained Greek yogurt made daily, served on your choice of five different house-made pitas (in flavors like garlic herb, cracked wheat, and feta and tomato).

Pete will also be making fresh spinach pies and weekly specials that might include other traditional Greek dishes like Moussaka and grape leaves. They’ll also serve their homemade yogurt with honey and walnuts and fresh fruit like it is served in Greece for a lighter dish. Their Greek dressing will also be made in-house and their fries hand-cut. All in all there will be about five different items to choose from, and a combo order including a sandwich, fries and soda will cost you about $8-9 out the door.

The whole kitchen operation is open to the dining area. “The cool thing is you’ll walk in and see the whole process of everything being made in front of you,” Bobby explains. There will also be artwork from local artists hanging on the walls and available to purchase. Bobby is himself an art conservative as President of Atlas Bronze Restoration (aka Hamtramck’s Venus Bronze Works), which has restored bronze sculptures in Cranbrook, on Belle Isle and all over Detroit and the Midwest. “We want to be a little more progressive than other Greek restaurants around here,” he says. “There will be no Zeus painted on the wall!”

Later Bobby also hopes to get into product manufacturing (Pete’s second retirement will still be a long way off), but first things first: KouZina opens this Monday. And like all the good street food joints, they’ll be open until 4 a.m. on weekends.

Hours: Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 4 a.m.; Sunday noon to 9 p.m.

Want to see more? View the Flickr set here.