The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger.

A good burger inside a gas station? Good Burger in Dearborn is serving up all fresh, never-frozen products including buns from local bakeries, condiments and sauces made in-house, and hand-cut fries and onion rings. The catch? It's inside a BP gas station. Check your prejudices at the pump; gourmet gas station food might be the next big thing in the Motor City. [Dearborn Patch]

Detroit Restaurant Week Spring 2013 starts this Friday; check out all the menus online and make your reservations! [DRW]

Welcome to the Gilbert Era. [Freep]

In case you missed it:
-Go pantsless in Detroit [EID]
-U MAD CHICAGO? [HuffPo]
-The new-old Urban Bean Co. (re)opens this week in Capitol Park [Model D]
-The man who makes the best Manhattan in the country has left Roast for the rosier pastures of corporate mixology [EID]
-Here's a throwback Hot List for National Grilled Cheese month [EID]

In addition to saving the city/destroying the city/simply providing another grocery shopping option in the city (depending on your perspective), Whole Foods will also have an indoor/outdoor cafe and WiFi. [WF FB]

Monk Beer Bar opens today in Royal Oak in the former Cafe Habana space with an even Belgian-ier theme than its sister restaurant/brewpub Bastone. [Royal Oak Patch]

Thrillist took a trip to Trinosophes and enjoyed the baked goods from The Red Hook, the coffee from the Just Coffee co-op in Wisconsin, the old bar from Saint Andrew's Hall, and everything else inside this 4-in-1 venue (including the promise of future pizza party pop-ups!). [Thrillist]

Nefertiti Harris will open Tarot + Tea in West Village this May. The entrepreneur and spiritualist looks forward to continue serving her community spiritually as she so often does socially at Textures by Nefertiti. [UIX]

Beer and food trucks. Again and again and again. (The takeaway here: Ned's TravelBurger is debuting a new food truck.) [Thrillist]

"Urban pioneer," in a literal sense. Peck Produce in Detroit's Boston-Edison neighborhood is getting ready for spring. [Model D]

Got pork? Pig + Whiskey happens July 19-21. [P+W FB]

How far it is we've come when graffiti, once the scourge of public spaces, is now commissioned as an aesthetically-pleasing alternative to ongoing construction (later to be auctioned for education fundraising). Nicely done, Toast Birmingham. [Birmingham Patch]

At some point last week I reached the "I'm really fucking sick of people stealing my shit" professional breaking point and Click on Detroit got the brunt of it. Thanks to them for addressing and correcting their error. [Click on Detroit]

A2 Gastro Boy has your latest and greatest on A2, even if he does it for him and not me. Sighs. [A2GB]

Well, this was inevitable. A2's Selma Cafe could be forced to shut down for various code violations. [A2 Chronicle]

Throughout the next 12-18 months, all Caribou Coffee locations in Michigan will either be closed or converted to Peet's Coffee + Tea (the OG of second-wave coffee shops), which are owned by the same parent company. Though not implicitly stated, it looks like Biggby Coffee is winning the Michigan market with their Double Diabetes Bear Lattes(TM). [Freep]

Here is a Detroit Institute of Bagels progress shot. [DIB FB]

This just in: Halo Burger is super-late to the Twitter party. It's like, at this point, just go ahead and wait for it to be replaced with Vine. [Detroit News]

Beerie

Well hello ESPN, thanks for noticing our awesome craft beer offerings at Comerica Park! [ESPN]

Motor City Brewing Works is ready to see their name (or at least their beer) on Broadway! [Detroit News]

Atwater Brewery is going through some major expansions, which includes "Atwater in the Park," a brewpub in Grosse Pointe Park slated to open this fall, as well as a major increase in production with a new facility and the addition of a micro-distillery. [BeerPulse]

Paste Magazine puts Shorts Brewing Company on their list of weird beers. Twice. [Paste]

The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

There's no crying in baseball.

This is a day of affirmations. Yes Detroit, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh-darnit people like you. Seemingly all of my Facebook friends have manically flip-flopped between angry accusatory statements berating the Detroit Tigers for "sucking" and "ruining" their evening/weekend/Halloween, unrealistic optimism in the face of certain defeat, acute vicarious depression, threats to move to San Francisco, and finally reluctant acceptance with some after-the-fact congratulatory positive thinking and acknowledgement that "we" still made it pretty darn far and there's always next year. I guess now we'll just all go back to being political analysts. Here's what happened this week in restaurants.

Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe announces an official opening date, and then officially opens! On that date! No, it is not God's gift to grocery stores, but it is on the level of a good food co-op with a small but decent selection of both staple and specialty items. No, Whole Foods is not going to bury them immediately upon opening the doors to their organic produce palace. A neighborhood that is at 95+% rental occupancy CAN have two nice grocery stores. [Curbed / EID FB]

The East Jefferson Corridor is on the rise! [Det News Hub]

But that's NOTHING compared to what's going on in the Villages. As predicted and promised, the Villages of Detroit are being A Thing. Michael Geiger and Hugh Yaro are opening Craft Work (ah, but will they play a lot of 1970s German electronica??), The Red Hook is opening a second location, Detroit Vegan Soul (D.V.S) is opening their restaurant, and Tarot + Tea (what it sounds like) is also opening soon, all in West Village. Talk about going from 0 to 60. [Freep]

And here is more on the Supino Pizzeria expansion from MLive Detroit. Which was initially reported in Crain's as not so much an expansion as a totally new restaurant that will be located next door, but now sounds like no in fact it's an expansion. Either way it will have booze. [MLive]

Restaurateur Mindy Lopus is blowing UP. With two restaurants already in Birmingham (and more planned), she is now expanding her empire where a fresh face in fine dining is needed most: Grosse Pointe Park. Tallulah Wine Bar and Bistro will have a sister location, Bona Fide Baking Co. is a great way to show off award-winning pastry chef Tanya Fallon, and consider Red Crown to be Vinsetta Garage East. [GP Patch]

Detroit's Buffalo Wild Wings is on track to open in November in time for the Thanksgiving Day Parade and owners promise this location will be unlike any other. The $4 million renovation of the almost 140-year-old building maintains the integrity of the space with a first-floor restaurant, second-floor banquet room, and covered rooftop patio and bar. [Crain's]

Pontiac, your The Renaissance is next. [Prosper]

The Free Press discovers craft beer. [Freep]

Here are Famous People who ate and drank things in Detroit. [Examiner / Esquire]

Don't know if you know this, but pop-ups are kind of, like, a thing around here. [DetNews]

The physical storefront might not be open yet but the online storefront is. [Detroit Institute of Bagels]

And now, the "Detroit Rises" story en Español. Basically Detroit was dying, Obama helped save the auto industry, now Detroit is on the path to recovery, rah rah Dan Gilbert our White Knight, only except for our government is still fuct, but that isn't stopping young entrepreneurs from coming in or citizens from impacting positive change, hooray Midtown and Sue Mosey and Whole Foods, and also hooray Jordi Carbonell of Cafe Con Leche. [Internacional en EL PAÍS]

You know, with a name like Jolly Pumpkin they damn well SHOULD be making these "best pumpkin beer" lists. Here is some love for La Parcela, La Parcela again, and also Ichabod and Jaw Jacker. [WSJ / Serious Eats: Drinks / DRAFT]

Krazy Jim's in A2 is featured on yet another food/travel TV show. Cuz they're so dang CRAZY! And not because television researchers are lazy. [AnnArbor.com]

Speaking of research, Buddy's is on another "best pizzas in the country" list. [Relish]

I wish I had been keeping track of the latest rash of "we lift Detroit in baseball" stories, but I haven't been. Regardless, here is the latest entrant into the genre from the San Francisco Chronicle. [SFC]

Eat It Elsewhere
~Grand Rapids' infamous beer bar HopCat is expanding: a second location will open in Lansing with 100 taps (making it the largest draft selection in the state) and owners Mark and Michele Sellers of BarFly Ventures (which owns several other GR bars) will also be opening the Lansing Brewing Co. [MLive]

~And in more Mark Sellers news, he has announced the official opening date of the much-anticipated (re)opening of the Grand Rapids Brewing Co.: December 5. [MLive]

~And Grand Rapids finally gets its very own authentic Polish eatery with Polka Pops Cafe. This might make the transition to a clean and functional city a bit easier on Detroiters. Familiarity and all. [GR Now]