Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: [email protected].
Fiddling while Rome burns: A recent Axios Detroit article adding fuel to an already roaring fire of business failures reminds me of the Emperor Nero’s story. Purportedly, that legendarily loathsome Roman torched his own city, laid blame for the arson elsewhere, then strummed a harp self-satisfied as Rome’s citizens dealt with the disaster. Similarly, as countless proprietary dreams turn to tinder in an unrelentingly arid restaurant economy, reporter Joe Guillen kindled an editorial toga party for his Axios audience by plucking at some sophomoric notions on what our food business community should do to spark surefire success across Detroit’s future dining landscape.
In his Aug. 25 fix-it piece, “Lack of diverse late-night grub in Detroit,” Guillen makes two baby blanket statements that articulate an infantile grasp of what’s lacking in our city’s epicurean zeitgeist. The first could leave a reader unfamiliar with Detroit’s past and/or present questioning our city’s culinary bona fides altogether: “Detroit is fast becoming a destination food city, but the lack of diverse, late-night dining options is holding it back.”
That’s Guillen’s first-blush take; an embarrassment to everybody who knows better. To hear him tell it, we’ve yet to arrive as cosmopolitan foodies. Maybe headway’s been made through cross-cultural inclusiveness, as evidenced by, say, the Middle Eastern and Pan-Euro-infused Coney-diner culture we embrace in these parts. Moving forward, perhaps the crisp, conceptual improvement Detroit-style pizza’s baked into signature pie-making will prove our worth. (Hang in there, Buddy’s, Jet’s, Green Lantern, Shield’s, et al.) Who knows, Joe? You, apparently, so unless and until the brain trust feeding metro Detroit gets behind your urban planning gospel and ups its game with a flock of new, night-owl food venues, neither Mexican Town nor the Nautical Mile, pierogi pride or Walleye as good as it gets in this world, will ever get us over the hump, huh? Not without adding all-night vegan diners, midnight Pho addresses, and hot chicken hangs enough to nourish ravenous hordes of healthy eaters after the bars close.
Guillen goes on to imply failure to indulge such appetites could ultimately stall urban renewal altogether, should he and his fellows decide not to lead the next residential charges into the city until their demands are met: “More choices would not only elevate the city’s national food reputation, but could also attract residents who consider quality nightlife when deciding where to live — otherwise known as young people.”
Look, mommy and daddy Baby Boomers: our luxe-life little ones have grown up and learned to use their words as threats to get what they want.
Ageism is as contemptible a form of prejudice as any other. Maybe Joe should have looked both ways before opening his mouth. There’s nothing wrong with looking at problems from youthful perspectives, but pandering to age-specific reader-subscriber demographics (and advertisers targeting them) is transparent here. Axios’s home page promises “fact-based editorial.” Guillen claims the Detroit restaurant economy would be wise to cater to the younger crowd he represents, who aren’t being catered to by the current generation of food business owners.
Is that a fact, Joe?
Ideas for easy fixes to the problems facing restaurants and restaurateurs of all ages these days tend to fit the definition of young-mindedness to a T. They fall somewhere between childish and far from fleshed-out in any experience-informed way. Consider the vast majority of restaurateurs who choose to close-up before the bars let out. Rest assured, they’ve heard the argument that untapped markets of good, sober-enough customers are just waiting to be better served during the wee hours. Again, they don’t buy it. Late business is drunk business, by and large. Hat’s off to those who make hay dealing with that crowd. From service and kitchen staff to managers and owners, they earn their graveyard shift pay, for sure.
Save your craft-beer breath, Joe. Restaurateurs who don’t do late-night business won’t buy what you’re selling to your browsers. Many may not be open at all much longer. Expanding hours is senseless talk to them. The last thing panicked mom-and-pop operators need to read from us is half-assed speculation on what they should try next to survive. Food prose poseurs clueless to the existential challenge these folks face should look into learning more from their stories post-haste. Any city’s food writing should voice civic conscience as it’s called for. We’d do well to afford our community innkeepers some added agency to reach consumers right now. Detroit has been, is, and — God willing — will continue to be a vibrant and vital, big-time food city, but like in most places on the planet, our restaurant populations are struggling. They need advocacy now, not criticism. In fact, my only remaining editorial critique on this subject is directed toward those who choose to continue to post and publish advertorial tripe, contributing precious little of substance to the topic of what’s really happening across metro Detroit’s food scene. I’m done with glossy city magazines that gloss-over everything but what’s new and trending in the interests of inflation-immune consumer circles. No more writing restaurant “reviews” or “reports” that pander to publishers’ patrons and pad the ad campaign portfolios of magazine sales staff pitching potential new advertisers. The real story of foodie Detroit — present and future — isn’t only about what’s new in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, or where generation X, Y, and Z can dine once they deign the city proper perfectly suited to their tastes. And it will never be fairly told by fluff writers emailing-in 200-word, better-world blurbs and posting ludicrously slivered listicles of top ten places where one can find the best pumpkin-spiced Cappuccinos this fall and low-cal, eggnog-based cocktails come Christmas.
Let’s stop fiddling with storytelling that doesn’t speak truth to a food city on fire in certain quarters. Should plebeian Detroit swallow Joe and his fellow Neros’ narratives on what’s happening here? Should I even have to ask that of a citizenry who’s had more than their share of civic ashes to rise from historically?
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