Photo by Dave Krieger
Metropolitan Store | Kitchen and Bar is expected to open in the former Craft Work space next month.
The former home of Craft Work, a popular small plates and cocktail bar in Detroit's West Village that shuttered in 2020, is getting a new life, or, better yet, three lives.
Expected to open sometime in November, Metropolitan Variety Store | Kitchen and Bar, located at 8047 Agnes St., will serve as a neighborhood marketplace focusing on a curated selection of to-go beer, liquor, and wine, as well as a restaurant and cocktail bar.
The concept, first announced in 2018, has been made a reality with Rick Stanza and Jonathan Hartzell of Detroit Rising Development, as well as Ashley Price, former alcohol buyer at Royal Oak's Holiday Market, and Brendon Edwards, former executive chef of the former Corktown hotspot Gold Cash Gold.
Per a press release, the space will be broken up into three different experiences: a market, which will offer grab and go items and provisions, as well as beer, liquor, and wine; a "veggie-centric" restaurant described as "a fusion of California cuisine and traditional Mexican cooking" with some American fare (ie: burgers) sprinkled in; and a bar, you know, for drinking.
The restaurant will be by reservation only, while the bar will remain available for walk-ins. There's a space between the bar and restaurant areas that will be used for overflow but, in the near future, will accommodate pop-ups and private events.
Additionally, the space is a reimagining of the building's past lives, both Craft Work and those that came before. Metropolitan Variety owners salvaged a 100-year-old chandelier from storage, as well as cabinetry from an apothecary that used to operate out of the space.
This is but one concept in the works for Detroit Rising Development, as there are three projects expected to break ground within the next year in Midtown.
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