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Looking Back At Names, Places
In Detroit's Dining Experience

DANNY RASKIN

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West Bloomfield

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4 0:ziANdtb:

6407 ORCHARD LAKE RD, WEST BLOOMFIELD
ORCHARD MALL-ORCHARD LAKE RD & MAPLE

.400 -

851-6400

ORIENTAL
and
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CUISINE

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fifrit

Jr
.W..)

-IV .1
, ft

Fine
Italian-American
Cuisine

• Lunches • Dinners
• Cocktails

4/"If

Enjoy Homemade Authentic
Fresh Italian Specialties

Pasta at Picano's Made From Old World Recipes.
Breads & Desserts Made Daily at Picano's.
LIVE ENTERTAINMENT
PINO MARELLI Tues., Thurs. & Fri.
SUSAN WOODLAND At the Piano Sat.
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Open 7 Days
Mon.-Thurs. 11 to 10:30
Up To 100

Fri. & Sat.
Sun.

11 to 11:30
12 to - tom

3775 ROCHESTER RD • Troy

Off-Premises Catering
Available

'A Mile N. of Big Beaver & 1-75

0,__.

689 8050

'1

„....,—....___An

,/

76

FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1992

est aurant ramblings

'round yesteryears .. .
Time was when the
restaurant population in
Detroit was fairly stable .. .
There was Joe Muer's, the
London Chop House, Little
Harry's and quite a number
of good restaurants doing
business at the same stand
every year. _
Many of the places like
Mario's, Carl's, Lelli's and
others are still going strong.
A millionaire electrical con-
tractor named Joe Schoenith
built a spectacular restaurant
on the river and called it the
Roostertail, after the spray
kicked up by his other hobby,
powerboats . . . Mario's on Se-
cond Boulevard added a new
cocktail lounge . . . Ken
Nicholson, prepped under the
master, Cliff Bell, and bought
the old Seafood Grotto on
Seven Mile and Telegraph
and turned it into a beauty
spot called gbpinka's Country
House . . . Whittier Hotel's
Gold Cup Room on Jefferson
whacked out $250,000 (big
bucks then) for a complete
remodeliing job that made it
one of Detroit's most
glamorods dining rooms .. .
Eddie Pawl spent a like
amount refurbishing the old
Sid's, formerly owned by Sol
Boesky, on E. Warren and
Mitch Housey's Maison
Riviera was alleged to have
cost even more with its lavish
ideas.
Al Green on E. Jefferson
brought Cantonese vittles to
the east side, reaching out to
Trader Vic's Honolulu store
for his chef, with bartenders
from Don The Beachcombers,
also in Honolulu . . . Any
resemblance betwen Jim Cor-
nelius' Knife and Fork Club,
formerly Ted Lipsitz', on
Howard and the locker room
at then Briggs Stadium or
Olympia was purely
intentional.
The best known restaurant
to many New Yorkers and
Californians who visited
Detroit was the London Chop
House . . . Les and Sam
Gruber, along with their part-
ner Al Woolf, were its pro-
prietors . . . They also ran two
other dining spots at the
same time, Caucus Club in
the Penobscot Building and
London East in Grosse Pointe
. . . The Wonder Bar was cer-
tainly one of Detroit's most
cosmopolitan restaurants, a
direct heir of one of the city's
most elegant clubs of the '20s

. . . Owner Sammy Sofferin
had parlayed a cigar stand,
an apartment house and the
old Powatan Club into the
very successful Washington
Boulevard operation.
Harry Berman founded
Berman's years back and
retired to Florida . . . selling
it to Sam Davis and Ben Gott-
lieb who maintained those
fantastic cottage fries and
hardly believable Berman
steaks . . . Ladies were
welcome anytime except if
they were alone after 5 p.m.
. . . It was then sold to Ben
Kasle who continued the food
traditions.
Carl Rosenfeld was one of
the most successful tire mer-
chants in the booming young
auto industry when a strange
quirk of fate put him into the
restaurant business . . . His
Grand River Chop House
later became Carl's Chop
House on Grand River off the
Lodge Expressway and is still
a tower of restaurant
strength, owned by Mario's
bossman Frank Passalacqua.
The Carousel on Groesbeck
Highway was owned by Doris
and John Lafferty and part-
ner Joe Olgiati and had that
picture window overlooking
its charcoal grill for people to
watch . . . The Caucus Club
had a dual personality .. .
favorite luncheon spot for
businessmen and at night
becoming a rendezvous for
theatergoers and people out
on the town . . . Driscoll's
Steak House on E. Jefferson
was owned by one of Detroit's
characters, Pete Driscoll, in a
110-year-old building that
Pete made into a restaurant
with its sagging porch and
dipping floor and sign over
the bar, "We Are Not Recom-
mended by Duncan Hines."
Only 30 years old, a very
young man to be a big league
restaurateur, but Eddie Pawl
had older, experienced,
toughened competitors wat-
ching closely as the "Eddie
Pawl's" sign replaced one
that for years brought diners
in droves to Sid's on E. War-
ren . . . On Milwaukee at
Grand Boulevard, Charlie
Eckner's Chop House rode
the crest of a popular
restaurant wave . . . He was a
former University of
Michigan trackman who
became a diehard restaurant
man who loved the business
and with honest sincerity
would say, "If there was any
way for me to improve my
food I would."
Kingsley Inn on Woodward
is still a popular spot for

many, formerly owned by
Fotos N. "Nick" Takis and
now by Gabe Zawideh, with
son Ramsey as food and
beverage director . . . Nick us-
ed to claim he was the first
restaurateur in Detroit to in-
troduce the custom of baking
all rolls and pastries on the
premises . . . That probably
brought some arguments .. .
Russell's Steak House on
Grand River originally was
located in one store, expand-
ed to two and then three,
named after Jim Cockles' dad
who also ran the place.
Joey's Stables on W. Jeffer-
son opened its doors shortly
after prohibition . . . Owner
Joey Nykiel had been in the
Prohibition business during
the Roaring '20s . . . Coming
of repeal brought about a
restaurant and bar he wanted

The changing
game in the
restaurant
business.

different from the run of the
mill but with many of the
charming aspects of the old-
fashioned stable . . .
Ciungan's on SOuthfield in
Ecorse had a chef, Eric Weber,
who liked to tell of being the
chef for King Albert of
Belgium and King August of
Saxony on an African Safari
. . . Few people who had been
to the original Clam Shop on
W. Grand Boulevard, owned
by Dave Goldfine and Frank
Van Brusselin, forget the an-
cient structure originally put
up by a brewery years before
Prohibition . . . When Ernie
Huck and his two sons open-
ed the Redford Inn, it was one
of the places that people en-
joyed being at on a Sunday
afternoon.
To some people it was
known simply as the "fish
place" while others, more im-
aginative, called it the "fish
house" . . . Its real name is
the Ivanhoe Cafe on Jos.
Campau but people still have
another name . . . today call-
ing it the Polish Yacht Club
. . . Nothing made Joe Saltz-
mann, the little waiter at Joe
Muer's on Grand River, hap-
pier than when people used to
let him do the ordering in the
continental tradition . . .
Joseph Engel was better
known as "Brownie" and
hence the name Brownie's on
Lake St. Clair, which had to
be refurbished from the
ground up after a fire . . . The
new building, outside patio
and terraced dining room