arts & life

eats

You’ll Find It At
Parks & Rec

A

Lance Sabbage

t 11 o’clock on a Thursday
to refill your mug, if you want to feel that
morning in November, the
comfortable — but Parks & Rec’s staff will
fog still hadn’t lifted past the
happily attend to your needs if you prefer.
fourth floor of Downtown Detroit’s
You order the pound cake, baked in
buildings. Diffuse brightness, crisp
a large muffin tin to give you a personal
air, the hallmarks of the upcoming
cake instead of a slice, and the offer to
winter flecked with the colorful fall.
warm it up is automatic.
Just between Foxtown and the DTE
Ask your servers what they like on the
Aaron Egan
plaza, there’s a unique flatiron build-
menu, and they’ll take a moment to talk
ing where, on a chilly morning like
to you about why they like it, not just drop
this, there’s always a hot mug of cof-
a suggestion on you with an indifferent
fee and something good to
tone. There’s never the old-school
Parks & Rec Diner
eat. Parks & Rec Diner is a 1942 Grand River Ave., Detroit diner feel of vague contempt: The
small place and what it lacks
popcorn grits are good enough that
(313) 446-8370
in seating capacity, it makes
www.parksandrecdiner.com you’ll want to kiss them yourself, so
up for in spirit — and that’s
who needs Flo?
8 a.m.- 2 p.m. Monday-
just the key.
The restaurant industry grows
Wednesday; open until 3 p.m.
We call restaurants and
outward
from the very simple
Thursday-Sunday
hotels the “hospitality indus-
notion of inviting people into your
try,” but those of us inside
space to take care of them. The staff
the restaurant industry too
at Parks & Rec doesn’t have much
often forget the first word, opting instead to focus to manage: the dining room is small, the menu
on the industrial part of it. We reduce servers
concise and easy to read, and there’s only a few
to sales associates with quotas and scripts and
rotating items that the servers need to make sure
thereby destroy the hospitality — the genuine
guests know about — and most of them are dis-
feeling of warmth and welcome.
played in a small glass pastry case on the counter,
The best restaurants do not constrain their
made fresh and delicious by the very capable
staff with scripted dialogue and falsified enthusi-
kitchen.
asm, but rather cultivate a culture of enjoyment
It’s easy to find happiness in a plate of food, no
and conviviality — what we might call hospital-
matter where you go. It’s harder to find a place
ity — in their establishments. Parks & Rec Diner, that keeps that feeling once you look up. Find the
from the first visit, has been a place to call your
hospitality and revel in it.
own.
So much the better if it’s biscuits and gravy at
Perhaps you’ve just spent a night away from
Parks & Rec … or maybe the brisket and grits …
home, and it’s a little too early for lunch; maybe
or how about the special pancakes …?
you had a bowl of cereal or a bagel before you
Aaron Egan is a Detroit-born-and-raised chef, writer and
left. Hang up your coat on the rack in the corner
and have a seat at the counter. If your coffee runs food historian who has lectured nationally on the intersec-
tion of food, history and culture.
empty and you don’t see a server nearby, there’s
a carafe no further than 10 feet from your chair

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1300610

54 December 8 • 2016

