MOCAD reopens, renamed, rewindowed
MOCAD reopens Saturday after eight months of renovation. The 4454 Woodward building, a former auto dealership designed by Albert Kahn, has been the museum's home for the entirety of its 20 years.
Author · Guest Writer
Samantha
Guest Writer
Samantha is a Guest Writer at Strait Journal. Reports on Detroit's drinking institutions - the bars, venues, cocktail rooms, listening bars, and dive bars that make the city's night scene.
Has contributed pieces to the Journal since 2024 and stepped into a more defined guest role in 2026.
Drinks Negronis. Currently working through a list of every dive bar east of Woodward, with mixed results. Believes the best room in Detroit on a slow Tuesday is whichever one the bartender remembers your name in. Has a senior beagle named Roy.
New enough to the masthead that she still gets excited about every assignment.
-
Quick hits
- Favorite room:
- Temple Bar on a Wednesday
- Favorite restaurant:
- Bunny Bunny
- One Detroit artist to put on first:
- DJ Holographic
Recent work
Reverse chronological
Bar Chenin became Michigan's only James Beard award finalist on March 31
The James Beard Foundation announced its 2026 finalists on Tuesday, March 31, 2026.
Sunda lands a fifth restaurant in the district Detroit
Billy Dec is honest about the bet. He has framed Sunda's Detroit room as a step outside the brand's familiar model and called it an exciting risk that is still a risk.
Hamtramck Blowout 2026 dropped the wristband back to twenty bucks and pulled in 130 acts
The 2025 Blowout sold 220 acts across 25 venues with a thirty-five-dollar wristband.
Antidote opens at the Detroit edge of Grosse Pointe Park
Nya Marshall opened her first restaurant, Ivy Kitchen + Cocktails, in East Village in December 2019. She bought the building a decade ago when there was effectively nothing on that block.
Medusa opens anthony Lombardo's Sicilian restaurant a block from SheWolf
Selden Street between Second and Third is Anthony Lombardo's block now.
GM moves global HQ to hudson's Detroit
General Motors began moving its global headquarters into Hudson's Detroit on January 12, 2026, ending a roughly three-decade run inside the Renaissance Center.
Street Beet finally gets a Corktown address with its name on it
The pop-up has been Detroit's most ambitious vegan operation for seven years. McDaddy's. Taco Hell. The plant-based versions of the things you actually want to eat at one a.m.
Pingree Detroit makes Detroit a shoe city again, by hand
Pingree Detroit opened its first storefront at 11:11 a.m. on 11/11. Veterans Day, intentionally, because most of the company's co-owners are veterans.
Wilson Park opens on 22 acres of riverfront
Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park opened on October 25, 2025, on a 22-acre stretch of riverfront between 8th Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard.
The Riverwalk becomes continuous from Belle Isle to Wilson Park
The Detroit Riverwalk became continuous on October 25, 2025, with the opening of a new extension west of Riverfront Towers that links the existing path to Ralph C.
Ralph c. Wilson Jr. centennial Park opens, completing the western Riverwalk
Detroit's newest waterfront park, the 22-acre Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, opened to the public on Saturday, October 25, 2025 WXYZ.COM, after eight years of planning.
Mary-Ann Monforton's Heart Land plays house at the Mobile Homestead
The MOCAD main building closed in August for HVAC and infrastructure renovations through early 2026.
Marble Bar turned 10 the only way it knows how
Marble Bar turned 10 on October 3 and 4, 2025, and marked the occasion by booking Octave One live and Danny Daze on the same weekend.
A Victorian pub on Mack Avenue is booking the Belleville three
Cannons Bar opened in October 2025. It serves oysters and books techno.
Detroit's first contemporary Art fair lands at Michigan central
Detroit got its first contemporary art fair this weekend.
Foxglove ended its 2025 season at Dreamtroit with juan Atkins and a family-friendly Day party
Foxglove closed its 2025 season on September 20 by leaving the garden. The garden, the Leicester Court yard that has been Foxglove's home in the North End since 2023, only holds a few hundred people.
Apple finally opens a store in downtown Detroit
Apple opened its first downtown Detroit store at 5 p.m. on Friday, September 19, with Tim Cook in attendance. He greeted the line, then unlocked the doors.
BLKOUT Walls spreads out for its third edition
BLKOUT Walls came back this month. Ten days, September 4 through 13, the festival's third edition. The festival was founded in 2021 by Detroit muralist Sydney G.
Sip 'n Read opens in Corktown with a michigan-only wine list
Tamela Todd opened Sip 'N Read on August 27, 2025, at 1620 Michigan Avenue in Corktown. It is a bookstore. It is also a wine bar. Customers have to be 21 or over to walk in.
Lauren Ellis won Hatch Detroit. now she has to build the bakery.
Lauren Ellis pitched a French viennoiserie bakery on a Wednesday night at the Wayne State University Industry Innovation Center, in front of judges and a public that had cast 21,000 votes.
Soul clap's House of EFUNK turned 11
Soul Clap's House of EFUNK ran its 11th edition at TV Lounge over Movement weekend 2025. Two nights. Deep lineup.
Pocket Change's first rooftop pop-up brought Mink's sarah Welch and cameron Rolka shucking above gratiot
The first Sunday after Pocket Change opened, the third-floor rooftop was hosting a husband-and-wife oyster pop-up.
Pocket Change hides a cocktail bar above Eastern Market
The signage is one neon sign that says COCKTAILS in red. That's it. Walk past it and you will.
Robert Encarnación opened two restaurants in one West Village building
Robert Encarnación bought the building at 8016 Kercheval Avenue from the Detroit Land Bank in April 2021. It took him four years to open it.
Dirty Shake opened on 313 Day with a wraparound patio, boozy slushies, and a hummer
Sandy Levine and Doug Hewitt opened Dirty Shake at Forest and Second on March 13, 2025. They picked the date for the obvious reason.
Bar Chenin tucks a 10-seat wine Bar into the Siren
The room seats ten people. There is a narrow shelf along the opposite wall where another handful can stand and lean. There is no reservation system.
Yvonne Byrd opened minnie's Detroit on Trumbull, the fourth Detroit bar She's owned
Yvonne Byrd has run a bar in Detroit since 2008. Vondie's on the River was the first, named after her childhood nickname. It ran until 2012, when the lease wasn't renewed.
Temple Bar fell down and got back up
Part of Temple Bar collapsed in May 2024. It reopened seven months later.
Yellow Light coffee makes Michigan Central its second home
The first food and drink tenant inside Michigan Central Station since 1988 is a coffee and donut shop from the east side.
Hamilton's anchors the Godfrey hotel in Corktown
The Godfrey Hotel opened on Michigan Avenue in summer 2023, but its full-service ground-floor restaurant came later.
UFO Bar opens where UFO Factory stood
UFO Bar opened on August 16, 2024, at 2110 Trumbull Street in Corktown, in the building that had been UFO Factory for ten years.
Vecino bets a roofless Cass Corridor building on heirloom corn
Vecino opened on a Friday in April after a long buildout. The 1926 corner at 4100 Third had sat empty for fifty years before Adriana Jimenez and Lukasz Wietrzynski talked themselves into it.