Downtown Royal Oak Traded Pints for Martinis This Year. Here Is What Replaced What

Until August 30, you could walk into 111 S. Main, get a wristband, and pour your own beer by the ounce from 40 taps. At the corner of South Main and West 11 Mile, the ground floor of 100 S. Main now books tables on OpenTable for chicken limoncello and Chilean sea bass. Up on North Main, the old Inn Place Bar & Grill now serves seafood towers and caviar.

Each change got its own short news item this summer. Put together, they show downtown moving one way. The casual places are being replaced by cocktail-led dinner rooms, and one of the area's showiest rooms has come down to meet them.

The self-pour experiment ran its course

North End Taproom had a bigger role than its size suggests. In 2022, Michigan passed a law allowing self-pour taprooms, and owners Katheryn and Jon Stoia were among the small group of business owners who spoke with lawmakers to help get it written. By summer 2023, Royal Oak had two self-serve taphouses, North End Taproom and Elephant & Co. Both are now closed.

The Stoias' closing statement was short. AOL reported that the Stoias wrote, "We are heartbroken and would have loved to continue this journey forever but unfortunately, it is just not sustainable for us." The format itself hasn't died. The Detroit News listed self-pour bars still running in Detroit: Social Brews, Midtown's Elephant & Co. and Corktown Taphouse.

The Detroit News opened its story with "Another week, another craft beer-centric business is closing." It also listed nearby closures: Stumblebum Brewing in Troy, Cadillac Straits Brewing Company in Madison Heights, Heights Brewing in downtown Farmington, and Brewery Faisan in Detroit. So the taproom pullback reaches well beyond Royal Oak. The local part of the story is what moved into the space it left.

Four addresses, one direction

Here is how the downtown changes reported so far this year line up, address by address.

The openings share a menu style. For The Wise opened in July next to Crispelli's. It pairs signature cocktails with oysters, caviar service and seafood towers. The Stone Fruit Sour is made with pisco, apricot, peach and nectarine, and the Dirty Spritz with prosecco, vermouth, soda and brine. Hoodline reported that city filings list Morelli as the sole member of the business. In a summer post, the bar promised vinyl in the DJ booth on Fridays and Saturdays, "tons of oysters being shucked" and "a million martinis."

Bijou took over the Iron Horse space on West 4th after that bar closed in March, ending a run of more than a decade. The Detroit News described it as having a steakhouse vibe. Its dinner menu runs from lamb lollipops and a wagyu flat iron to filet, Chilean sea bass and lobster agnolotti. It was open by mid-August. Coverage so far hasn't given an exact opening date.

Three spaces went from a bar-and-grill, a long-running bar and a pour-your-own taproom to rooms with a wine list, a cocktail program and a filet or a seafood tower. Two of the five addresses in the table changed hands between operators who already run other restaurants downtown, or in Birmingham's case, a few miles up Woodward.

The rooftop came down a floor

The Bella Rose move looks the same on paper and works the other way. Adam Merkel's building at 11 Mile and Main has held a lot of concepts. It has been a steakhouse, the rooftop spot Pinky's, Bohemia, and the oyster bar Pearl's Deep Dive. Most recently, Bella Limone ran Italian on the rooftop. In August it closed, and Bella Rose Italian opened on the main floor.

Merkel's own explanation shows which way the change runs.

"Moving to the main floor gave us the opportunity to completely rethink the restaurant and create something that feels lighter, more energetic and more approachable, while still delivering the quality and experience people expect from us."

So the casual addresses moved up toward dinner, and the rooftop moved down toward "approachable." Both ended up in the same kind of room. Bella Rose's menu was developed with Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, which runs Big Rock Italian Chophouse in Birmingham, where Merkel is also a partner. It starts with garlic bread, Brussels sprouts, roasted cauliflower and Sicilian saganaki, then goes to house-made pasta, steak frites, chicken limoncello and Chilean sea bass. Wine comes by the bottle or the glass, alongside Italian-leaning cocktails and a margarita list.

Next door, in the former Pearl's Deep Dive space, is Little Bella's Pizza & Wine Bar. The Detroit News singled out its espresso martini soufflé cocktail and said its classic martinis "are done very well, too." Sean May, formerly of Adachi, is beverage director for both Bellas. Adachi is the Birmingham restaurant whose burger has won two years running. A drinks lead from there now shapes the martini list at 11 Mile and Main. That's another link in the corridor between the two downtowns.

One more detail at this address shows how fast concepts turn over. The oyster bar on the ground floor gave way to pizza and wine, and a few blocks north, oysters reappeared at For The Wise.

What the turnover cost

Some of the change came with real losses. Edo Ramen closed permanently in September, just short of its 10th anniversary. It had been shut for weeks after a summer power outage and a broken air conditioning system. The Metro Times had just named it "Best Noodle Restaurant." Diners knew it for working around vegan and gluten-free needs, for its art shows and live music, and as one of the few restaurants in Oakland County serving Filipino dishes like pancit and lumpia.

The owners' statement gave several reasons: the lease was ending, building repairs were expensive, and the cost of a new lease was unknown. They added a line that fits much of this summer's news: "the restaurant business has been tougher in the last year … the economy is just not what it used to be."

As of early October, no new tenant has been announced for the Edo Ramen space or for 111 S. Main. Those two spaces will show whether the trend continues.

An October calendar for the new downtown

The newer rooms are dinner and drinks places, and October gives a few reasons to plan an afternoon downtown before them.

• Antiques & Collectibles Market, Sunday, Oct. 11, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Royal Oak Farmers Market, 316 E. 11 Mile Road. The city calendar doesn't list an admission price.
• 43rd Royal Oak DDA Spooktacular, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2 to 5 p.m., free. The Royal Oak Chamber of Commerce hosts it and the DDA sponsors it. Activities are split between Fifth Street Plaza at Fifth and Washington and Centennial Commons. They include trick-or-treating, dinosaur and character encounters, face painting, a DJ, a magician, a dance performance and a costume contest.
• Zoo Boo at the Detroit Zoo, 8450 W. 10 Mile Road. It runs Oct. 9–11, 16–18 and 23–25, from 3 to 8:30 p.m. On event days, regular zoo hours end at 2 p.m. before the evening opening. Tickets are $21 to $25 online or $27 at the gate, members pay $18.90 to $22.50, everyone age 2 and up needs a ticket, and parking is $8.

The Spooktacular wraps up at 5 p.m., right around when the new rooms open. Bella Rose takes reservations through OpenTable. In a summer post, For The Wise listed 5 p.m. openings, with service until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and until 11 p.m. on Sundays. Check forthewisebar.com before you go, since July filings showed a different proposed schedule. Bijou posts its dinner, cocktail and wine menus at bijouroyaloak.com.

If you'd like a resident's read on what the next openings at 111 S. Main and the old Edo Ramen space might mean for the blocks around your street, Erin Dewald follows downtown Royal Oak closely and is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.