The Brooklyn Street Local, a brunch-and-lunch restaurant, is set to open later this spring in the former Brooklyn Street Grill location in Corktown.
Thirty-somethings Deveri Gifford and Jason Yates recently moved from Toronto to Detroit to open the restaurant. The native Canadians were attracted to Detroit's music and urban gardening scenes and came down to the visit the Motor City for more than a year before making the move. Even though they liked living in Toronto, Gifford was a server and Yates an electrician, the two drew a distinction between Toronto's metropolis culture and Detroit's big city/small town feel.
"Toronto wasn't somewhere I wanted to spend the rest of my life," Gifford says. "It's very big and anonymous. The community here was one the of things we liked when we first started coming down here."
The couple recently bought the building at the corner of Brooklyn Street and Michigan Avenue in a deal brokered by Ryan Cooley of Corktown-based O'Connor Realty. "Once we got inside of it we knew it was what we wanted," Giffords says. "The inside was in pretty good condition. The location was great. Corktown has a lot going on and seems like it is on the upswing."
The Brooklyn Street Local will serve classic American-style breakfast and lunch dishes. Gifford and Yates plan to make sure the food is as organic and locally sourced as possible and see Detroit's emerging urban agriculture scene as great source for both. The couple plan to open Brooklyn Local by the end of May.
Source: Deveri Gifford, co-owner of The Brooklyn Street Local
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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