Northern lounge lights up the Detroit restaurant/bar scene

Highlights from the story:

Enter Northern Lights Lounge. With its sophisticated, yet simple, design, it offers customers quiet refuge from a hectic day at the office.

The bar has been open for just a little less than a year and the owners are still doing some work on the dining room. But what’s completed is lovely. Dark-toned woods mix with blues, oranges and hints of metal for a modern, yet vintage, esthetic. Clean lines coincide with curvy lighting fixtures and round salmon-colored booths — the kind you might see Frank Sinatra or Marilyn Monroe occupying in old photographs.

Atmosphere: It’s “work-you” meets “weekend-you.” Elegant enough for a business meeting, but cool enough to share a pitcher of beer with your friends. There’s a lounge in the front of Northern Lights that features couches, a flat-screen television and a shuffleboard table. Make a special trip to the restrooms at Northern Lights — they’re some of the coolest you’ll find in the city.

During lunch, the crowd is anywhere from early 20s to late 70s. But at night you’ll find mostly 20- to 40-year-olds.

Attire: Everything from suits to jeans. At lunch you’ll see sneakers mixed in with work shoes, but at night ladies might feel most comfortable in jeans, a nice top and some dressier shoes. Guys can wear everything from a button-up shirt to a nice, clean T-shirt.

Music: On Friday nights, you’ll typically find a local DJ spinning, but during the week its laid-back music over the well-placed speakers.

Drinks and specialties: Between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m., you’ll find $5 martinis and $1.50 drafts for happy hour from their well-stocked bar.

Smoke factor: Low.

– Source: by Christy L. Breithaupt, The Detroit News