Russell Street Deli. (Photo: Facebook)
The owner of Russell Street Deli will not open a long-planned Eastern European and Middle Eastern restaurant in Corktown and has instead sold the site to focus on growing the company's wholesale soup business.
Crain's reports Russell Street owner Ben Hall made the decision "amid concerns about the [restaurant] industry." Lucky for Hall, however, the real estate industry in the neighborhood where he'd planned to open is doing great. The building on Lafayette near Trumbull sold for more than $500,000 — about $300,000 more than Hall paid for it in 2013.
Lafayette Kitchen and Diner was to be a 57-seater and had already obtained a liquor license. The change in direction follows a wave of Detroit restaurant closings:
He echoed an underlying feeling of instability in the local industry — "although everybody is very excited, places have already gone out of business," he said.
The long list of recently announced closings includes Hard Rock Cafe in Detroit, New Parthenon in Greektown and Pasquale's Restaurant and Andiamo Trattoria in Royal Oak.
Those that haven't folded continue to deal with a skilled labor shortage, rising costs and other restaurant industry difficulties that could contribute to a slowdown in 2019, Detroit Free Press food writer Mark Kurlyandchik recently reported in an analysis of the coming year.
