Call if flexibility if you're charitable or a correction if you're less generous
Either way, owners of Fort Street Galley -- a three-month-old downtown Detroit food hall -- seem disappointed with the (un)popularity of their bar section alongside four restaurant counters.
Marlowe Johnson: "A bar should be agile and moving." (Screenshot from Magpie video)
"The bar will transform next week into Magpie, a cocktail lounge that . . . transforms into a more intimate bar at night after the restaurants have closed," Eater Detroit editor Brenna Houck posts.
Under its new name, Magpie will open daily during food hall hours and stay open until midnight on weeknights and 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays to compete with other drinking establishments in the city.
Fort Street is also installing curtains around the bar to give Magpie a more intimate feel during hours when the restaurants aren’t operating.
The rebirth is planned for next Friday. Magpie already has a separate Facebook page, where beverage manager Marlowe Johnson -- formerly head bartender at Gold Cash Gold -- talks in a one-minute video about an "off-the-wall and unconventional" approach to concocting cocktails.
"I think a bar should be agile and moving and change," he says. "Then when you go in, you might try something you might never try again."
Text My Ex, a cocktail with bourbon and overproof rum. (Photo: Facebook)
Yes, you read that right -- and it's presumably a good thing.
Houck previews five craft offerings:
- Ultralight Beam: sake, aloe, absinthe, lime acid and simple syrup
- Toasted Rice Highball: honey foam "sinks into the drink and makes like this Japanese-style sweet tea," Johnson says.
- Text My Ex: Redemption High Rye bourbon, Hamilton 151 rum, vanilla-date syrup, cocchi rosa
- Monotype: African rooibos tea, milk-washed reposado tequila, Moroccan preserved limes, tamarind, grapefruit and lime
- White Butterfly: Watershed Four Peel gin, Chinese bitter melon syrup, Salers aperitif, Cocci Americano, orange blossom water and a cucumber snake
No word yet on what these potent potions will cost.
The bar will open from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m.-2 a.m. Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday.
-- Alan Stamm
