Today's show is in two parts. We talk about the rollout of the the new Michelin Green Guide for Metro Detroit. It covers the best places to go, and is a resource for travelers around the country. Detroit is one of only 10 cities in America to get such a guide.
And we end the conversation with a little salute to Devin Scillian who this is his last week on air at WDIV-TV 4. A true local media icon.
Listen in the player below, and scroll down for a complete transcript.
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Jer Staes: Hello! And welcome to your Daily Detroit, sharing what to know and where to go in southeast Michigan. It is Wednesday, December 11, 2024. I am Jer Staes, coming to you from our studio at TechTown in beautiful Detroit, Michigan. And to my left is none other than the excellent Norris Howard. How are you?
Norris Howard: I'm doing well, man. And it's always a good day when you get a chance to visit the new and improved Michigan Central. And we got a chance to do that, and we got something to share with everybody. We got some good news, good stuff to talk about today.
Jer Staes: It's really nice and it's always fun to do. Like a manly field trip. Yeah. Yeah, like a bro field trip.
Norris Howard: A bro date. We had a bro date.
Jer Staes: But before we get into that, I want to thank our sponsor today. Because today's show is brought to you in part by your local Metro Detroit Best Choice Roofing. In my mind, there's one choice for roofing around here and I'd go with your best choice. Whether it's time to replace your roof or repair it.
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All right. Detroit has a Michelin guide.
Norris Howard: Yeah, man. For those who don't know what a Michelin guide is, yes, [it is] the same company as the tires. But [it is] also the same company that gives those coveted Michelin restaurant stars that everybody covets. But this is a different team.
This is not that.
This is the travel team.
This makes me think of sports. Like this is the travel team.
Yeah, but it's like there's two different specific teams. One that deals with just restaurants, [and] another that deals with travel. And the travel team puts together these fantastic guides that allow you to kind of see what to do and where to go in a certain city.
There's only been nine previous [guides] made for cities in the United States, and Detroit is the 10th city. So obviously New York, Chicago's, Miami's and Washington D.C., they all have one. But Detroit is number 10. And I think that it reflects where the city is right now, [and] where it's going.
People are excited about the city and the guide is pretty cool. You know there’s some gaps. But at the same time, if you are a complete tourist and you have never been to Detroit ever in the history of your life; and you're just looking for stuff to do, this is a good start.
It's very interesting because it also includes a lot of things that would be for international travelers.
Yes, right.
You'll see in there how to go to banks. What is the age for drinking?
Is the water safe to drink?
Right, right. And I think this is a good thing for Detroit and Metro Detroit to highlight some of the great places that we have. And so people know why we were at Michigan Central, we were at the press event unveiling this [guide].
Yes.
And they brought-up some really interesting people. I want to highlight the top attractions. They offered three star ratings, and now they offer various ratings.
Yeah, but three stars is their highest honor.
Right. So that went to the Cranbrook Educational Community, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Downtown Detroit, as a concept. So within the freeway loops [are] the Guardian Building and the Henry Ford Museum. And this is a rating equal to the most famous attractions in the world, such as the Louvre.
Yeah. It literally put the DIA on the same level as the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Musée d'Orsay, [and] the Met.
Places like that, that to some may…
Feel a little unbelievable, but that's because you're from here. I mean, if you're from Paris, the Eiffel Tower loses its luster after you've seen it every day. So, yeah, I get it.
But the DIA is a special, special museum. It is a place that has works of art that literally are nowhere else on planet Earth. It has collections that don't exist anywhere else on Earth. So, it's awesome that this reaches one of the highest honors.
But also Cranbrook, which I think for a lot of folks, especially when I grew up or where I grew up, you know, we didn't really think of Cranbrook as a destination and more so was thought of as the school.
You.
More so thought of Cranbrook, the school, by the way, where at the 8 Mile, because that's a private school. But when you go to that campus, and you go up to Cranbrook. And you see the architecture.
You see how the gardens are laid out, and you see just how much thought and artistry is put into Cranbrook. You begin to understand that it is kind of something that is unlike anywhere else in Metro Detroit. And really that I've seen in the country.
Also helpful in this is that although it's not like the whole Michelin star thing, they do [make] recommendations. They put a red heart near some of the businesses. I want to give a shout-out to friends of the show on multiple occasions here. Okay?
Absolutely!
Castellia Cocktails [is] recommended.
Absolute friends of the show!
Kiesling, who has been through here. We have a whole episode. You can go back. Recommended.
Yeah, absolutely.
There are so many places. Oh, The Congregation, where we have had happy hours for this show. Recommended. Look, I gotta tell you, when I look at those things, I'm like, all right. I think the listeners of Daily Detroit have some taste.
They do. They do. And I think it really helps to emphasize that even though we just think of it as our little corner of Detroit or our little slice of this dirty town in Michigan that we love so much, there are unique places. And there are places that people will come to from other parts of the world and appreciate. And I think it's important for us in Detroit in particular, to start looking at ourselves on that more global stage.
I think a lot of times we almost compartmentalize ourselves as we compare ourselves to Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids and Chicago and Columbus, and it's like, “No, get out of that.” We got to start comparing ourselves to the Londons and the Paris and in these sorts of places in the world. Because at one point we were on that scale.
And that plays into our other conversations as well, like our more serious conversations. Because if you're going to have a City that's going to be in those conversations, then that's a City that has a lot of things that are tight, that are coming together. You know what I mean? Now, you are a longtime Detroiter. You are a native Detroiter.
Yes, sir.
How does this guide feel to you? Like, when you opened it at first, when you like, how does this, how does this feel? The vibes.
See, so the thing is, Jer, I'm a born and raised Detroiter, but I'm kind of. I'm a different animal, but I am the same beast. You know what I'm saying? I'm from here, but there's a lot of things that I think I do [know]. And I participate in that … I'm going to be honest, even on this show that we talk about a lot, that a lot of native Detroiters simply don't have the opportunity to experience or don't know to experience or don't know to experience.
We talk about Kiesling and Castalia and so many of the other restaurants that we like to frequent down this way that a lot of folks in Detroit, have never been to and don't know are around, because, to be frank, they're not marketed to [them].
I think when you have something like this, and I'm not, you know, saying that people from Detroit are going to go and pick up this guide and all of a sudden, start exploring their own cities like tourists. But as a native, it showed to me that there is a lot of attraction and opportunity for even those in the City to begin to experience [things] that maybe they haven't had a chance to.
Now, is there a lot that I think we know about? Yeah, but we're very tuned in; and we talked about this right before we came on air, that we kind of have to check our own privilege sometimes, and we get invited to things. And we get to go to openings, and we get to see the new thing before the new thing is open.
I was at Michigan Central last night for the book release party. Friends of the show are photographers with it. And it's a beautiful thing. And there were hundreds of people there, but … and I saw some listeners of the show, but I know that for the vast majority of listeners that's a world they're just not tapped into.
Yeah. And these are privileges. And so for me, I look at something like this guide, and I say, “Hey, you know, there's a lot of stuff here for people to do that I think it's worth a lot of folks discovering, whether that be local, international or native.”
One of the things that I will say, though, that I think is fantastic is that [when] you open up the book, you get to page six, which is like the first page, where they start suggesting stuff for you to do. First thing they say is techno. That's crazy to me because everybody always wants to talk about all the coneys, oh, the lions old, all this other stuff.
Techno, like, we forget about its level of importance to the rest of the world in terms of a genre. And I got a quick anecdote because I was in Paris a few years ago, and when I was there for a couple weeks I went to a restaurant. And a guy could tell from the way I spoke French that I was American. He said, “Well, where in America are you from?” And I said, “Detroit.” And the first thing out of his mouth was not, “Oh, Eminem!” It was not, “Oh, that's a rough city, man.” Or “Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.” It was “Techno!” That was the first thing out of his mouth.
When I worked corporate, we had international offices, and we would do an all-staff [meeting] where everyone from around the world that were on the management teams would come to Detroit and [we would] get to show them the city. And I remember always the European delegations, especially the Lithuanian one, was all about the drinks and the techno and were like taking it to 11. Because, there is just a love for electronic music from Detroit all around the world.
And it's wild to me because sometimes I feel like it doesn't get enough love here. There's Movement. You can occasionally do things. Like one of the most magical times I've had is when I was biking on the Riverfront, and I ran into a gospel house service on the Riverfront inside.
More stuff like that, please.
Yes, more like that.
Yeah.
And that's what I want to encourage more of because I feel like there's just so much here to even be a tourist in our own region in a way.
Yeah, I feel like, especially when I was coming up, a lot of it was forced underground. We used to go to techno parties out in like Core City before we called it Core City. And like you would just go … you would just be at some random hollowed out warehouse or building somewhere where some DJ plugged in, and you just had a party till 4am. It was all house and techno and all this stuff.
And it was great, but it's not sustainable. It's organic, it's fantastic. It makes you feel like you're a part of something that is uniquely yours. But to take it to a level to where it could become a fully fledged part of the culture, I want to see more of it … I don't want to say become, but stay as a part of the culture.
Well, speaking of Detroit institutions, I want to leave with an acknowledgment because this is the last week. I can't believe it. As his former short-time coworker, Devin Scillian, this is the last week Channel 4 News as anchor. And I truly can't believe it. I don't know him as well as some other people on the show do, but I have talked to him multiple times. I always have run into him at the Mackinac Policy Conference.
Yeah.
And always very grounded in his views on things.
A regular dude, man. right.
Like a regular dude who moved to Detroit and treated it as his own.
Yeah, he was like the anti-Mort Crim who was like …
Hey! No Mort Crim slander. Know [that] he has been on this [podcast].
No, no, no, no, no Mort Crim is dope, but he's like this larger than life character.
Oh, okay.
You know what I mean?
Like, I was not gonna allow Mort …
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I love everything about Mort Crim, but I'm just saying, like, Devin was so regular compared [to Mort]. That's why I think it kind of took him a while to really. For people to really, like, embrace him. Because coming after somebody like Mort Crim, man, like, well, and then of course.
The colorful Mort Crim. Bill Bond's era.
Exactly like that was the guy. And, you know, here came a guy who just sat and read the news and played his guitar and called it a day. And I think, in this era looking back, we will all really appreciate that about him. I think we really will.
And he was as comfortable with any interview that he did because I've seen him just go to press things, you go to whatever. I just have so much respect for his breadth and his true interest in the details of stories and in some ways kind of inspirational for me, where it's like, “Hey, if we're going to do public affairs reporting, if we're going to talk about the greater story, do the homework.”
Yeah, he did do the work. He did the work. And as somebody who aspired to be a journalist since a young boy, watching him and watching the care that he put into the stories and watching his ability to be able to talk to people from all over the city as well as luminaries, politicians, all that, it really, really sort of gave me perspective on how to approach the profession.
And I think he's gonna walk out and walk away as a great example of how to be a journalist in this town where it's easy to get caught up in sensationalism and easy to get caught up in the foolishness.
Yeah, he didn't get into the foolishness. It is my sincere hope to someday have a conversation with him on the show.
I feel like we gotta make it happen.
I feel like it would be a very special thing to do.
If any of Devin's people are listening, then we would love to have him on the show and just. And just talk, man, you know, just newsman to newsman about what it's been like, to put that many years in one town and how it's changed over the years. But yeah, I think it's gonna be a big loss. But hey, these things happen. We all come to new horizons.
Well, if you've got thoughts on that or on the Michelin Green Guide, the book that's sitting right here at the studio … if you're looking for it, it's a pocket sized thing. You can just kind of …
That's bigger than pocket size. It's … backpack size.
Okay.
Yeah, it's a little, slightly larger than pocket size.
If you've got feedback or ideas, dailydetroit@gmail.com. [We] would love to hear from you! With that, I'm Jer Staes.
And I'm Norris Howard.
Thank you so much for listening! Thank you to our members on Patreon: patreon.com/dailydetroit. Without local support, local media cannot happen. Until tomorrow. Remember that you are somebody! And we'll see you around Detroit.