Uptown Grille in Commerce, Michigan is pretty much the most popular place in the metro Detroit area. It’s all at once a bar, restaurant and cafe and somehow draws an absurd number of visitors. So absurd, in fact, that when we dropped in on a weekday for a late lunch, we literally got the last table available. The menu is pretty vast, containing everything from salads to burgers to sandwiches to pizzas and in-between. And each of these items had a ton of options, leading me to worry that Uptown Grille might fall victim to trying to do too much.
Many times I have lamented the lack of a microbrewery in LA. Sure, I’ve heard there’s one in Eagle Rock, but in 3+ years of living in LA I haven’t set foot in Eagle Rock and probably couldn’t point it out on a map. Plus, that’s one (allegedly good) brewery for a city with a metropolitan area of just under 18 million. Blech. But Michigan is another story, with plentiful great microbreweries. One of these is CJ’s Brewing Company in Commerce. And while I’ve had some delicious beers there, as with most microbreweries, the food is just as good.
With nearly every visit back to Michigan (time permitting), there is a requisite stop at a Coney Island. You can’t drive more than a few miles in the metro Detroit area without hitting a Coney, and I’m pretty sure they are all awesome. My go-to Coney growing up was Leo’s, but sometimes convenience outweighs loyalty. So last time I was back in the homeland, we went to Lulu’s Coney Island in Walled Lake.