Controversial and colorful restaurateur La-Van Hawkins is back with a bang. The creator of Sweet Georgia Brown and former Detroit-area Burger King and Pizza Hut chain owner has done his prison stretch and doesn’t seemed to have missed a beat in bursting back into the scene.

He is on the verge of opening his Detroit's Cheesecake Bistro. Well not quite his. His felon status doesn’t allow him be an owner and have a liquor license, so his long-time partner has his name on the lease and… let’s say it’s complicated.

According to an excellent article by Nathan Skid in this week’s Crain’s he has grand plans for Downtown Detroit that would even make some of the optimists in the forum blush.

He said Detroit's Cheesecake Bistro will serve as a training ground for the management team of Global Hospitality Group, which he says will run the 12 restaurants he has planned for downtown Detroit.

Those restaurants include: Carnivale, based on the Chicago restaurant; Soul Daddy, a white-tablecloth restaurant in Paradise Valley; a reported Michael Jordan's Steak House and an Italian restaurant called Tucci Milan in Greektown; and The Cotton Club, named for the Harlem jazz club, at 1541 Griswold St.

"Detroit is a city that has a spirit that won't die and specializes in comebacks," Hawkins said. "There is a huge opportunity in Detroit right now."