Granite City Ren Cen Location Closed

**401don** · March-03-20, 07:44 PM

https://www.freep.com/story/entertai...ed/4942416002/

I'm surprised they lasted 3 years. Casual dining in the Ren Cen is a tough market. You're too pricey and time consuming for the employees to drop in at lunch and not enough of a destination for visitors. I was excited when I heard they had a patio until I found out the location, rather than the riverfront, was sucking tunnel traffic fumes.

**Scottathew** · March-03-20, 08:56 PM

Over the winter I've done a lot of walking at the RenCen in the publicly available space. I've made a few observations:

- Beautiful space for walking during the winter time. Comfortable, safe, futuristic looking, and bustling with activity.
- Food court is very functional with lots of options
- Outside of the food court the restaurants and shops are spread out in obscure corners of the buildings
- Much of the retail space isn't very well lit, making the maze of dark and unintuitive corridors very unfriendly

**Hypestyles** · March-03-20, 09:01 PM

i wonder if another restaurant will eventually take over, or if the space would be converted into something completely different. Or, possibly just left vacant for "years". how are those places doing at the top of the building?

**DTWflyer** · March-03-20, 10:01 PM

I'm not surprised. The parent company filed for bankruptcy. The chain was highly unremarkable with mediorce food and beer. They seemed to have their niche in suburban office park and outlot locations as a place where people would go for happy hour or dinner when out staying at chain hotels in suburbia.

The location in Troy always seems busy but the music was obnoxiously loud you could barely talk to the people at your table.

The Ren Cen location, outside of Friday happy hour crowd was pretty small at best. They would get a bit of a lunch crowd some days, but the lunch work crowd isn't going to be ordering beers.
I was always curious how this place did on the weekends. Granted it was a better option than the Motor Bar.
Every time I went there the service was terrible, super slow, and overall way overpriced compared to other downtown options.

The space will probably sit vacant for a few years. The Ren Cen just is a terrible spot to do business since its cut off from the rest of downtown, highly subject to a weekday work crowd, and terrible layout of the podium commercial space.

**Zacha341** · March-04-20, 04:42 AM

Bad reviews per Yelp: slow and bad service, especially slow, mediocre food/ high-price combo etc.

Why so many downtown restaurants persist with the 'captive audience' vibe that thinks since you are there you WILL endure whatever they do or have? Some say no. Goodbye.

They'll go to the events downtown and head out, and away afterwards. The lunch crowd cannot sustain a restaurant.

**Honky Tonk** · March-04-20, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by Zacha341

Bad reviews per Yelp: slow and bad service, especially slow, mediocre food/ high-price combo etc.

Why so many downtown restaurants persist with the 'captive audience' vibe that thinks since you are there you WILL endure whatever they do or have? Some say no. Goodbye.

They'll go to the events downtown and head out, and away afterwards. The lunch crowd cannot sustain a restaurant.

You're right. They take it for granite.

**softailrider** · March-04-20, 05:07 PM

Can’t speak about the Ren Cen location but I’ve been to the Granite City in Troy a few times. Always very busy when I’ve visited, always great service, totally mediocre food and sort of a limited menu. I’m sure their beer and bar service in general is very good.

Lots of completion for food dollars in the Troy area. There are a plethora of restaurants on Big Beaver between Coolidge and Rochester Road and there are more opening as we speak.

**Jason** · March-04-20, 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by 48307

Over the winter I've done a lot of walking at the RenCen in the publicly available space. I've made a few observations:

- Beautiful space for walking during the winter time. Comfortable, safe, futuristic looking, and bustling with activity.
- Food court is very functional with lots of options
- Outside of the food court the restaurants and shops are spread out in obscure corners of the buildings
- Much of the retail space isn't very well lit, making the maze of dark and unintuitive corridors very unfriendly

Fully agreed.

**NSortzi** · March-05-20, 02:09 AM

A location outside Toledo abruptly closed on Tuesday too. I read some comments by locals who were saying bad things about the service there as well.

**bartocktoo** · March-05-20, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by softailrider

Can’t speak about the Ren Cen location but I’ve been to the Granite City in Troy a few times. Always very busy when I’ve visited, always great service, totally mediocre food and sort of a limited menu. I’m sure their beer and bar service in general is very good.

Lots of completion for food dollars in the Troy area. There are a plethora of restaurants on Big Beaver between Coolidge and Rochester Road and there are more opening as we speak.

I always thought that the Big Beaver/Troy/"Golden Mile" area was lacking for restaurants, given the amount of traffic and business, and that every place that ever opens seems to be super busy. I criticize the ever-expansion of our metro, but I am a fan of Troy, even though I know it can get a bad rap from certain folks on here. I live next to the city and am Detroit-centric, but Troy is an important place in our area, and wonderful in it's own way, just like Southfield, Royal Oak [[which should get more attention here...a lot going on), Birmingham, Rochester, Northville, etc. I don't think those areas are really outside of the over-expansion of other areas of Metro Detroit.