S & C diner Highland Park

[jgavrile]

Does anyone have any pictures of the S & C [[Sutton & Clemens)diner that used to be in Highland Park, South of Davison. It sat sort of to the side of the YMCA on Woodward.
Pretty great place for food back in the 50's and 60's.
They had some great hash browns and American fries there.
One time, it was in Life magazine for some feature they were doing. Can't remember the year that they had the article in Life?
We all use to call it the "streetcar" but I don't think it was really a streetcar. just one of those comercial diners that was made to look like a railroad/streetcar back in the 30's 40's?? Lot of them out in New Jersey.

[softailrider]

Not sure about the Highland Park location, I don't remember it. There was an S&C on 6 Mile just west of Sorrento, went out of business about 25 years ago, I heard the owner got into trouble with the IRS. The building still stands, it became a soul food place for a short while. I remember it had very good diner type food, friendly type of a place.

[douglasm]

I'm trying for the life of me to remember it. The YMCA was just north [[across the street) from the YWCA, wasn't it?

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

Does anyone have any pictures of the S & C [[Sutton & Clemens)diner that used to be in Highland Park, South of Davison. It sat sort of to the side of the YMCA on Woodward.
Pretty great place for food back in the 50's and 60's.
They had some great hash browns and American fries there.
One time, it was in Life magazine for some feature they were doing. Can't remember the year that they had the article in Life?
We all use to call it the "streetcar" but I don't think it was really a streetcar. just one of those comercial diners that was made to look like a railroad/streetcar back in the 30's 40's?? Lot of them out in New Jersey.

I think your right see this webpage http://www.nydiners.com/Wagoneer2003.html which mentions S&C having "Dining cars"

[jgavrile]

The S & C in Highland Park was indeed just to the North of the YMCA which is between Beresford and Winona ave. I don't remember when the diner closed, but it was there for many years. Sutton and Clemens [[S & C), had regular restaraunt also on Woodward between 6 mile and 7 mile called Jerry's. Like I mentioned above, there was an article in Life magazine about the diner back in the late 60's or early 70's. I sure wish I could find that issue so I could see a picture of the diner again.

[Lowell]

It was easy for me to remember that diner because, in its last days, well, its name was Lowell's. This was early 70's. Then one day it was gone. I don't know if it was moved or demolished.

The YMCA next door, where I played handball for several winters, tried to acquire the lot for a parking lot as it was having issues with member car thefts. But the price was too high so they had to settle for a lot in the back, across the alley. The S&C lot remains vacant today.

Just north of it, across the street, was another restaurant, which later became a strip joint under the name of Fancy Pants when Blackwell open HP up to the trade. It was the site of the internationally infamous 1982 Vincent Chin murder.

Chin, a Chinese-American man, was celebrating his bachelor party at the Fancy Pants when a couple of Euro-American customers started insulting him for taking away jobs, seemingly mistaking him for Japanese. [This was in the depths of the 80's recession where unemployment was even higher than now and when Japanese autos where making serious inroads into the US car market.] Chin was later pursued outside the bar and beaten to death with a baseball bat. The assailants were acquitted and never did prison time, creating a huge outrage.

[douglasm]

Lowell......
.....memory refresh time. Was I correct in saying the WMCA was just north of the YWCA, which was just north of Trinity Methodist Church?

[Jman]

douglasm, you are correct. Trinity Methodist Church on the corner of E. Buena Vista, next building north was the YWCA on the s.e. corner of Winona. YMCA was on the n.e. corner of Winona and Woodward.

I lived across the street from the S & C a favorite place for my Dad and I. There was also a S & C on Fort St. directly across from the Fort Shelby Hotel.

[EastsideAl]

Wasn't there also an S&C over on Grand River by Scripps Park? I think that's the only one I ever remember actually eating in, with my great uncle and aunt who lived over there on Commonwealth.

[vetalalumni]

It is interesting to read this informal historical information.

[WDETalum]

I have the Life magazine April 30, 1971 issue which has the picture. The caption includes comments by the owner Lowell Knapp. Google books has scanned this issue of Life and you can find it if you Google "Lowell Knapp S&C" and go down to the books.google.com link.

I frequently went to the S&C at Wayne State University on Warren Ave. at Woodward. Wish I could still get their Sunshine Burger. The other locations were:

S & C RESTAURANT SYSTEM

Office 13236 Woodward
No 1 6521 2nd
No 2 2621 Park
No 4 44 W Warren
No 6 13101 W McNichols
No 7 508 W Lafayette
No 10 255 W 9 Mi Ferndale
No 11 19180 Livernois

[pgn421]

has anyone been to Red Hots Coney Island, on Victor off of Woodward?it's the oldest Coney Island in Michigan.

[jgavrile]

Thanks guys, I have been trying to find a picture for years now. My Dad owned the Atlas Bar, he sold it back in the 70's. That became "Fancy Pants" . ,the site of the 1982 Vincent Chin murder..
I spent many hours as a kid at the S & C diner. They had the best American fries anywhere.
As to Red Hots, on Victor, Richard the owner, who inherited the coney Island from his uncle, will tell you it is the oldest coney island in Michigan.My Father used to tell me that also, as he was good friends with the original owner.

[cman710]

This is the link for the scan from Google Books, which has two pictures.

[Lowell]

WDETalum thanks so much! You hit it out of park with your first post. Welcome to the forum.

I wonder which diner is pictured. It can't see how it could be the Highland Park site with those houses so close. It was close to Woodward sqeezed next to the YMCA with a long lot and alley behind.

I am also intrigued about the 44 W Warren site which would place it at the west end of the present day WSU welcome center.

I guess your findings explain why the HP site was named Lowell's in it's final days.

[jgavrile]

Right next to the diner in Highland Park was a Dry cleaners called Swiss Cleaners. It would have been on the corner of Beresford and Woodward. Behind the cleaners was a two story residence that you can see in the picture of the diner. The diner was sitting at an angle between this cleaners and the YMCA. Pretty small piece of property that it was on.

[Fury13]

Were all of the S&C diners of the classic, steel, dining car type? Detroit has none of those left now. It would be great if someone imported one from Jersey and set it up for business near the Wayne State campus!

[jgavrile]

Closest thing that I know of to having any diners in the area is the Athens Coney Island on Woodward near 14 mile and Don's of Traverse City on Grand River near Wixom road.

[Lowell]

Thanks jgavrile. That makes sense. By the time I first saw it, early seventies, the house in back was gone. Also when i went back to the link above I found I could magnify it and found both the name I remember and the Woodward address.


I also remember the NE corner of Woodward and Beresford being a restaurant at that time too [and prior to the Fancy Pants]. Would that have been the same space as the Atlas Bar?

[Jman]

Were all of the S&C diners of the classic, steel, dining car type? Detroit has none of those left now. It would be great if someone imported one from Jersey and set it up for business near the Wayne State campus!

The S&C at 19180 Livernois was in a row of store fronts. Not the classic diner type.

[Bigb23]

Scan up on that Life magazine article for that mouth watering Muskrat recipe from a Bay City diner !

[EastsideAl]

Wasn't there also one of these at one time on Grand River near Scripps Library & Park? I remember going to a dining car diner a couple of times over there in the '60s with my great uncle who lived in the area. A friend of his ran the place.

You can still see some of these old dining car [[pre-prefab chrome style) diners in small towns in the northeast.

[jgavrile]

Lowell, my Dad owned the Atlas Bar and the Atlas Cafe on that corner.. Somewhere after the war, my Dad sold the Atlas Cafe and it got renamed to Valentines restaurant. There use to be a walk through from one to the other , but it got sealed off after the sale.
After that in the 70's , my Dad finally retired and sold the Atlas Bar , which eventually became Fancy Pants.
My Dad had opened the Atlas Cafe in 1914.
Once he retired, he refused to ever drive or walk by that corner ever again till his death in 1976.
I have some old pictures of the corner from back then I could e-mail you

[jgavrile]

I am glad to see that anyone is interested in anything about Highland Park as I grew up there.
I find it hard to understand why a definitive history of the town has not been published?? If you go to any bookstore, you will see shelves of small paperback books about every suburb of Detroit and the surrounding areas, but there is no book about Highland Park?? It seems very ironic, as Highland Park was so important to the growth and development of Detroit and the auto industry, that you would think there would be all kinds of history and details about it. Two of the largest corporations in the world had their headquarters in Highland Park,Ford and Chrysler . the DSR and DUR had their barns in the city,the first expressway in the world was built in Highland Park, At one time it was one of the best cities in the United States , when it came to schools, city services,government, and homes to live in..
I guess wherever all the info, and files from the city newspaper, the "Highland Parker" got put away or destroyed, the history of the city and its achievements went with it.??
Sort of a shame to lose this history.
My father had a lot of stories about the city having settled there around 1912. Henry Ford and James Couzens would sometimes come in to his restaurant in the early mornings and have some tea and or some breakfast. Sometimes Walter Chrysler would also come in to get something to eat. A few times they all came in at the same time and sat together and talked. I wish I had some pictures of these occasions. I remember my Dad telling me about the Tyler farm that was on the West side of Woodward between Glendale and Davison. This is where the street Tyler, got named for when the farm was turned into homes.. The little turnaround half circle street off of Glendale, called Mulford Pl. ,was the entrance to the farm.
Also recalled was that the area North of 6 Mile around Palmer Park, was pretty much impassable during the spring due to the swampy nature of the area. Sometimes you had to go West as far as Livernois to go North of 6 mile and then cut back down to Woodward when you got to Pleasant ridge. I wish I could recall more of it and had asked more question in my youth.

[lalynch]

I'm sure Arcadia Publishing would welcome anyone, a Highland Park resident, organization or history buff to write a book on Highland Park.

I wonder what happened to that old diner. Did it get demolished or recycled to a new location?
My family is from the Philly area so my memories are of several old diners close to where my grandparents lived outside of Philly.