D/town Restaurant closing Immediately [Seldom Blues]

[tarkus]

Channel 4 is teasing a popular restaurant closing its doors immediately. Any guesses?
I guess Detroit Seafood or Finn and Porter

[bailey]

Channel 4 is teasing a popular restaurant closing its doors immediately. Any guesses?
I guess Detroit Seafood or Finn and Porter

My money is on whichever one is run by Frank Taylor.

[tarkus]

That would be Detroit Seafood.

[stromberg2]

It's on WDIV's website...Seldom Blues. This sucks!

Stromberg2

[Chuck_MI]

Seldom Blues it is:
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22571538/detail.html

[bartock]

Better news than Finn & Porter closing, in my opinion. West of Woodward downtown does not really have much in the way of fine-ish dining, then 24Grille and Finn & Porter's open up not too far away from Caucus Club [[not counting MGM Grand and MotorCity, which do not create foot-traffic outside) within a year of each other. At least one would think that the Seldom Blues location will get filled in again quick. Great views of the river.

[Detroitnerd]

Gotta love Frank Taylor, a guy who couldn't run a restaurant without a subsidy, well-connected partners, and, if you believe the stories, overlooking his vendors' bills.

Predictions about Detroit Breakfast House or Detroit Seafood Company would be appreciated.

[chitaku]

Frank owes a family friend for his work on the alarm system at Breakfast house. Karma is a bitch

[gnome]

From the Freep:

http://www.freep.com/article/2010021...lub-has-closed

Seldom Blues jazz and supper club has closed

By SYLVIA RECTOR
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The stylish Seldom Blues jazz and supper club in the Renaissance Center has closed, a spokesman announced today.

The restaurant, owned by Seldom Blues LLC, had filed for bankruptcy protection last September. Last week, its attorneys tried unsuccessfully to negotiate more favorable lease terms with the Renaissance Center’s owner, General Motors.

Restaurateur Frank Taylor opened the 300-seat destination venue in 2004, but business nosedived when the automotive crisis hit and many of the RenCen’s shops and offices closed.

In its heyday, it was the Restaurant of the Year

Here's what the Free Press wrote about Seldom Blues in January 2006, just before the Super Bowl came to town:

Big, ambitious and beautiful, the Seldom Blues jazz and supper club in the Renaissance Center was unlike anything else in Detroit when it opened in mid-2004. And some people wondered how it would evolve.

With live jazz on stage nightly in the dining room, would it be more a nightclub or a supper club? What kind of audience would it attract? Would the quality of service - usually the downfall of Detroit restaurants - match the prices and the vibrant, upscale atmosphere the owners aimed to create?

Almost two years later, it has emerged as the city's coolest dining place, a lively, polished and confident destination that attracts everyone from average folks to the top echelons of metro area business, politics, sports and entertainment.

This year, as Super Bowl XL heads into town, the city's restaurant scene is the most varied and interesting it has been in more than a decade.

It is downtown Detroit's time to shine, and no venue represents the city's new spirit and style better than Seldom Blues, the Detroit Free Press Restaurant of the Year 2006.

If GM didn't want to meet their demands for a rent concessions, I'll bet that GM has someone wanting in the wings to take over the place. After The Felon left town, all his buds are having a tough time making ends meet.

[Traveller1]

GM must have other plans for the restaurant, why would they want empty space instead of having the restaurant occupy it? Even with the bankruptcy that the restaurant was going through, it's better to have something there.

[royce]

GM must have other plans for the restaurant, why would they want empty space instead of having the restaurant occupy it? Even with the bankruptcy that the restaurant was going through, it's better to have something there.

What makes you think GM has anything to do with Seldom Blues operations? If they can't pay their employees, vendors, or rent, then how does GM help them out? What I can't understand is how did Frank Taylor think he was going to pay his bills at Seldom Blues when he couldn't pay his bills at the Woodward [[which closed), and then how was he able to open the Detroit Fish Market if he was having trouble in his other restaurants?

Here's the problem I have with Frank Taylor. Every restaurant he has opened has advertised that it was UPSCALE. Why couldn' t he have his restaurants vary their prices so that people with different incomes could afford to come to his restaurants. Here it is that now he is down to one restaurant where a guy that opens a Coney Island is likely to be around long after Frank Taylor closes up shop and moves on to another town. I don't understand his business acumen. Too bad. The two times that I did go to Seldom Blues I had a great experience. However, this wasn't a place I could go to several times a year. He made sure of that with his pricing.

[gnome]

From the above linked Freep article:

The restaurant, owned by Seldom Blues LLC, had filed for bankruptcy protection last September. Last week, its attorneys tried unsuccessfully to negotiate more favorable lease terms with the Renaissance Center’s owner, General Motors

.

Royce, it seems the owner of the space, GM, did not want to continue their relationship with Mr. Taylor. Since Mr. Taylor filed for bankrupcy protection last year, the landlord had some time to line up a new tenent. I suspect we should hear in the near future that someone new is moving in.

If I'm wrong I'll buy you lunch at Sweet Georgia Brown

[Toolbox]

If I'm wrong I'll buy you lunch at Sweet Georgia Brown

Or a dollar Whopper at one of LeVan's Burger Kings...

[carman]

Seldom Blues goes down. Does everything that Mildred Gaddis touches, go down in flames?

[leland_palmer]

Seldom Blues goes down. Does everything that Mildred Gaddis touches, go down in flames?

Where's she gonna have her brunch now?

[royce]

From the above linked Freep article:

.

Royce, it seems the owner of the space, GM, did not want to continue their relationship with Mr. Taylor. Since Mr. Taylor filed for bankrupcy protection last year, the landlord had some time to line up a new tenent. I suspect we should hear in the near future that someone new is moving in.

If I'm wrong I'll buy you lunch at Sweet Georgia Brown

Well, gnome, I stand corrected regarding GM's involvement. Everything else I said I still stand by.

[wazootyman]

Coach Insignia's business "has actually been very good," founder Matt Prentice said.

In fact, he said, his company might be interested in opening a seafood restaurant in the Seldom Blues space.

http://www.freep.com/article/2010021...-RenCen-closes

I only went to Seldom Blues once - and found the food to be very underwhelming for the price. I'm totally willing to pay a premium for a great meal, but it better be worth it.

[texorama]

I went to Seldom Blues twice. The first time was great, the second very disappointing. All things considered, downtown restaurants aren't doing badly. They're destinations in a way that they never were ten years ago. Taylor's restaurants are decent concepts, but he doesn't have follow-through [[perhaps due to financial pressures, as others point out). Somebody will grab that great space.

[Zacha341]

Yeah, sad scene. Alway happens cause these places don't close sooner! At the end the food and service is bad... perhaps the greed factor, or "hanging-on-for-life" thing starts long before the so-called UPSCALE restuarant finally bellies up.

They start scraping the bottom of the GFS cans [[Gordon Food Service - aren't they owed money I was reading?), adding water symbolically and literally sometimes!! Then the service and wait staff starting getting edgy ala short checks or something financial etc. and they get sullen... then you know it's time for Burger King or home cooking!

I went to Seldom Blues twice. The first time was great, the second very disappointing. All things considered, downtown restaurants aren't doing badly. They're destinations in a way that they never were ten years ago. Taylor's restaurants are decent concepts, but he doesn't have follow-through [[perhaps due to financial pressures, as others point out). Somebody will grab that great space.

[Zacha341]

I went about 3 years ago a couple of times, before the long slide downhill.... I'd heard the food quality and flown the coup and avoided it after that......

http://www.freep.com/article/2010021...-RenCen-closes

I only went to Seldom Blues once - and found the food to be very underwhelming for the price. I'm totally willing to pay a premium for a great meal, but it better be worth it.

[Zacha341]

Well there's always the Big Boy feeding trough buffet at the foot of Jefferson and East Grand Blvd. LOL! All jokes aside they make a mean, albeit slightly burnt, sugar laden-ed peach cobbler !

Where's she gonna have her brunch now?

[English]

Let's hope that the new restaurant is up and running before the busy summer season on the riverfront!

[bailey]

Obviously this failed for two reasons. GM is a greedy landlord and the DEGC was stingy with loans to help a struggling small business out.

[Zacha341]

Yeah, it is a prime riverfront location! Someone should grab it fast.

Let's hope that the new restaurant is up and running before the busy summer season on the riverfront!

[Lowell]

Regardless of all the issues surrounding it, it is too bad this pleasant venue has failed.






The goofiest part of SB was the inclined floor of its lobby. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when this was decided -- it seemed to me like a living lawsuit.