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Quote Originally Posted by professorscott View Post
...which is perfectly OK. Your kindly old professor has quite a history with the Muers, more specifically the Chuck Muer branch of the family. Chuck's finance guy [[what you would call a CFO these days) was the late Leo Beil, whose son owns and runs a great restaurant in Grand Rapids, and one of his more successful managers, Bill Kruse, has a mini-chain of restaurants mostly in and around Rochester, which are pleasantly reminiscent of the glory days of Charley's Crab, though with Bill's own hand heavily into it. So if you want good Muer style food, there's a few places to check out. One reason Chuck was so successful up until his untimely death was that he kept things fresh [[as does Leo, as does Bill). And so we come to his older brother.

Joe Muer's on Gratiot died, a couple miles from one of the then-largest grossing restaurants in the midwest, [[that soul food place in Greektown, whose name escapes me) because it was a dated concept and hadn't been updated or revitalized in decades. In the mid 1990s you had to wear a coat and tie, even for lunch [[this is when almost nobody but attorneys, and not all of them, were still wearing ties to work) and they still had such throwback items as finnan haddie on the menu. Is there anyone here under the age of fifty who even knows what that is? The Vicari family has, IMVHO, done a great job of taking the basic concept and ambiance and bringing it into the 21st century.
I'm not in complete agreement with the above. While not changing with the times my have played a role in that restaurants demise, I think the larger problem was the food over the last two or three years became really mediocre. I think in particular that last head chef they had there was just not up to snuff. I can remember lines to get a table every night we went there, not just the weekends. [[the lines moved though) the last year or two, it was just walk in and get seated. Don't remember seeing the guy in the bow tie at the end either. It was a great restaurant for a long time.