Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: [email protected].
The work of a certain Mr. Poe inspired me recently. No, not Edgar Allan Poe, but Al Poe, from Southgate, whose storytelling is about mom-and-pop restaurants in Detroit’s southern suburbs. Poe chimed in with a cheeky “YOU DON’T KNOW JACK” response to our recent pepperoni roll story, citing a sin of omission: my failing to mention Jack’s Italian Bakery (18841 Allen Rd., Melvindale) among the purveyors I’d referenced in the piece. Poe’s social media following — his @detroit_pig_out Instagram page has some 30,000 followers — hangs on his hearty recommendations of humble southside food stops. Nicknamed “The Stomach of Downriver” by one such gastro-groupie, Poe punctuated his comments to me with surprised and smiling emojis. The man wasn’t picking a serious food fight. He was calling my attention to his cause; in this case, a been-around-forever, still-good-as-it-gets bakery in Melvindale. Indulging Al, I messaged him back, suggesting we discuss things like two talk-your-ear-off foodies in their 60s should, by phone. Talking stuffed cabbages and kings for an hour, I kept the minutes as we covered topics ranging from how things stand in the proprietary restaurant segment to where we sit among a muddled mix of food media in the metro Detroit market.
At 66, Poe is a Southwest Detroiter by birth. “Dropped out of Chadsey High to join the service,” he says. “Retired now. Been doing this [supportive restaurant reviewing] for 16 years, eating out about 300 days a year.”
Poe says he checks out new places anonymously. “Otherwise, I make [recurring] rounds of at least 150 places,” he says. “I take pictures, write a paragraph, then post on Instagram, Yelp, Google, and Facebook.”
And the mission? “Ongoing support for places that need it [with exposure] and can’t afford advertising or pay-to-play, fake reviews,” he says. “Places with great service where you can still get a full meal for ten bucks, like Sabina’s [3840 Oakwood Blvd., Melvindale] and The Canterbury Palace [27281 Grand River Ave., Redford]. Places where blue-plate specials still pack in crowds who appreciate them.”
Poe’s focus is further motivated by followers in a 45-65 age demographic who feed him hundreds of monthly thank you messages for his reviews and referrals. After I confess to envy over his flood of fan mail, Poe gets more specific as to content his admirers appreciate with consensus, before comparing his local table talk to what else is out there
“People appreciate quality, affordable food not fancied-up on overloaded menus,” he says. “And they don’t trust fake food media writing commercials as reviews, or all the Yelp and Google negativity and ulterior motives: employees or ex-employees [of restaurants] writing great or horrible things. I’ve reported hundreds of [presumably dubious] reviews. Google takes down about 50%. Yelp is horrible. They let everything stand.”
Then Poe makes a point that fingers the myopic, incestuous coverage he also finds pitiful.
“Downriver is home to 50,000 Mexicans and 65 restaurants that reflect that,” he says. “To read what’s put out there for Detroit’s eater readership, you’d think there was only three or four Mexicantown places for that style of food.”
Poe sounds determined to tell more of the story. I ask him to sum up what he and the food business culture he’s advocating for are currently seeing.
“We’re battling a loss of diversity,” he says. “There are 30-40 restaurants I’m familiar with started by immigrants. Their first-generation children have taken over their businesses, but the next generations aren’t interested, and they’re coming in, closing or selling-off the business. A lot of food heritage is fading. The old-school service and the work ethic that goes with are going. The hope is that some of the grandkids out there will keep up the tradition, reinvent the family vision, you know, create a renaissance.”
As far as customers, “I just hope they continue to support places that still have grandma in the kitchen, showing effort that’s harder and harder to find anymore,” he says. “It used to be easy for me to find 5-6 new restaurants around here to review on a regular basis. Now, all my internet searches turn up mostly is the closures. And the good old American custom of the affordable family meal is disappearing right along with them.”
For my part, Mr. Poe, I’m with you on lending voice to the little guy. We’ll all lose with that loss to our communities. Everyone, everywhere knows how much we get from those heart-warming places close to home which provide us more than we’re asked to pay for a good meal taken in their company.
God forbid many more proprietary eateries should shutter instead of being passed on. Continue to rally your troops, Al. Keep blowing your bugle, my friend. May the food world we know never go dim. To quote your literary namesake:
“Deep into that darkness peering,
Long I stood there; wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming, dreams no mortal dared to dream before.
Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
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