Better Transit, Cheap Eats, and Coffee Shop Seating: Detroit Mailbag

Detroit bus stops deserve more than a stick in the ground. Dinner shouldn’t require a second mortgage. And coffee shop chairs shouldn’t punish you for sitting in them.

We’re opening the mailbag for a supersized Saturday edition of Daily Detroit. The "Prince of Brightmoor" Norris Howard joins me to tackle your questions, respond to some criticism, and make the case for shawarma’s rightful place alongside Coneys and Detroit-style pizza.

On the agenda:

• A listener takes issue with our interview with Detroit high school student because it didn't show the whole picture. We explain why hearing directly from young people was the point.
• Better transit takes more than buses. We talk shelters, suburban advocacy, and why your city council needs to hear from you.
• Keep the trains moving. Your thoughts on People Mover expansion, connecting to Michigan Central, and the ongoing problem of people parking on the QLine tracks.
• What changed our minds this election? Norris shares what he saw traveling Michigan.
• Premium rent, not-so-premium living. A former resident of an embattled building shares his experience, and Norris has some thoughts of his own.
• Cheap and cheerful matters! We hear you on affordable recommendations, even with Michelin coming to town.
• Comfortable seating makes me want to spend money: We answer a listener question on what makes for a good coffeeshop.
• Where we’d take visiting friends for their next Detroit meal, and why shawarma belongs in the starting lineup after coneys and Detroit-style pizza.

Got a question, a place we should visit, or something you think we missed? Email DailyDetroit@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-789-3211.

Local media needs local support. Help keep Daily Detroit going at patreon.com/dailydetroit

00:00 Saturday mailbag with Jer and Norris
01:24 Why we gave Detroit youth the mic
05:13 Better bus stops and speaking up for transit
09:16 People Mover expansion and the QLine parking problem
11:47 What this election taught us about Michigan
15:46 Could Schumer or Jeffries lose their leadership jobs?
18:56 A former resident of an embattled apartment building weighs in
22:06 Cheap eats and keeping dinner affordable
23:43 What makes a great coffee shop?
28:32 Beyond Coneys and pizza: Where to take visitors, and Shawarma belongs in Detroit’s food trifecta

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[Announcer]: Daily Detroit is brought to you by the community. Support our work at patreon.com/daily-detroit.

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Jer Staes: Hello friends, welcome to your Daily Detroit, a very special Saturday edition for November 7th, 2026. We're coming to you from our studio at TechTown. I am Jer Staes, across the table from me is none other than the Prince of Brightmoor, Norris Howard. Have you fully recovered from all of the election shenanigans?

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Norris Howard: Fully? I'm not sure I could say fully, but I am partially recovered and I'm feeling a lot better. But I'm not going to full blown say bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, not quite yet.

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Jer Staes: Not bright-eyed in Brightmoor?

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Norris Howard: No, not bright-eyed in Brightmoor. Not at all.

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Jer Staes: Well listen. We've wanted to do this episode for a while, but you know, the election, news, everything else got in the way. We love listener questions and comments.

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Norris Howard: It's my favorite.

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Jer Staes: And so I have been stacking up a bunch of them from like darn near past October.

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Norris Howard: I'm so excited for this y'all. Y'all don't understand, this is when I say this is my favorite, this is my literal favorite.

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Jer Staes: And so we're going to hit a bunch of topics, whether it was comments, whether it was stuff sent to us at DailyDetroit@gmail.com, everything that we can think of to address, we will address. We're going to do some serious stuff, we're going to have a lot of fun as well.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, yeah.

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Jer Staes: So, why don't we just dive into it?

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Norris Howard: Let's go.

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Jer Staes: So this one is from C.B. about our interview with Jaden and his views on teen youth in Detroit. Now he is a Detroit high school student, we thought it important to talk to him. This was C.B.'s take: "I'm sorry, I'm a big listener of the show, but this conversation was so one-sided, surface level, and really only addressed a fifth of the problem of what's going on with our teen youth in or outside of Detroit city limits." So C.B. was disappointed with that episode.

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Norris Howard: I'll say this, first of all, number one, we were talking to a literal child. Even though this was a very intelligent, very thoughtful student and kid, you know, he ultimately does not have the power to run the school district or the power to change policing in and of himself. No, what we felt it was important to do is to give a platform and a voice to Detroit's youth. Now, it is up to their parents, it's up to the adults around them to help them operationalize those grievances and to talk more about what it is that they see as issues in the city, but we can't begin to address the issues if the youth don't have the platform to share them. So I understand what you're saying, but it's not like we were sitting down talking to Dr. Vitti plus the police commissioner plus the mayor plus, you know, job creators in the city. Like yeah, it was not going to be as robust of a conversation, but I just want to say I'm very proud of Jaden for coming on to the show and I thought he did a phenomenal job, and I think if we get 100 or 50 or 1,000 more Jadens in this city and kids like him, our future is very bright. So I get what you're saying, but I completely disagree with the assertion that it was not a robust conversation.

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Jer Staes: Well, and we will have people like Dr. Ahya Waller-Bey on the show, I'm sure. Brandi the Millennial Manager, Brandi McGill will be back at some point. And other voices too, like I've had conversations about getting Dr. Vitti on the show for an interview, one of the feature style interviews that we do here from time to time at Daily Detroit. For me, when it comes to acts of journalism, I think it's important to give voice to the voiceless. And especially in city schools, a lot of times those voices are ignored. And I know that Jaden as brilliant as he is doesn't have all the answers and that's okay, cause sometimes you need to have conversations with different people and then you attack it from different angles, right? And that's one of the beauties about the podcast is that we talked, in fact we had a whole episode on the schools with Dr. Ahya...

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Norris Howard: Yeah.

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Jer Staes: ...and Brandi, and then also talking with him. And we've talked with educators. We had the lady who's doing the airport school.

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Norris Howard: Mm-hmm.

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Jer Staes: We have hit this topic from multiple angles, and I thought what we were missing was the youth angle, so we worked with intention.

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Norris Howard: Everybody was talking about kids, and we didn't talk to a kid. Let's make that make sense. How many times does that happen? And so when we talked to him, and I thought one of the points that, you know, just to wrap this up, I thought one of the things that people were saying over and over and over again was not the issue, which was, oh, the kids just need something to do. Like the eggheads kept dismissing that. No, it's about the schools! No, it's about jobs! No, it's about... No, literally we had a kid who's like, we don't have nothing to do, so we made something up. There it is. There's your answer.

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Jer Staes: The longer I do this, the more I've learned that Occam's razor is true.

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Norris Howard: The simplest explanation is often the real one.

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Jer Staes: Well thank you for your feedback C.B., and thank you for listening. I really appreciate the feedback and I hope that this gives you some context.

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Jer Staes: Hedy on Transit: "Why aren't municipalities doing anything to help encourage ridership? We place all the emphasis on the provider, but our stops are still sticks in the ground with nearly no development or amenities. Often times, they're at gas stations. Municipalities can and should do better to develop along transit lines." And I will say, I do notice more benches in my east side neighborhood, even over there on Warren Avenue, so I've been seeing more benches around, so I want to give credit where it's due. But I understand this, and especially in places outside the city of Detroit, this is such a mixed bag because so many communities value transit differently. Depending on where you live, it may or may not actually be a priority for that community, or they may not even value that as something that they see that they should invest in additionally.

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Norris Howard: I think the answer to that question is twofold, right? I think the first question is, we've seen in the city of Detroit that there is a bit more of an effort, and we've seen the mayor make announcements alongside DDOT that they are going to try to expand rebuilding a lot of shelters, building new bus shelters, and not make it so, as you say, just sticks in the ground. Now, in terms of the suburbs, I think we also have to recognize that it was pulling teeth to get a regional transit millage on even just on the ballot, let alone for us to get to vote on a few years ago. So we have municipalities in Metro Detroit in which not only is transit deemphasized, some of these places had to be forced to opt in. So, you know, if you're in a place like let's say Livonia, or even way down in Canton, no, there's not going to be bus shelters because those municipalities for years didn't even want buses.

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Jer Staes: Well, and so that opens up that conversation of if you really want that in your municipality, you have to talk about it. And so, here's the thing about transit: I really, for our suburban listeners, please get involved in the topic, because elected officials, what they tell me is they don't hear enough from their...

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Norris Howard: They don't hear from y'all.

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Jer Staes: Right. You need to show up at your city council, at your place. The answer for regional transit is our suburban friends being loud about it, right? Cause here in the city we've got advocates, here in the city we are pushing for it, and you know what? There are starting to be some more investments with it, to full credit of the Sheffield administration. There's more we could do, but there's also a lot that is starting to be done, and I'm seeing it with my own eyes. When you are in the suburbs, you have to understand like in our region we are so decentralized. We have so many little municipalities, some stuff's county, some stuff's whatever. It's way harder to get mobilized, and I know that, and maybe we can work on a guide for this, Norris, because I think it's really important with these regional issues. But you got to get to your city hall. Like you see cities like Ferndale, looks beautiful right there at like Woodward and 9 Mile.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, it does. And you know, I think it's really important for us to begin to invest in that from multiple angles, and I think the best thing that you could do, whether you be in the suburbs or in the city, is continue to be involved in your city council meetings, in your local municipal meetings, because as we saw across the country, almost every data center proposal failed. All but one nationwide.

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Jer Staes: 40 out of 41 I think.

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Norris Howard: 40 out of 41 failed. Why did they fail? Because people got mad about it. They went to those meetings, they went to those county commission meetings, they went to their city council meetings, and they made noise about it. Same thing with the Flock cameras. These people made noise about this. If you truly care about transit and regional transit here in Southeast Michigan, we got to bring the same type of energy to it. Go to those city council meetings, go to the county commissioner meetings, and make noise.

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Jer Staes: And reach out to Transportation Riders United. They've been doing...

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Norris Howard: An expert, yeah.

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Jer Staes: Yeah, they do a such a great job with like really so little. They really make amazing things happen, and you know that's definitely a group if that's what you're passionate about, rally behind them. Philip, about the People Mover expansion: "First, let's keep the system elevated and away from traffic."

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Norris Howard: Facts.

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Jer Staes: "Second, it needs a connection to the new multimodal transit station in the works at Michigan Central."

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Norris Howard: Facts.

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Jer Staes: "They should feed into each other. Those are my thoughts on expansion priorities." Which tells me you really lean towards what was it, options 2 or 3?

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Norris Howard: It's option 3 I believe.

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Jer Staes: Well, I think the Michigan one also might do that. But anyway, it sounds like you really want to see the People Mover go west. I think the QLine taught us a lesson, Norris.

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Norris Howard: Get it off the street! Because if somebody's DoorDash can sit there and throw the whole timing off for a hour and a half, then we got a problem.

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Jer Staes: Have you seen that Instagram account? My gosh, I cannot remember the handle and I'm so sorry, but they live right over the QLine and they post up people parking stupid or doing dumb stuff where they don't even think about the fact that there's a train there. One of the things I think we should do, if we're not going to do a dedicated transit lane, we should paint the QLine lane a different color...

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Norris Howard: Yes.

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Jer Staes: ...so people realize. You've got to be really clear with this stuff and write No Parking, Do Not Block, like you have to put it...

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Norris Howard: I think partially sometimes the QLine should just hit a car or two.

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Jer Staes: Like the snowplow car for a large train, we could just have the ram car.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, where it's just like, all right, somebody's on the—it's been there for 10 minutes, ram them.

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Jer Staes: It is absurd. Look, I expected some stuff the first couple of years, but it's absurd that we're this many years in now, and sometimes they still have to like keep a tow truck that comes along...

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Norris Howard: It's people's main character syndrome. It's people that, ah, ain't nothing going to happen. Nah man, we got to keep these trains rolling. So let me put this out there to anybody who may be a DoorDash driver or Uber or whatever, let me tell y'all right now, you come downtown, listen, yes, you got to walk around the corner. Just don't park on Woodward! Literally you could park at any little side ingress road. Grand River, you got Grand Circus, whatever, go over there. Yes, you got to walk two half, like a half a block if at most.

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Jer Staes: I sometimes ride the QLine and I look at the Transit app, which I want to do a whole thing on the Transit app, because if you ride transit in Metro Detroit, you have to use it.

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Norris Howard: Very useful.

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Jer Staes: Yes. But I realize all the time it just stays right there on Woodward in that little spot over and over again. And if we could fix that or find a way to make that better, that would be really huge. But yes, thank you Philip.

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Jer Staes: From Jennifer: "Jer and Norris, you always ask about the thing you thought you knew that you learned differently when you interview people. Now that the election is over, what is that for each of you? What is the thing you thought you knew that you learned differently? I'm very interested to hear Norris especially, as he has been on the road with Civic Social, but Jer too."

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Norris Howard: I would say the thing that I wish I knew when I started was how low I think the Rogers campaign would go. I thought at some point we would have decorum and in a marketplace of ideas, and it seemed like during the campaign, it just got more and more racist, more and more unhinged. I think the other thing that I learned is that Mid-Michigan and West Michigan are changing. They're changing significantly. Not so much Northern Michigan, not so much the UP. The UP still is going to have Marquette as a blue dot in a red sea. However, looking at Kent County, looking at Berrien County, looking at, you know, all across that sort of left side of the state, looking at Ingham County in the middle of the state, Lansing, these are all places, not only did they move a little bit to the left, but there are some demographic shifts happening, and I think I, I won't say downplayed it, but I, I underestimated just how much those areas of the state are changing.

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Jer Staes: I would co-sign that. I'll make an observation about you talking about the idea thing about ideas. There was a lot of Islamophobia in this campaign, and the level of Islamophobia really hurt the cause of people who were saying that the reason to vote against Abdul... because there was a lot of people in my inbox who said that Abdul is a hateful candidate. A lot of people in my inbox who were very upset about this and saying, well Abdul...

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Norris Howard: Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

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Jer Staes: That's the thing, right? It's really hard for the rest of the public who does not really care about those issues...

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Norris Howard: Yeah.

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Jer Staes: ...and let's just be honest. The public cares about the economy, gas prices, they just don't care.

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Norris Howard: They only care about, they only care about the war as a proxy of making gas expensive.

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Jer Staes: Correct. And so, when you have a situation where you have someone saying that a candidate is about hate, and then that candidate they're backing is like sharing memes about 9/11 and all the other surrogates... It could have worked if they had taken that high road. If they had taken that high road, and everyone tells me about civility in politics, I'm very tired of it. From this point on, I want to see respect politics. You respect your opponent, and you don't respect them if you're using Islamophobia all the time. It made it all ring hollow, right? It made it ring hollow to say, oh well this candidate is actually about lifting something higher, meanwhile they're also like continuing in Islamophobia. To somebody who's looking on the outside, oh, well then you're both full of it.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, a thousand percent. And you know, I want to piggyback the last thing on this civility politics, which is the thing that I am recognizing fully is that Millennials and people of my generation are no longer waiting for their turn, they're taking it.

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Jer Staes: Mmm.

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Norris Howard: For the better part of our entire lives, our cohort has been overwhelmingly liberal, if not progressive, and now you are starting to see those people wield their political power, and it's shifting the country in a major way.

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Jer Staes: And they're serious about taking action, but they're also so un-serious with some of this. Did you see the Habibi PAC?

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Norris Howard: Yes, so Abdul El-Sayed has now registered a Senate leadership PAC, which does not mean that he is running for leadership, it just means that, you know, in gearing up if he has to run again or if there are other candidates that he wants to support elsewhere in the country, he will have a war chest to do that. But it is called Habibi PAC.

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Jer Staes: That's funny.

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Norris Howard: Which is hilarious.

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Jer Staes: All right. We got a lot of variations on this one, Norris, and I'll ask it to you first. Kim through Instagram asked: Can we get new leadership in the House and Senate in January?

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Norris Howard: It's possible.

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Jer Staes: I think we're referring to the national—on the state level, actually Matt Hall is out.

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Norris Howard: Matt Hall is already out. He has been replaced by Tom, I keep forgetting how to pronounce his name, Kunes?

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Jer Staes: Kunes, something like that.

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Norris Howard: Kuhns, yeah. But anyway...

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Jer Staes: Yeah, but nationally?

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Norris Howard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, he is from Clare, I believe, Tom Kuhns, so do your research on him. But, nationally, I think it's unlikely, but I think it's possible. I think when you're looking at the new leadership, I think sure it requires less votes to oust somebody like Chuck Schumer, but I think Hakeem Jeffries actually is a little bit more vulnerable. And the reason why I say that is because you got a lot of people who are up for reelection literally like a year and four months from now. You know, people who are in some of these blueing counties, these blueing districts, these districts that have been pushing left for the better part of a couple of years now, they will be, you know, seen and held accountable as somebody who supported a fairly moderate speaker in Hakeem Jeffries. And listen, we just can't hide away from the fact that Hakeem Jeffries has been very much so funded and played cozy with AIPAC. It's sort of a non-starter for many of these more progressive districts, and, you know, those representatives will be held accountable in the future. So I think Jeffries is a little bit more in danger than Schumer.

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Jer Staes: I disagree. And I don't know, cause I don't live in D.C., but there's a few things. First off, Schumer is older.

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Norris Howard: Yes.

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Jer Staes: Right? I think the energy against Schumer from people, like it seems like it's going to be easier to mobilize. When you even have Elissa Slotkin...

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Norris Howard: I was about to say, cause both of Michigan's votes are no votes for Schumer right now.

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Jer Staes: And when you have somebody who's Elissa Slotkin, who is not considered a progressive, you have a coalition there that's a bit wider that could push against him than what you would see on the House. Also, you know, over in the House, they've got a lot of votes they could lose. Hakeem's got a lot of votes to lose and still be speaker.

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Norris Howard: He does have a lot of votes to lose. I just still think, you know, as we're just looking at the changing of the entire climate, listen, I don't think it needs to...

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Jer Staes: I don't think both are going out. I think one or the other.

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Norris Howard: One or the other, yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that.

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Jer Staes: Cause that would be too much change for just the apparatus.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, I think it's one or the other. But I do think, you know, Jer, you just got to look at just every county in the country! Every one! Every single solitary, well not every single, but virtually every county in the whole country pushed to the left. That is not like a mistake. So I think even places that previously we say, oh well, these moderate people, like no, man, people are mad. So I think they look at the previous leadership in both instances and they say, yeah, you know, we want a change. So I think it's possible.

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Jer Staes: All right. Michael, who says he lived in the former City Club Statler Apartments, and this was set around the time, remember we covered the sale?

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Norris Howard: That's right.

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Jer Staes: There was a lot of like stress around that, but they've got new owners.

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Norris Howard: Yep.

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Jer Staes: "Hey Jer and Norris, bumping an email from last year when the news broke. This development was only going to be viable with very premium rents while allocating only enough resources to provide a non-premium experience." Ouch, Michael. Wow. "I'm ultimately thankful for the friends I made while living in the building, but I want to stress how poorly run the building was from the beginning. While nobody is perfect, the experience compared to that of any Bedrock property is laughable. It was just a complete misalignment of what they advertised, what they charged, and what they provided. Don't get me wrong, when you live in the middle of any city, you don't expect peace and quiet every night, but you do expect working elevators, communications from management, and not having to jump over someone else's vomit in the hallway for three days after every Friday/Saturday night, especially at the rents that they were charging. We have developers with less capital than Holtzman who actually live in the city that are putting out great products." They shed out Zaid Miko as one of them in the greater downtown area. "They attend our Brush Park Neighborhood Association meetings, gather community input, and adjust their projects accordingly. I would love to see more of them in the spotlight in the coming months. At the end of the day, despite living here for only six years, I love this city. When I see stories like that of City Club, I feel the city was taken advantage of, left with only a cheaply built complex that will likely be vacant soon." Well, it's not going to be vacant anytime...

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Norris Howard: No, it's not going to be vacant anytime soon. There's going to have to be adjustments, and that's why they did the sale and all that other stuff. It's not going to be vacant, but, you know, I'll say this, and you know, normally I don't like to go out on individual companies and stuff like that, but I've lived in City Club properties before, and I have nothing good to say about them, I'm going to be honest with you. Like if you could choose to live...

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Jer Staes: Your personal opinion. And this is Michael's opinion.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, and this is my opinion, and the reason why I say that is specifically because that is, his experience is an experience that I can echo, where it feels like there was money to buy a building and money to fix up a building, but there was not enough money to then maintain that building, and I think that continues to be an issue with some developers. Listen, I think the sale of that particular location was a great thing, I think they need to get it back together because I had a buddy of mine who lived in there for a little bit, for about a year, as he was looking for something else, and it seemed fine. And then one day, just the elevator stopped working, and didn't get fixed. Like, just didn't get... and this wasn't, you know, it didn't have like set, you know, I've lived in buildings that have four or five, six, seven elevators. This wasn't that kind of party. Like, there were two. And two of them were broken. So that is...

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Jer Staes: Let's finish out with a topic that everybody loves: food and drink, right? Louise: "Love the idea Michelin is coming to Metro Detroit. I'm not mad at it, but bros, that is not my budget. Can you keep telling us about stuff that are less than $75 or $100 out to eat with someone? I love the cheap and cheerful that you all do."

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Norris Howard: Ooh, I mean, like I said, man, I keep trying to tell y'all and y'all don't listen to me, that Ima happy hour, bro!

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Jer Staes: You know what was really good that I had the other day?

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Norris Howard: Yeah.

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Jer Staes: There is a new thing, the Bucharest rice bowl.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, $9.99! The Bucharest rice bowl, I had one as well. Like, Ima happy hour, everything on the menu is $5. They have a whole happy hour menu, $5.

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Jer Staes: We're putting together a guide of all this stuff, especially for our members on Patreon, and I think we are going to have a cheap and cheerful section.

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Norris Howard: No, we should, we should, cause listen, I get it, everybody's not going to go to Grey Ghost every weekend, like duh, you know, but, you know, I'm not trying to tell you to go to Bar Pigalle like every two days, but I do think, I do think there are options for you, and there's options even in some of the places that you may realize. Listen, I've gone on a date and eating for less than $70 at like Supergeil or something like that, yeah, for sure.

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Jer Staes: There's for sure options. But yeah, we will, we are committed, Louise.

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Norris Howard: We are committed to being, cause I understand.

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Jer Staes: Yes.

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Norris Howard: Or Goblin Detox Southwest, Mexican Village, like there's a ton of places.

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Jer Staes: Part of the beauty of the Detroit food scene is that there's so many tasty things at so many price points.

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Norris Howard: Yeah.

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Jer Staes: Samira: "Loved hearing you all out in Dearborn, one of my favorite episodes of the year, please do more of those." That was referring to our Jaball Coffee... "What makes a coffee shop a place people actually want to hang out? Is it the room, is it the hours, and how do you guys feel about laptops at coffee shops? I have all the coffee questions."

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Norris Howard: Ooh, okay. As easily the peakest top coffee connoisseur in all of Daily Detroit...

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Jer Staes: We give you a run for your money, but you are at the peak.

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Norris Howard: I'm at the peak, right? Um, I will say here's the thing that makes a good coffee shop. Okay, first of all, number one: ample, spacious seating. So if your space is too small and you got to have small itty-bitty tables, no bueno. Um, you got to have fast Wi-Fi, don't just have Wi-Fi, have fast Wi-Fi, right? You got to have it, right? Um, you need to make sure that your baristas are actually people who know how to talk to people and create a good, welcoming environment, because that will make the whole experience way better. Decor, decor doesn't really matter to me. Like, listen, you could go full blown maximalism like all the Yemeni coffee shops with like gold and ivory everywhere, or you could be Congregation and literally just pick half your furniture out from off the street somewhere and stick it inside of an old church. Like, either/or is cool, but just commit to it. Like whatever you're doing, commit. And the last thing is the drinks and the coffee have to be amazing. You have to have people in the store who know coffee. Like Desert Oasis is one of my favorite coffee shops in the world because the people there actually really like coffee. So, so those are the main things. And as far as laptops, absolutely.

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Jer Staes: Pick a vibe and stick with it, I'd say for me. I respect places that decide to not have laptops, I respect the energy of that. However, the reality is is that between my work, my home obligations, my wanting to spend time with my dog, all that other stuff, it is going to be far less likely that I go to your coffee shop if you don't allow a laptop, because part of the thing is getting out for me and working in the world outside of the office or outside of home. So I think that that's something for me personally, although I respect people's choices. I think for me, and like, so for instance, you know I wrote up the Four Grounds place out in Plymouth, right? I talked about that on the newsletter. I like the place, but it had this thing that a lot of coffee shops do: I am not a small man, Norris Howard.

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Norris Howard: Ha! I think when you and I go down the street, it's like the number 10, right? And I'm the zero. Not that I'm, you know, the biggest, but you know what I mean, I'm just a big dude.

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Jer Staes: Yeah.

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Norris Howard: Those damn seats made of metal that are pressed out that end up cutting off like my butt, and you can't sit there for more than 15 minutes without being in pain. That is the worst thing you could do if you want to have a coffee shop that people enjoy. I don't think kindly of your shop...

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Jer Staes: That's like the hostile architecture that you see, where it's like spikes on the park benches and stuff like that so like homeless people can't sleep on them.

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Norris Howard: I am not a pigeon on a ledge. I am trying to pay you money.

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Jer Staes: You're not a bird on a wire.

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Norris Howard: I'd rather be on the wire. I'd rather be in a pew with like a little pad than be on those... because the thing is, they're just not... how are they... are they even comfortable for you?

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Jer Staes: No, they're not.

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Norris Howard: They're not.

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Jer Staes: So, I get that it's all about turning tables and keeping things moving, but if you want me to spend money, make me feel good.

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Norris Howard: Nah, cause see, here's the thing, I don't think coffee shops need to be per se about turning tables. What a coffee shop needs to be is we keep three people here and they done spent $17 on two cups of coffee and another $20 on pastries because we allowed them to sit in here all day. Like that's how you got to look at it.

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Jer Staes: Which also, by the way, if you are going to these coffee shops, you need to be respectful. Do not like sit there and not order drinks for three...

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Norris Howard: No, if you... no. Just like if you can't afford to tip at the restaurant, you can't afford to eat out, you can't afford to go to the coffee shop if you can't at least buy a black coffee.

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Jer Staes: Right. To me it's like you got to have like a drink at least every hour-ish.

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Norris Howard: Ish, ish, ish. Cause you know, if I'm locked in and we having a big meeting or something, you know, I may not necessarily get it every hour.

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Jer Staes: No, for sure, but then you got a bunch of people buying coffee at the same table, and so you're making them a bunch of money.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

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Jer Staes: So, I would love to hear your coffee shop thoughts. We're going to go all over the region with some coffee shops. There's one I haven't checked out that I want to go to called Moto.

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Norris Howard: I've heard of that. I want to go there, too.

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Jer Staes: Yeah, we should go up there and check it out.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, we should do that.

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Jer Staes: Send me your coffee shop suggestions: 313-789-3211 or DailyDetroit@gmail.com. Final question on our super episode, Norris Howard. We've got so many questions for people, a super-sized edition of our Daily Detroit. We have hit the end.

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Norris Howard: Last question.

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Jer Staes: Darnell, from Darnell: "I need a ruling. Since moving here, I have friends who come to visit from out of town once in a while, usually Chicago or Atlanta. Every time they come, somebody takes them for Coneys or Detroit-style pizza. I have done it all, I have been to all of them. Where would you take them for meal number 3 or 4? You want to break them out, like give them something that feels good, but like break them out of that super traditional everybody does this cycle."

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Norris Howard: Okay. I would take, if we're going big, Freya. If you're like, let's have a special dinner, Freya. Eight course tasting menu, really on point, experiential dining, that kind of stuff. If you don't want to spend that much money, fair. If you don't want to spend that, Baobab Fare, 1,000%. You guys hear us talk about Chef Mamba all the time. I cannot recommend that place highly enough. Also not that expensive either, a place you could go and spend less than $70 for two people if you want to. And then I would say probably SheWolf or Medusa.

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Jer Staes: Mmm.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, right there in Midtown, for sure.

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Jer Staes: Mmm.

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Norris Howard: Those, those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure if you sat me down and was like, let's take 20 minutes and make like a out to dinner every day plan, I could come up with a lot more places, you know, there's a Tacos El Rey and places like that. You know, there's places all across the city, but those are just the ones that kind of just pop up at the top of my head. Actually, you know what, take them to Captain Jay's!

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Jer Staes: Okay, can we shout out Captain Jay's? They don't give a...

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Norris Howard: Captain Jay's, man! Like if it's, if it's just like, bro, let's, we just need a pan of like a thousand wings, like Captain Jay's, bro!

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Jer Staes: And what I love is their non-AI marketing.

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Norris Howard: That's right, no AI, so love to Captain Jay's. Yeah, for show. As, as a matter of fact, there you go. You, you want to get just some wings, bro, Captain Jay's.

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Jer Staes: I absolutely love that. Okay, if you want like a breakfast diner experience... okay, we're still staying in like kind of touristy stuff cause they're visitors, right?

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Norris Howard: That's, that's why I was saying, that's why I was thinking like, okay, but you, what can you reasonably like QLine or something Uber to without getting too crazy?

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Jer Staes: I feel like you got to be careful who you give it to, but you could do The Click for breakfast.

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Norris Howard: Oh yeah, yeah, Click would be nice. Yeah, I call that.

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Jer Staes: You know, that place over on East Jefferson, if you know you know.

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Norris Howard: Yep, yep, yep, yep. Click would be dope.

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Jer Staes: You know what, for cocktails and maybe a light bite, come to the east side, go to Father Forgive Me.

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Norris Howard: Yeah, good call out.

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Jer Staes: In fact, that entire The Shepherd, Little Village energy, you've got Warda. You got to go to Warda.

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Norris Howard: Got to go to Warda.

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Jer Staes: That's so good.

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Norris Howard: La Dolce Vita for the old school.

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Jer Staes: Oh yes, La Dolce Vita is another one that's been around forever.

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Norris Howard: Forever and a day.

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Jer Staes: Forever and a day.

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Norris Howard: I, I tell people like the food, the, it's not because we can't think of places, it's because we're thinking of places, but are trying to put them into a box. Like there's so many great places to eat here. Like we haven't even touched any of the Middle Eastern cuisine, we haven't even touched going to Shatila or Al Ameer...

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Jer Staes: Listen, listen. Number 3, number 3. I think the universal number 3 after you've done Coneys and pizza needs to be Shawarma.

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Norris Howard: Shawarma.

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Jer Staes: I know we just talked about it in the last episode, Shawarma.

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Norris Howard: Nah, but Shawarma Law! Shawarma Law.

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Jer Staes: Right. A shawarma... I just experienced Shawarma Law at Al Malek the other day.

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Norris Howard: See?

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Jer Staes: I went after that episode, I literally that night. I was going to go to Al Ameer's, because I hadn't been, but the line was an hour.

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Norris Howard: Because everybody was this celebratory mode, everybody wanted a shawarma.

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Jer Staes: So I got so much food. Oh my gosh, for $23 I got the shawarma plate, I got unlimited bread with the garlic sauce, and a salad.

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Norris Howard: Ah, die. I literally eat till I die.

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Jer Staes: Exactly!

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Norris Howard: Actually, I went to Leila! That's another good one if you want to be a little fancy.

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Jer Staes: Yeah, I went... I was like, I need after this election craziness, I need to have a nice dinner. I went to Leila.

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Jer Staes: Get a shawarma... so I think in Detroit, if you're going to do Coneys, pizza, then I think it needs to be shawarma as number 3.

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Norris Howard: I agree. If we talking about the Detroit trifecta, yeah: pizza, Coney, shawarma.

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Jer Staes: Yes.

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Norris Howard: Yep. Sugar, water, purple, like...

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Jer Staes: That's the classic.

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Jer Staes: All right, that is it for today. Thank you so much for listening to your Daily Detroit. Thank you so much to our members on Patreon for supporting us. It is so important because local media needs local support to survive and thrive. As always, constructive feedback, ideas, all that other stuff, DailyDetroit@gmail.com, or leave a voicemail: 313-789-3211. I promise we'll be doing more mailbags. There's two things now that the election is over, I know people want: 1, they want a monthly guide of like what's happening, so we're going to work on making sure every month we got something like that, and I think once a month we'll try to do these mailbags. I don't want this to sit as long as it did, but we had to, it just what happened. Things were crazy. But yes, I appreciate you so very much. Until next time, I am Jer Staes.

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Norris Howard: I'm Norris Howard.

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Jer Staes: Thank you so much for listening. Remember that you are somebody. I'll see you around Detroit.