Saturday Extra: A Cass Cafe appreciation post

On one of my first weekends in Detroit with my then long-distance boyfriend, we went out for lunch. He asked, had I ever had a lentil burger at the Cass Cafe? I had not. Indoor smoking was still legal. We sat at the bar, hazy in the afternoon light, drank beers and talked about Mark Twain. 

When we were planning our wedding a couple of years later, having a formal rehearsal dinner didn’t feel like our speed, but we loved the idea of taking our friends and family to one of our favorite spots. We rented out the loft at the Cass Cafe and hosted a lunch. My soon-to-be father-in-law walked from table to table filling everyone’s cups from a pitcher of Ghettoblaster beer.  

The last time we dined in at the Cass Cafe, not long before the pandemic, our son was about 2 years old. We still have a little rubber ball that lights up when it bounces that one of the servers gave us, charmed by our kid, who was dancing in his high chair and clapping his hands to whatever was playing over the speakers.  The Cass Cafe will close at the end of this month. Its owner, Chuck Roy, told Crain’s that after nearly 30 years, “it’s just time,” but said the cost of doing business had outpaced any revenue increases the restaurant had seen post-pandemic. 

There have been closures like this, and there will be more — places that hung on during the pandemic, maybe even rallied, that nonetheless will not be able to fully recover from the economic “long COVID” side effects including the rising cost of food, rent, labor and raw materials. In the early days of COVID-19, I worried a lot about places like Cass Cafe, cherished neighborhood dives and reliable old haunts, reeling to imagine a world abruptly without them. Now it seems we will not lose them abruptly, but gradually, as the post-COVID world keeps turning and changing. 

Reflecting on the news this week, I also thought about business journalism, and my skepticism, before I joined Crain’s, that I was cut out for it. But business stories are often stories about places that are beloved to a community — and about the people who keep those doors open. And I’m grateful to play a small part in telling them.