Royal Oak couple Chad and Jami Buchanan had always dreamed of opening a café, even if it meant straying from Detroit Barbers, the barbershops they opened in Corktown and Ferndale. The duo has found a way to combine their love of cutting hair and consuming caffeine with Lucky Detroit, a vintage-inspired coffee shop that serves espresso, lattes, and pour-overs, as well as roasts from Detroit’s Populace Coffee, and tea from Dearborn’s Retea. Located on the second floor of Detroit Barbers’ Corktown location, Lucky Detroit spawned from the barbers’ constant need for java. “When you think about the tremendous amount of coffee we consume as a barbershop, it makes sense [to open a café],” Chad says.
But the joe isn’t just for the barbers. The menu offers a “blend between unique and traditional [beverages],” says general manager Patrick McDermott, whose career in the coffee industry spans a generation. Along with tried, tested, and refined beverages, are uniquely crafted drinks that most coffee connoisseurs are likely to have never experienced. McDermott brings his Vanilla Bourbon Latte to Lucky Detroit, which involves evaporating the alcohol out of the bourbon and making the remnants into a syrup. “This process gives the drink a nice woody, fiery taste,” McDermott says. Still to come to the menu are a range of signature drinks that Chad and McDermott are currently concocting. Guests can expect a salty sweet latte and a sweet and spicy latte, incorporating cayenne.
Pastries baked by students at Rising Stars Academy, a local culinary arts school for special needs students ages 18-26, will also be available for purchase. “Everything we can source locally, we do,” Chad says. This includes much of the interiors for both Lucky Detroit and Detroit Barbers, which are furnished with vintage finds, refurbished by Chad himself. While the café’s four-stool coffee bar is constructed out of repurposed wood from a reclaimed butcher’s block, the counter itself came from a general store dating back to the 1940s or ’50s, and took seven people to lug it up to the second floor. “Lucky Detroit has an old-school vibe that’s like the barbershop. It still feels like its own, difference space,” Chad says.
For more information, visit luckydetroit.com
Related: The Gentleman’s Guide to Style
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