Alexis Chingman-Tijerina
Chef Lex (as she was affectionately known) passed away June 25 at age 38. She’s remembered as a “caregiver to the nth degree” by Rosebud Bear Schneider, her friend and partner in Maple Buds Kitchen, a catering service providing traditional Native foods in Detroit and beyond.
Chingman-Tijerina was involved in many nonprofits and grassroots efforts — Make Food Not Waste, Black to the Land, the Waawiyataanong Detroit Sugarbush, Soul Fire Farm, and Keep Growing Detroit. Before she passed away, she was in the process of transforming her Detroit home (with hopes to purchase the adjacent property) into AISHA House, a community space where African and Indigenous people in the area could eat, participate in educational workshops, and get temporary shelter.
“She opened her house for folks that didn’t have a place to stay; she was really generous that way,” Schneider says. “I know a lot of us really want to carry on these legacies that she left for us.”
Maxcel Hardy
The native Detroiter who helmed Coop Caribbean Fusion and Jed’s Detroit never got to see his much-anticipated seafood restaurant What’s Crackin’ open ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft. But during his time, he appeared on Food Network’s Chopped, launched his own line of spices and chef apparel, helped write multiple cookbooks, and was named one of the “16 Black Chefs Changing Food in America” by The New York Times.
He also impacted the community with his philanthropic efforts, like his nonprofit One Chef Can 86 Hunger, through which he helped to feed those in need and taught cooking classes. He was recognized as Hour Detroit’s 2021 Restaurateur of the Year. Hardy passed away March 4 at age 40.
Ron Jeffries
One of Michigan’s most impactful modern beer makers, Jeffries began brewing professionally in 1995. He went on to found Dexter-based Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales just nine years later with his wife, Laurie. Jolly Pumpkin grew and expanded, with additional pubs in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and other cities across Michigan. His beers were recognized at international competitions and by national outlets like Thrillist and Men’s Health.
During his final year, he moved to Hawaii (fulfilling a lifelong dream) and embarked on a new project — Hilo Brewing Co. and Holoholo Brewing — where he “cherished moments spent on his lanai, soaking in the Hilo rain with a pint in hand,” according to a September statement from his son, Daemon.
Joe Muer Jr.
Sharing a name with his grandfather Joseph F. Muer, who founded Joe Muer Seafood in 1929, which would go on to be nationally acclaimed, Joe Muer Jr. continued to uphold its legacy, running the iconic Detroit restaurant with his brother Chuck for many decades.
Amid the restaurant’s financial troubles and following the tragic deaths of both his brothers in the early ’90s, Muer Jr. would close the restaurant in 1998. Eventually, Andiamo restaurateur Joe Vicari convinced Muer to sell him the rights to Joe Muer Seafood. It reopened in the Renaissance Center in 2011, and in 2012, Hour Detroit named it Restaurant of the Year.
“Joe was not only a restaurateur legend in our community; he was also an inspirational teacher to all of us younger generation of chefs [and] restaurant operators,” remembers Keith Famie, director/ producer of Detroit: The City of Chefs, a new Detroit PBS docuseries in which Muer Jr. is featured. He died Aug. 11 at age 88.
Richard Vincent
Vincent, 82, passed away Aug. 11. In his early 20s, Vincent took a job bartending at Traffic Jam or TJ’s), a newly opened college bar near Wayne State University in the Cass Corridor owned by Ben Edwards. TJ’s would expand: In 1967, it merged with Edwards’s next-door ice cream parlor called The Snug to become the Traffic Jam and Snug, where Vincent would eventually become a partner.
Vincent and Edwards sold TJ’s to former employee Carolyn Howard and her husband Scott Lowell in 1999. In 2022, it was gutted by a fire. The restaurant was known for its eclectic menu, which had numerous vegetarian options and iconic desserts like the Carlotta Chocolatta ice cream cheesecake — with cheese, bread, baked goods, and beer made in the massive on-site kitchen spaces.
TJ’s became Michigan’s first microbrewery in 1992 after being an active part of lobbying the Legislature for the previous five years to make microbreweries legal in Michigan.
This story originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Dec. 9.
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