Tigris feels less like a café and more like your coolest friend’s apartment with the world’s best vinyl collection.
That’s exactly the idea behind the new all-day café and hi-fi cocktail lounge, which opened June 20 in Southwest Detroit behind Michigan Central and near the Riverwalk. The café/lounge is a partnership between music supervisor Fabian Halabou, Kenan Juska of the DJ duo Chances With Wolves, and restaurateur Jacques Driscoll of InLaws Hospitality.
Walk through the front door and you’ll find a bright, counter-service café with coffee, pastries, and shelves lined with vinyl. Dark wood tables and long, striped banquettes line the room. A sprawling collage by Juska from enlarged record artwork and portraits of favorite musicians unfolds across one wall.
“I had a friend describe it as two rooms in a house party,” Halabou tells Hour Detroit. “One place with two distinct sides to it that are connected.”
What to Expect from Tigris’ Food and Drink Menu
Tigris takes its name from the river that runs through Iraq, where Halabou’s family is from. That connection echoes throughout the menu, where Middle Eastern flavors meet Detroit’s music scene.
That influence carries through the café menu. Classics like cappuccinos and cortados share space with a date latte, espresso tonics, and coffee roasted exclusively for Tigris by fellow InLaws Hospitality business Yellow Light Coffee. Visitors can also find savory gems like lahmajun, or Middle Eastern meat pies, and musakhan, a rolled chicken sandwich seasoned with sumac in saj bread. Sweet options include a flaky crinkle cake adapted from Halabou’s family’s recipe, served with velvety gaimar cream drizzled with date syrup, pistachio-topped doughnuts from Yellow Light, and chocolate-covered dates stuffed with peanut butter.
Wander through a doorway toward the rear and you’ve found the second room of the house party. Muted amber light spills across a curved bar, low-slug sofas, acoustically treated walls and towering speaker stacks, creating a space that feels equally suited to intimate conversations and live DJ sets. Lounge seating tucked into opposite corners encourages smaller gatherings, while a DJ booth reinforces the room’s music-first identity.
The vinyl collection, numbering in the thousands, is compiled from the personal libraries of the ownership team. Baristas and bartenders are encouraged to pull records from the shelves throughout the day, creating a soundtrack that evolves with the space.
The Middle Eastern influences don’t stop with the café menu. Cocktails developed by general manager Dane Majors, an alumnus of In Sheep’s Clothing, continue the theme with a za’atar martini, a date old fashioned, and a tahini-infused mai tai. Coffee remains available into the evening alongside coffee cocktails, wine, and spritzes.
Hours and Location
Longtime Detroiters may recognize the Bagley Street address. Before becoming Tigris, the building housed Our/Detroit Vodka. It later became Bagley Central. Over the past four years, served as home to a rotating lineup of seasonal pop-up bars. Driscoll, who owns the property, also co-owns InLaws Hospitality with his wife, Christina. They are the team behind Green Dot Stables, Johnny Noodle King, Yellow Light Donuts and, more recently, Kiesling.
Tigris is located at 2545 Bagley Street. It’s open 8 a.m. to midnight Sundays and Tuesday through Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Follow them on Instagram @tigrisdetroit.
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