District 78 Serving Up Resto-Lounge Atmosphere

dustry-recognized curriculums and certifications, including the Foundations of Restaurant Management & Culinary Arts Level 1 and Level 2, ServSafe Food Manager, and the AHLEI, Start Program. Hill said that his two most important mentors in his life, Solomon Tbo and Blanch Mae Hill, two “very Southern parents” attributed his success to them.

By Andre Ash

Several entrepreneurial partners in the hospitality industry across Metro Detroit came together to start a new endeavor. The project has taken several months to recast and reconstruct a previous restaurant that will now serve home to a new dining experience in downtown Detroit.

“My thought was to give people the structure and quality of a restaurant but the vibe of a lounge,” said John ‘Bravo’ Samuels lll, one of owners of District

Seventy8. “You’ll be entertained, because while we won’t call it fine dining, it will be fun dining with us.”

The journey of creating the establishment on the corner of Park and Adams Ave. is a joint venture with his business partner Rob Mims. Their vision came together through a broker who engaged them with another local entrepreneur who was eyeing the purchase of the building as well.

So they joined with Ali Saad, owner Starter’s Bar and Grill, and they would soon become partners in the endeavor.

From the design to the build out, its all been in-house amongst the Detroit area hospitality entrepreneurs. From the marketing to kitchen and cocktail, it’s all been curated based on the partners involved.

Partners also include Kenny Valentino, John Neely, Stephen Christopher, and Carlos Llinas who stepped in as its management team and helped craft and boost its marketing efforts.

The idea to proceed on the space for a restaurant type business was a challenging thought following pandemic era shutdowns. But being in a prime location and walking heartbeat away from District Detroit, surrounded by theatre and stadiums, the partners decided to move forward on the deal late last year.

“The space picked us, we loved it,” Bravo says.

Being in the hospitality industry as a promoter and other business role has prolled Bravo to achieved this level within his business portfolio, but building out the space required him at times to sat as his business hat and tap into his electrician skills and grab the hammer himself.

He along with a contracted carpenter executed the design for a space and name that would mirror the name of the “District” area, and 78 for the address of the establishment.

“We wanted to take all the elements that surround us, from black tones, grass from the nearby park, industrial colors, we wanted to take it all in so that we felt like we fit into all the surroundings.”

District Seventy 8 is being marked as the city’s new nightlife experience, bringing together a modern, American resto-lounge with vibrant atmosphere and delicious scratch-made cuisine.

The new downtown hit boast of a menu featuring a variety of dishes curated by their executive chef.

“We wanted a menu you would see in a lot of places but we wanted our own innovation and our own flavor to it,” said Bravo. “We didn’t want to go too rich, but we didn’t want regular bar food.”

It’s a menu that comes from scratch

District 78

From page B-1 from the ranch sauces to the wing sauces, it’s almost tailor made for you to make a visit. “It’s from the heart, it’s a passion food.”

Bravo states he really insured that the team emphasized on the appetizers especially for anyone visiting soon to make that trip to a stadium game.

“I’m an appetizer kind of guy. We have your calamari, wings you’re bing bong shrimp with great sauce to it with wedge salads. And later there’s the entrée with sea bass, steaks, portobello mushroom. A very extensive menu.”

When it comes to drinks the emphasis was to be creative. Not the place for an ordinary craft cock-tail but definitely there’s the option for it and serving patrons who just want a regular shot.

“One of our favorite drink is the pink Starburst, a popular drink here. It’s freeze-dried then put into a martini, a dust a rim to it and of course we have some of the martini classics as well with a little flare.”

Thursday though Sundays nights, District Seventy 8 is also featuring “Dine with the DJ”. Their selected top DJ’s will spin all genres of music and host dinners with patrons.

“When you come here, I want you to have an experience you have not gotten anywhere else. You won’t see anyone say that don’t love the vibe or aesthetics.”

“We don’t want to be like anybody else, and when you come here we hope you don’t see us like anybody else.”

Coldwater Kitchen

From page B-1

“I wouldn’t be where I am today in terms of learning about food,” Hill said. “My mother was in the dietary department at Muskegon General Hospital and my father, he sold barbeque and “All Things” out of our garden. I thank The Lord for both of them.”

The international premiere of Coldwater Kitchen took place last November at the prestigious DOC NYC film festival. It was selected as an Award Winner of the Miller/Packan Documentary Film Fund for Winter 2021.

Coldwater Kitchen, which was co-directed by Frame’s own editorial director, Mark Kurlyandchik, and was produced over the last five years by the Detroit Free Press, was hailed as one of IndieWire’s “10 Must-See Films” when it made its DOC NYC debut in November.

Kurlyandchik, a former restaurant critic at the Detroit Free Press, told the Michigan Chronicle that previously while working at the Free Press he received a letter from an incarcerated man at Lakeland discussing his work as a sous chef in the culinary program and encouraging Kurlyandchik to check out the program.

“I was invited to one of those events. And when I got in, it was just I mean, it absolutely blew me away, the level of cooking and what was going on inside of the prison,” he said.

From there, Kurlyandchik wrote a story and the documentary came to life later on.

“It’s powerful,” Kurlyandchik said, adding that it adds a unique juxtaposition of dining and incarceration. “There’s not a lot of hope (in) a system that isn’t set up, you know, to forgive or to make you feel like you are human. ... The system, the prison system dehumanizes people who go into it, and generally grinds them up and spit them back out, you know, worse than they were before. And so what you know, what’s so amazing about Jeff Hill, is that he does the opposite. And he really does, you know, instill hope and faith in a place that really needs it.”

An opening night VIP event celebrating the film will be shown at the multiday event, which will take place at Hazel Park’s creative hub Frame. Chef Jimmy Lee Hill, Dink Dawson, and Ernest Davis, two of his former students who also appear in the film, will prepare a delicious meal in the dining room of Frame.

Kurlyandchik and co-director Brian Kaufman will also be present, moving around the dining area to share personal anecdotes about the making of the movie as you savor Chef Hill’s delectable “Black Magic” cake, Asian-glazed bonein lamb chops with rice, seared Thai scallops with sweet potato mash, and bright quinoa salad with collards and lime-yogurt dressing.

Of course, Frame’s in-house mixologists Jaz’min Weaver and Sean Crenny will have the ideal wine and cocktail pairings to match.

Choose whether to eat supper first and then watch the movie or vice versa—meal first and the movie second. A small bar serving inventive cocktails, popcorn, and sweets is installed in the Frame Pavilion’s heated and covered screening area before the movie.

This one-night-only collaboration promises to be much more than just supper and will highlight the transforming power of both food and stories.

Attendees should prepare for a three-hour-plus Frame experience, as the movie run time is roughly 90 minutes.