Daily Detroit Happy Hour

All good things must come to an end. This is the final transmission of the Daily Detroit Happy Hour podcast. We talk about what we've learned doing 60 episodes, what we've learned along the way, and what we're up to next (yes, we're still podcasting!) and advice for other podcasters. Thanks so much for listening to us. Behind every download is a person. And we're thankful each and every one. Here's what we're up to now on Apple Podcasts:...

On the show today, host Sven Gustafson talks with Detroit restauranteur, chef to the stars, Food Network Chopped finalist and educator Chef Max Hardy. He owns River Bistro Detroit in Grandmont Rosedale and Coop in the Detroit Shipping Company. Both draw on his Caribbean influences. Chef Hardy also shares a little-known story about being a finalist on Chopped. Then, Devon O'Reilly from our column Devon's Detroit pops by to talk openings and closings, as well as the controversial Empire on...

Friends, we're back! After a brief hiatus, the Daily Detroit Happy Hour returns with a fresh new episode. Truth be told, we've been taking some time to refocus the show and what we're about. So you'll notice some new things. In the interests of offering more variety, we'll be doing more and shorter segments, which was always a goal anyway, at a slightly faster pace. We'll still feature great interviews with Detroit's tastemakers and innovators, but we aiming to better embrace the Happy Hour...

The candidates running for governor were out in full force at the Mackinac Policy Conference and we caught up with Jonathan Oosting, political reporter from the Detroit News, about the race. Then, Sven Gustafson and Jer Staes from Daily Detroit then broke it down from their perspective. We also spent a few minutes in the beginning on the tragic death of Anthony Bourdain and what he meant to Detroit.

Detroit is becoming a mecca for murals. Our guest today is aiming to catalog it all. Viranel Clerard is the man behind the Detroit Mural Project, which you can find on the Internet machine at detroitmurals.com. The site organizes murals by neighborhood and includes a description of the artist and who it was commissioned by, when known, a link to the artist’s Instagram page, and location of the mural. He saves his commentary about the murals mostly for his Instagram account, at Detroit...

We're getting back to our boozy roots with this Daily Detroit Happy Hour conversation with barchaeologist Mickey Lyons. She's the talent author behind a recent Hour Detroit piece, "Dry Times: Looking Back 100 Years After Prohibition." Sven Gustafson — a former bartender himself — and Mickey have a great conversation talking about the old time history of Detroit bars and prohibition, and how drinking changed in Detroit forever. The show was recorded at the historic 2-Way Inn. Mickey...

What do you do when a neighborhood… and your city… crumble? Leave? Throw your hands up? Not Mama Shu. She’s taken tragedy — the death of her son by a hit and run driver, Jakobi Ra — and turned that energy into Avalon Village. Avalon Village is a magical corner of Highland Park where Mama Shu and a group of people who love their city have made a safe place. A homework house. A place for entrepreneurs. A place for living... and soon a place for playing. Sven Gustafson for this Daily Detroit...

On this episode of the Daily Detroit Happy Hour podcast, we channel our inner "This Old House" and talk about a big, old house in Detroit’s University District. Between 6 and 7 is the name of a blog written by Miranda Steinhauser. She and her partner, Brandon Suman, bought a 1927 house in Detroit’s University District — and yes, it’s located between 6 and 7 Mile. The two Ohio natives have been chronicling their efforts to fix up the place over the last year and a half. On the blog, they...

It's time for another season of Detroit City FC soccer. On the cusp of the team hitting the pitch on Saturday, Sven sat down with Sean Mann. He's a co-owner, co-founder and CEO of Detroit City FC. They play out of Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck, and draw thousands of people on average to every game. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the team, the upcoming season, plans to play more games, their community involvement... and the specter of Major League Soccer coming to Detroit and what...

Put on your earbuds and sit with Willie Horton, Al Kaline, Jim Price and Dan Dickerson telling stories of Detroit Tigers baseball of yesterday, especially that magical 1968 season. Also, this is our 50th episode! Be sure to subscribe to the Daily Detroit Happy Hour wherever fine podcasts are found. http://www.dailydetroit.com/podcasts/daily-detroit-happy-hour-podcast/ If you'd like to support the show, considering becoming a member of Daily Detroit. You'll get your choice of T-Shirt or...

Hunger is a real challenge throughout metro Detroit, and an organization at the front of dealing with that challenge is Gleaners. Sven Gustafson has Children's Hospital of Michigan CEO Luann Thomas Ewald and Bridget Brown from Gleaners on the show to talk about the upcoming Women's Power Breakfast, Women's Power Happy Hour, and their Million Meal Match Campaign.

Dealing with health insurance is few people’s idea of a good time — if you can afford it at all, that is. Now, a doctor operating out of an office in a former Detroit Police Department precinct headquarters? That's flipping the script on the traditional model of health care. On this episode of the Daily Detroit Happy Hour podcast, we schedule an appointment with Dr. Paul Thomas of Plum Health in Southwest Detroit. He’s practicing a model known as direct primary care in which patients pay a...

Detroit has gone Tinseltown … sort of. “The Leisure Seeker,” the new movie starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland that opened in theaters earlier this month, is based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Michael Zadoorian, who lives in Ferndale. Zadoorian stopped by the Daily Detroit Happy Hour podcast to talk about the film, how it differs from his novel, and his forthcoming book “Beautiful Music,” due May 1. “The Leisure Seeker” focuses on two long-married retirees named Ella and...

Michigan's schools are in trouble. Although many parents believe their school and their teacher is fine, compared to the rest of the nation the state ranks very poorly. It wasn't always this way. Over the years, other states like Tennessee and Florida have surpassed Michigan. Fighting between factions has locked progress in Michigan's schools in place. The status quo - for instance, Michigan is one of only five states in which reading skills declined between 2003 and 2015 - isn't going to...

On this week's Daily Detroit Happy Hour, we talk mass transit. A new plan has been put forth by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans (more here)... but does it even have a chance? Does any plan have a chance? The Daily Detroit team walked through some of the speech Evans gave to a Regional Transit Authority Board meeting, what the plan is and what it could mean.. and openly wondered if there is any plan that would actually be acceptable to suburban leaders as the target keeps moving. One of...

Hour Detroit magazine named Parc its 2018 restaurant of the year in its March edition — yes, Daily Detroit readers, there’s still a place for print media — and so this week’s episode takes you down to Campus Martius for a conversation about the restaurant, the award, food and the city’s fast-changing dining scene. We chat with Parc’s executive chef, Jordan Hoffman, and Hour Detroit Editor Steve Wilke in a wide-ranging conversation that touches on everything from the restaurant’s gorgeous...

So this is a veritable charcuterie of topics and guests from the floor of the 2018 Detroit Policy Conference. Sven Gustafson and the Daily Detroit team spent the day at the Motor City Casino getting interviews and talking to interesting people, and here are three of the interviews. Thanks to Podcast Detroit and Dave Phillips for providing remote engineering for this episode.

This year’s Detroit Policy Conference takes place March 1 at MotorCity Casino Hotel, and the agenda is all about civility and putting aside our differences to help move Detroit forward. On this episode of the Daily Detroit Happy Hour podcast, we talk with two people closely involved in putting the conference together. Marlowe StoudamireDevon O’ReillyDaily Detroit contributor. The one-day conference will feature more than 60 speakers, including keynote addresses from Mark Wallace, president...

If you listened to our recent episode on Amazon’s snub of Detroit (and you totally should), you’ll recall that the inclusion of Indianapolis among the 20 finalists for its HQ2 project was the topic of some surprise. Well, one of the reasons they made it was their efforts to develop 50 miles of Bus Rapid Transit and other improvements. So we sent our correspondent Shianne Nocerini down to Indiana’s capital city to talk with Brian Luellen, vice president of public relations for IndyGo, the...

Our guest on the Happy Hour this week could be consider Detroit cultural royalty, if there is such a thing. Around the Daily Detroit office, we often joke that the shirts that say "Detroit Hustles Harder," to be more accurate, should have said "Detroit Hustles/ Side Hustles / Other Hustles / Weekend Hustles Harder." Because it seems like the people who are doing things in the D are always wearing many hats. We were honored to have Melody Baetens, a woman of many talents and who is one of...