Detroit Soul

Feel-Good Food

A person’s got to like a restaurant that tells its customers, “We want to make sure you leave with a smile on your face and a good feeling in your heart.” What those watchwords omit is the fact that you’ll likely leave Detroit Soul with a satisfied appetite, too.

Soul As Opposed to Soulless

Detroit Soul began in 2010 when Jerome Brown and Samuel Vanburen opened a catering business specializing in healthful alternatives to traditional soul food.. They subsequently began their restaurant on Eight Mile Road with the goal of offering a satisfying, Detroit-flavored alternative to the soulless fast food that is everywhere in and around the city.

Traditions From The South

The menu offers a roster of classics. Here you can enjoy exemplary fried chicken, white and/or dark meat. For a somewhat more healthful but no less luscious variation, consider baked chicken. It lacks the crunch of seasoned crust, but it packs savory juice in meat that needs only a gentle fork-tug to pull from the bone.

People come for pork chops either fried or smothered, meatloaf, catfish, perch, and tilapia. All dinners entitle the diner to two side dishes. Here, too, the choice is right: collard greens, black-eyed peas, dressing (for that baked chicken!), yams, mac & cheese. As holds true throughout the heartland, spaghetti is a favorite side dish as well. You get a mountain of cooked-soft noodles in sweet tomato sauce.

Weekend Barbecue

Barbecue makes its appearance on Saturday. They sell ribs by the whole slab, half slab, and four-bone portion. Full dinners include side dishes and a cornbread muffin.

For dessert: peach cobbler, pound cake, or layer cake.

What’s Your Hurry?

They assemble every meal when it’s ordered. You know for sure that you are not in a fast food joint. Regular customers know to call ahead to let the management know what they want to eat. In fact, much business is take-out.