New Restaurants, Food/Beverage Companies Opening

As spring approaches, Traverse City’s restaurant scene is also heating up, with a new restaurant and taproom coming to East Bay Township, an Asian eatery opening at Chums Corner, and several other new dining options having recently opened.

Hopscotch Brick Oven and Taproom
A long-vacant former t-shirt shop will soon host a new restaurant, taproom and beer garden in East Bay Township.

Matt and Mark Davies – owners of Peninsula Grill, Western Avenue Grill, Bad Dog Deli, and Riverwalk Grill and Taproom – are opening Hopscotch Brick Oven and Taproom at 2032 US-31 next to Don’s Drive In. The 1,600 square-foot eatery will feature a brick-fired oven serving up pizza, charcuterie and sandwiches, a smoker for ribs, wings and other smoked meats, and 16 tap handles for craft beer. Hopscotch will also have an extensive whiskey and bourbon list, according to Matt Davies, as well as craft cocktails. The restaurant’s interior can seat 70.

But it’s what’s in Hopscotch’s backyard that Davies is particularly excited about. “It’s landscaped out back, and we’re going to put in two eight-foot firepits as part of an outdoor beer garden with tables and bourbon barrels,” says Davies. “We’ll have some outdoor games out there, like cornhole or a ring toss and dartboards on the walls. It’ll be a fun outdoor area.”

Davies compares the concept to patios found at Founders Brewing Company in Grand Rapids or Hop Lot Brewing Company in Suttons Bay. Hopscotch will be accessible by both the highway and the TART Trail. “I think there is some opportunity over here (on the east side of town),” Davies says, adding the restaurant and taproom should be open by “early spring.”

Samsara Southeast Asian Cuisine
On the opposite end of town, west-side residents will soon have another new dining option near Chums Corner. Samsara Southeast Asian Cuisine is opening in the former Crusted Creations building at 4025 Chums Village Drive at the entrance to Wuerfel Park. Samantha Malasay – whose family is opening the restaurant, with mother Kyla Kirakhone and boyfriend Kevin Kon running the kitchen – says her Laotian parents “wanted to give something back to our community of our culture, and the best way we thought we could express that would be through food.”

Samsara will offer a variety of Southeast Asian regional specialties, including sticky rice, noodles, red curry, and pho with homemade meatballs. “We’ll also be featuring drink specials, like Thai tea mixed with matcha green tea and boba (bubble tea),” says Malasy. Samsara, which will offer both dine-in and takeout options, is targeting a March opening.

In Other Food & Beverage News…
After national chain Dickey’s Barbecue Pit announced last September it was opening a Traverse City franchise in 2017, the company now has a location. Dickey’s will open in the new building in the southwestern corner of the parking lot at East Front Street’s Campus Plaza, also home to Jimmy John’s and the Omelette Shoppe. Brad Warren of 45th Parallel Construction Management, which owns the new building, says the 1,600 square-foot restaurant with patio should be ready to open by late spring. Two additional 1,600 square-foot units are still available for rent in the building, according to Warren, who says he’s had conversations with “several” other food service establishments about joining the property.

Further down East Front Street, Patisserie Amie owner Eric Fritch has opened the doors to his new pizzeria Piccolo Forno in the former Happy Hog Café space at 810 East Front Street. The restaurant is open seven days a week from 4pm to 9pm, serving up Neapolitan, New York and Sicilian-style pizza, plus pasta, soup, salad and calzones. Across town, McGee’s 31 – owned by the restaurateurs behind Sorellina, McGee’s No. 72 and Harrington’s By The Bay – has also opened its doors at 273 US-31 near Chums Corner. The new eatery operates Tues-Thurs 11am-9pm and Fri-Sat 11am-10pm and is closed Sun-Mon.

Fans of J&S Hamburg will soon be able to enjoy a more spacious dining room at the 1083 W South Airport Road location. Owners Tiffany and Jason McQueer are expanding J&S into the former Plant Haus space next door. While Jason says the duo are still finalizing their plans for the new space, the expansion will allow for more dine-in seating and new items to be added to the menu. The expansion is set to open this spring.

Doorganics, a Grand Rapids-based organic produce delivery company, is expanding its delivery area to the local area beginning February 15. Customers in Traverse City, Old Mission Peninsula and Suttons Bay can order weekly deliveries of three different sizes of organic produce bins containing either all fruits, all veggies or a mixture of both. Owner Mike Hughes partners with Michigan farms and Cherry Capital Foods to source the produce, which is delivered to customers’ front doors. The company hopes to expand the business to Glen Arbor and the rest of Leelanau Peninsula this summer.

Finally, business partners Chuck Gree and Aaron Spangler have opened a homebrew supply shop called UBrew. Located at 3054 Cass Road (Suite D) at the corner of Cass Road and Switch Drive, the company specializes in “a vast supply of bulk products” such as hops, grains and yeast as well as equipment for homebrewers. UBrew is open Wed-Sun.