Prince Concepts

Commerce is vitality. Transactions create energy. We knew, from the beginning, that if we wanted to invigorate a nondescript, quiet Detroit neighborhood, we needed to bring considered energy.

Although our primary responsibility is the imagining, development and management of land and building projects, the hardware (as we think about it), we also wanted to kick-off our work in Detroit building and running the operations, or software, that activates the hardware.

Restaurants see thousands of transactions a month - energy! So we wanted to own restaurants, at least to begin.

I guess this is the intellectual explanation of why we got into the restaurant business, but if I'm really honest, I was just a kid (27) when I bought my first couple buildings in Detroit. I bought what a working kid, who had saved a little money from a company I started in NYC, could afford. These were not prime locations. These were beat-up, derelict, abandoned garages in off-the-beaten path areas of Detroit. Who was going to Lease them from me?

I knew, as a consumer, I'd enjoy venturing to barely discovered territory in the wilderness of Detroit and enjoying great food in a small, intimate, converted garage; but not many business operators would take that risk. So I had to...

We started with KATOI, just West of the bit of activity in Corktown that Phil Cooley and Dai Hughes had created with Slows BBQ and Astro Coffee. When we bought the building, there was some action a few minutes East of us, but the train station was totally boarded up, magnificent, but a total ruin.

We were just past the action, but close enough for it to not feel like a huge risk.

I started fixing up the building without a plan, then Ish and I started working together, then I met Brad and Courtney who had a Thai food truck... Ish and I amended our open kitchen, all booth diner design, to a Thai restaurant from a dystopian future design. KATOI opened as an absolute sensation.

Ish nailed the hardware, Chef Brad and Courtney nailed the software. People started to venture a little further West than they thought they should go. But not just a few people, like 5,000 a month. The restaurant was absolutely slammed every night for the entire first year; what happened after that, well, go to the KATOI -> TAKOI page for more in-depth info on the project.

As our first project in Detroit, KATOI was introverted. I didn't know the city, its people or its landscape. I was going to use this project to get to know the people and place, but you can tell, with the design of the project, that we were introverted. Skylights, not windows. We kept what was happening inside the building very private.

KATOI was an introverted box with no windows.

BARDA, a little box with a large window facing our own park.

PUMA opens itself totally up to the street.

It's easy to see that each sequential project communicates more comfort and a greater desire to have a more significant relationship with our host.

BARDA was our second restaurant, but our sixth significant project. With more experience, we aimed to create a more refined product. Our idea always is that more skill is communicated through greater simplicity. As such, we aimed to produce a simpler, yet more elevated restaurant with MAGNET -> BARDA.

We had the confidence to move further from the action after using KATOI to cultivate an audience that trusted our vision.

Where KATOI stretched the boundary of an already active neighborhood, MAGNET needed to draw people to an entirely new one.

As mentioned above, after getting to know Detroit better, the MAGNET building was opened up to a park we built adjacent to it. We weren't totally opened to the street, but we were beginning to get more comfortable with the idea.

Like with KATOI, we tried to make the appearance of what was happening in the building understated We wanted the inside of the restaurant to be a "discovery".

Some key principles that manifest throughout our restaurant projects, exceptions occur when spaces are adapted by tenants, but when we are in control we insist on:

1. Open Seating - the dining room is the gallery and the kitchen is the studio. Everyone likes to see where the art is made - we design open kitchens and allow the creative act of, creation, to be shared. Creation energizes the atmosphere.

2. No Banquets - no seat should face a wall. We hate banquets and will never design them into a project. No-one wants to look at a wall.

3. Aspirational Simplicity - A project is stronger when it is more focused. As we've built more restaurants, we aim to always incorporate less. Less equipment, fewer materials, and simpler projects. What one project doesn't achieve - there's the brief for the next one. Our experience has inspired us to seek simplicity, not complexity. We are masters when we can create a sensational raw food restaurant - a project with no kitchen that kicks ass is stronger than a project with a massive kitchen that kicks ass. A project with a small menu that excited is more powerful than a project with a huge menu that entices.

PANTRY / COMMISSARY PLACEHOLDER

PUMA PLACEHOLDER

CAFE PRINCE PLACEHOLDER