Looking For Food in Detroit? Hop On A Bus

In a true 'you haven't lived here until you've...' kind of moment, a rare collection of local media sources have turned their eyes to the booming business of Detroit city bus tours, raising awareness of the unusual collection of tour groups hitting the streets for a closer look at the city proper.

A lively Ellen Creager piece in Sunday's Freep hits the full bus gamut, describing the "food tours, obscure bar tours, music tours and heritage tours" that await the adventurous traveler paying a visit to the Motor City. She also describes Belle Isle as "shabby chic," which might be a stretch.

Detroit Bus Co. gets extra special love for their dive bar and frontier anarchy tours of the city's west side, and DBC founder Andy Didosrosi says funky bus tours like his are the way to find out the city's closely held secrets.

"Detroit is such an insider city that it's hard to know where to go," Didosrosi told Creager. (Never mind the fact that the city is also rapidly approaching full-on bankruptcy and continues to lose residents and businesses alike.)

Still, with tours like the "Drunks of Antiquity" and "Detroit Dives," — not to mention Eat It Detroit's Nicole Rupersburg's regular tour, "The Detroit Food Experience" — these off-kilter auto explorations are a fine way to sample the city's best (or weirdest) food and drink establishments without having to find parking. The dive tour features stops at Temple Bar, the Old Miami and the Grand Trunk Pub, among others, making the $35 ticket well worth its share of downtown ticket fees.
· The Detroit Bus Company [Official]
· Hello, Detroit! See city in a different light from a bicycle, by foot or funky bus [Freep]
· Eat It Detroit [Official]