Bottom Line is Back; A Big Crisco Can For Your Troubles

MIDTOWN — After some troubling midsummer weeks of rain-influenced remodeling and flooding clean up, the Bottom Line Coffee House announced their return on their Facebook page yesterday afternoon. Their new and revised menu includes more baked goods and better breakfast options, and their return in post-bankrupt Detroit could very well mean they'll get national press attention in a wistful column on the future of the city. Welcome back, Bottom Line! [Eat It Detroit]

DOWNTOWN — For any local chefs looking to create a giant pie crust any time soon, West Bloomfield artist Jerry Peterson might be the guy to see. His replica of a giant can of Crisco, the infamous vegetable shortening of yesteryear, has created quite the digital stir after setting up shop in the plaza in front of the Joe Louis fist downtown. Peterson's intended references are little more risqué than pie crust, but it still makes for a stunning display of public shortening use in a bankrupt and hopeful city. [DetroitNews]

ROCHESTER — If a fancy, friendly date night is what you need, all ye denizens of Rochester and greater Northern Oakland County / Southern Macomb, Sylvia Rector has the five places you should visit. This week's Freep Five highlights such notable Rochester / Rochester Hills restaurants as the Brookshire, the Silver Spoon and the Rochester Chop House, among others. Rector praises the "neat-as-a-pin downtown," and promises that "the city's dining scene offers something for almost every occasion." Take her word for it and drive north with your beau or belle, friends. [Freep]

MEXICANTOWN — Of all the city's neighborhoods that prove the merits of a widely-discussed and controversial report urging immigration-friendly communities, Mexicantown and Southwest Detroit is just that neighborhood. The thriving, growing area — with more than its share of popular Mexican restaurants and related small businesses (soon to be the subject of an upcoming Eater map) — Mexicantown and Southwest show that "immigrants are important to cities because they breathe new life into disinvested and declining neighborhoods." The neighborhoods are more diverse and complicated that any cursory study might suggest, but there's interesting — and potentially tasty — implications for the future of the city's dining scene and economic prosperity. [ModelD]

NEW CENTER — Among the highlights and happy notes from an after-the-fact analysis of the June 2013 United Nations Future of Places Conference in Stockholm, Sweden are the facts that developers and planners from around the world see Detroit as more the home of techno and and do-it-yourself entrepreneurial efforts than crime, poverty and the Big Three. Local dinner—and—a—project crowdsourcing mavens Detroit SOUP got some extra love — no doubt influenced by generous coverage by outlets like the BBC — for their innovative and replicable model of community-centered redevelopment and change.