Downtown's 1515 Broadway Café Goes on Hiatus, Will Return Under New Management

After nearly 7 years of serving customers, 1515 Broadway Café's manager Daniel Martinez is leaving the business, according to partner Chris Jaszczak. "I think he just got tired," Jaszczkak says of the move, adding that Martinez teaches full time in the Dorsey Culinary Academy and operates a catering business.After this weekend, service will be suspended at the café.

Jaszczak, who owns and resides in the building, also operates the popular 1515 Broadway arts venue, which hosts theater productions and other community events. He says that the mixed use space will continue to operate normally during the café's temporary closure. "No question the food and beverage operation was part of the mix and will be again," Jaszczak says, adding that he is hopeful the café will be up and running by April.

Martinez and Jaszczak partnered to open the café a little more than six years ago with the intention of further connecting the arts space with the surrounding downtown community. It hasn't always been an easy run. Last summer, when the café's water line busted, the Water and Sewerage Department opted for a crude, temporary fix—hooking up a garden hose to a nearby fire hydrant with plastic pipe, duct tape, and towels—rather than risk working near the crumbling Wurlitzer and Metropolitan Buildings. Jaszczak tells Eater that it took nearly five months before city crews came up with a permanent fix.

Then, just last week, 1515 Broadway made the news once again, as Motor City Muckraker reported Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Real Estate had trespassed and installed video surveillance cameras to the alley-side Jaszczak's building and the adjacent Detroit Beer Company. "I was upstairs working and I hear the unmistakable sound of a drill on my back wall," he tells Eater. "Our objection wasn't to the cameras so much as ... you just don't appropriate other people's property." Bedrock has since apologized for the intrusion.

These and other events, Jaszczak's speculates, may have led to Martinez's decision to leave. Eater has reached out to Martinez for comment and is awaiting a response.