Metro Detroit Restaurant Group Dropped Millions to Buy Como’s Building

Restaurant group dropped major bank on troubled Ferndale restaurant

Metro Detroit restaurant group Peas and Carrots Hospitality paid top dollar to acquire the Como’s property in Ferndale. According to county land records the restaurant sold for a $3.074 million — nearly a million short of the Grego family’s $4 million asking price, but still a substantial amount for a business with a, perhaps, irreparably tarnished reputation. Peas and Carrot’s partners Zack Sklar, Jim Bellinson, and Josh Humphrey announced their acquisition of the property earlier this month, but had declined to provide purchase price. The group surprisingly intends to keep the name of the 66-year-old business that closed last year after repeated run-ins with the health department.

Cass Corridor bartender immortalized on a t-shirt

Fans of Bronx bar’s foul-mouthed bartending legend Charleen Dexter can now rep her brand on a T-shirt. Marcus Market is now selling shirts featuring a caricature of the neighborhood fixture brandishing her middle finger and wearing a shirt with her favorite slogan “F*ck yourself” (sans asterisk, of course).

Celebrity chef sighting

Chef Marcus Samuelsson, star of Eater and PBS’s upcoming series No Passport Required, is appears to be making the rounds in Detroit this week with stops at downtown’s Cortina Local-cobranded beer garden, the Detroit Foundation Hotel, and Lady of the House. The first episode of Samuelsson’s show was shot in Detroit and Dearborn. It’s set to air next month.

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