Inside Willow, a new speakeasy in downtown Detroit, soft lights cast a warm glow against dark walls. There’s a moodiness to the space, which balances homey furnishings with touches of luxe. Gilded accents show up in picture frames and table lamps, while a back seating area nods to what I imagine the living room of a Boston Edison mansion might have looked like in the 1970s — a wingback loveseat in a black and white houndstooth print is framed with drawn curtains and a coffee table sits on a black area rug with a gold motif border.
Co-owners Ron Scott, J.D. Simpson and Roger Yopp opened Willow in May to build upon the foundation laid by SavannahBlue, the restaurant that the team founded in 2016. Tucked away beneath the upscale soul food restaurant, Willow is SavannahBlue’s hideaway and plays up a mystifying persona.
To enter the cocktail bar, you’ll have to find the gold door at the back alleyway. The Ring doorbell fixed to the brick façade will alert someone of your arrival and a stylish gentleman named Charles will welcome you in. You’ll walk through floor-to-ceiling curtains for a dramatic reveal.
En route to your table, you’ll admire sepia photographs of Motown legends that line the walls. You’ll gasp at the crown jewel of the space, the breathtaking replica of a willow tree planted at the bar. Expansive branches wrapped in delicate string lights cascade over bar stools as a wink to the name of the bar and an homage to the weeping willow’s prominence in Southern cities like Savannah, Georgia.
Scott, Simpson and Yopp, along with late partner Tanya Heidelberg-Yopp, set out to create ventures rooted in Southern hospitality. Like many Black Detroiters whose families relocated to Michigan during the Great Migration, the founding quartet have roots in southern states like Alabama and Mississippi and drew on their experiences visiting family members down South when creating SavannahBlue and Willow.
“All of our hospitality sensibilities came from down South,” Simpson says. “Everyone would go once or twice a summer to visit Grandma or Auntie where you really got to live your Southern roots.”
Southern hospitality is known for its nurturing nature. It’s a style where servers feel familiar, like a close friend or a distant relative. A style that this year, landed Scott, Simpson and Yopp in the semifinalist round of the prestigious James Beard Awards for Outstanding Restaurateur, and a style that bleeds into operations at Willow.
“Willow is a craft cocktail bar, which is not a new concept, but what is new about it is, we come from a place of inclusion and diversity. That’s our difference,” Simpson says. “We treat everybody like they matter and that makes the experience much richer.”
Just as SavannahBlue serves up elevated interpretations of traditional Southern dishes, Willow celebrates the Black experience through the lens of fanciful, handcrafted beverages. There is an emphasis on quality here, where owners have invested in state-of-the-art equipment for items like specialty ice cubes.
“The craft cocktail world is not about drink-slinging,” Simpson says. “It’s fresh ingredients, fresh syrups, proper glass game. It’s proper spirit knowledge, which is very intellectual. My partners and I understand that it’s not only about the product, it’s about the care that you take in presenting something that’s consistent with the type of specialized experience that you’re offering.”
Arguably the most important investment, though, is in talent. The co-founders entrusted 28-year-old wunderkind Andre Sykes to helm the beverage program. Sykes has worked behind the bar at some of Detroit’s most esteemed craft cocktail bars, including Bad Luck Bar, Castalia at Sfumato and Sugar House, as well as high-end restaurants such as Oak and Reel and Highlands. Most recently, Sykes led the beverage program at Shelby to the semifinalist round in the James Beard Awards for Outstanding Bar Program as beverage director and principal bartender.
“That was my crowning achievement thus far as a Black bartender,” Sykes says. “When I got hired at Shelby, I presented this two- and five-year plan — we’d get a nomination within two years and a win within five. To do it in six months was awe-inspiring.”
Whereas prior experiences allowed him to hone his craft and assert himself as an expert in the field, Sykes says he sees Willow and the work he’s doing as a gift to Detroiters. It’s a gift that marks a historic moment as the city’s first Black-owned craft cocktail bar.
“This means so much more than just myself,” he says. “This right here is for the city.”
The menu at Willow, Sykes says, caters to the taste preferences of the Black community.
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“Most bars have a Eurocentric palette, things that are more on the bitter or neutral side,” he says. “For the Black palate, throughout all of our history, we have always had powerful flavors. We have always had a sweet tooth. We were always fortunate enough for spices to be readily available because they were growing outside of our huts in Africa.”
Sykes says these flavor profiles are largely missing in American culinary society, namely in the bar scene and Willow aims to disrupt that.
Willow’s Fannie Ward No. 2 features sorrel, the crimson-colored hibiscus drink native to Jamaica. The cocktail is a rendition of the original Fannie Ward, a rum-based cocktail developed by Tom Bullock who, in 1917 became the first Black bartender to publish a book on cocktails, “The Ideal Bartender.” Here, sorrel is steeped overnight with oranges and spices like black pepper, star anise and clove and mixed with sugar to create a syrup. Sykes uses Two James Doctor Bird, a Jamaican rum, and tops the drink with egg white for a frothy finish.
“This is my love letter to my Afro-West Indian heritage,” Sykes says.
The Nana Rose, a floral and herbaceous riff on a Georgia peach tea, combines rose syrup with a white peach and rosemary-infused vodka and a splash of grapefruit juice as a tribute to Sykes’ great, great aunt Rose Mason; and the Midnight Spirit, a nonalcoholic option, honors Black history in Michigan in name and presentation. Midnight, Sykes says, was the code name for Detroit on the Underground railroad and the drink’s green color represents The Spirit of Detroit.
“The only way that I could accurately represent Black culture in a way that was respectful, intentional, and true to itself,” Sykes says, “was to take from my own experiences and family traditions.”
As Willow grows, Sykes says he envisions an inclusive menu that reflects the diverse stories of the bar’s bartenders as well. He sees it as a training ground for marginalized bartenders looking for opportunities to hone their skills in an industry dominated by cisgender, white males.
“The service industry was essentially formed as a form of indentured servitude for slaves and former slaves. This is something that we pioneered, because it was forced upon us, yet we’ve been pushed out of these high-end areas for well over 100 years,” he says. “I signed on to Willow as a reclamation of power of history and to set the record straight about what it means to be Black, brown, POC or LGBTQ in this industry that we’ve shaped over the past 120-150 years.”
Sykes studied political science in college and as a relative of former Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young and a campaign assistant for City Councilman Fred Durhal III, he has a decade of experience on the political stage. In a sense, his political savvy manifests as a form of activism at Willow. He’s set out to create an inclusive environment that respects Black bartenders and honors Black spirits wherever possible. Anteel Tequila, Saint Liberty whiskey and Clairin rum line the red-lit bar.
“It was a really hard pill to swallow,” Sykes says of the years he felt tokenized in the industry. “But unfortunately, the hardest pills to swallow are often the medicine.”
During a round of cocktails at Willow, you may pluck ingredients from a charcuterie board. Or, perhaps you’ll stumble out of the swanky atmosphere and upstairs to a brighter SavannahBlue for a plate of piping hot catfish fritters, a side of mac and cheese — and maybe even a shot of vodka, courtesy of a friendly bartender. Southern hospitality at its finest.
Willow, 1431 Times Square, Detroit. willowdetroit.com
Contact Lyndsay C. Green at LCGreen@freepress.com
