Bites

FOOD

A former members-only clubhouse, Eastern Palace Club has been reimagined as a beach-themed bar with thatched roof canopies.

LEE DEVITO

Hazel Park’s Eastern Palace Club is reborn as a beach-themed bar

Metro Detroiters can now

escape Michigan’s gray winter doldrums by sipping Rum Runners under a thatch roof while listening to the waves crash on a nearby beach.

That’s the idea behind Hazel Park’s Eastern Palace Club, which has been reimagined as a beach-inspired bar that celebrated its grand opening week starting on Tuesday.

A palm tree and a mermaid have been painted on the sides of the building, and when Metro Times stopped by on a recent weekday the finishing touches were being put on a sign made out of a surfboard. Inside, cabana-shaped booths have been constructed with thatched roof canopies in a space decorated with tropical knickknacks and festive lights.

“When you’re sitting at the bar, it literally feels like you’re in a tiki hut,” says co-owner Mike Pierce, adding, “When you go to the beach, and you have a party with your friends — that’s what we’re trying to capture.”

Pierce co-owns the new Eastern Palace Club with partners Dustin Leslie and Adam O’Connor, who all come from experience in hospitality and events. (Full disclosure, O’Connor previously worked at Metro Times.) The project started a little more than a year ago after the building’s previous owner, who operated Eastern Palace Club as a private, members-only clubhouse for years, decided to close up shop amid the COV ID-19 pandemic.

That’s when Curt Goure, who owns B.D.T., the long-standing head shop across the street, acquired the building, offering the space to ierce and company to lease.

“It was very plain,” Pierce says of the previous incarnation. “It did not look like how it does right now.”

After brainstorming various concepts, the owners decided on a beach bar theme, inspired by their experiences in Florida’s Key West. To promote the new bar, they even made post cards emblazoned with the message “Greetings from Hazel Park” and a cheeky tag-line, “Key West’s Northernmost City.”

While metro Detroit has other tikithemed bars that have opened in recent years — like Detroit’s Lost River and Mutiny, and Ferndale’s new Mai Tiki — Pierce says his co-owners were going for more of a laid-back beach bar vibe. So don’t expect fanciful tropical drinks served out of ornate ceramic tiki mugs, though the bar will serve up classic tiki cocktails like Painkillers and piña coladas.

“The goal is to have some very cool signature drinks and offerings, but also be very approachable just as a daily watering hole,” Pierce says. The menu will also include sangria and non-alcoholic options.

The space features touches like an a uarium with live fish and tables constructed from repurposed construction spools. It retains the drop ceiling from its previous incarnation, but transparent gold and blue panels have been placed over the lights. “So it has this persistent feeling of that sunset at twilight, which is super cool,” Pierce says.

There’s also a projector that can display scenes from a beach on a wall, and it even has speakers playing audio of waves crashing. Pierce says the projector can also be used to play sports games.

The bar space is rounded out by arcade-style games, including a Simpsons pinball game, Skee-Ball, and a pool table.

The building also came with a kitchen. To utilize it, Eastern Palace Club has partnered with Smoked Lotus BBQ , which will serve barbecue for dinein and carry-out.

In recent months, the space has hosted a series of pop-ups that served as soft openings. Pierce says they learned of their liquor license approval just before New Year’s Eve, and made plans to celebrate their grand opening on Tuesday, Jan. 17 — which happens to be National Bootlegger’s Day, or the date in 1920 that the U.S. began its short-lived experiment with alcohol prohibition, until the ratification of the wenty-first Amendment in 1933.

“What better way to showcase Rum Runners and piña coladas than National Bootlegger’s Day?” Pierce says.

The building also includes a large parking lot with nearly 50 spaces. Pierce says they are considering hosting events outside.

“Especially in the nicer months, maybe even in the colder months, we might have a winter luau or something,” he says.

The Eastern Palace Club is located on John R Road north of Eight Mile Road, in a part of Hazel Park known as the South End. Long a blue-collar suburb, a el ark has seen an influ of new businesses in recent years in the area, including acclaimed chef James Rigato’s high-end restaurant Mabel Gray, the dining space Frame, and a number of cannabis dispensaries.

Pierce — who previously worked with Ferndale spots the W.A.B., the Emory, and the Loving Touch — says he became interested in nearby Hazel Park in recent years as rents and house prices in Ferndale increased. He eventually bought a house in Hazel Park.

“We’re talking six, seven years ago, when all of my staff at the time couldn t afford to live in erndale, he says nd so they were going one of two ways — they were going to Oak Park or Hazel Park.”

Eastern Palace Club is only utilizing about half of the building, which has been partitioned off he rest of the space is being used for storage, but Pierce says it’s possible that the new Eastern Palace Club could grow into the space.

“The goal was just to kind of get this up and rolling and see where we take it,” he adds.

Other developments are happening in the South End. B.D.T., which opened its first location in a el ark in , is undergoing a massive renovation, and other new businesses like Dee’s Q uick Bites and Hazel Perk Cafe have also opened nearby recently.

“A lot of cool things are happening in this tiny little bubble right now,” Pierce says. “We’re excited to be on the forefront with the first bar and we re not gonna be the last. I think it’s awesome.”

By Lee DeVito

Eastern Palace Club is located at 21509 John R Rd. Hazel Park; 248-850-8165; epchp.com.

WEED

Glorious Cannabis recently launched a line of Icewater Bubble Hash Rosin.

COURTESY PHOTO

Solventless rosin vape cartridges offer ‘clean’ weed

By Lee DeV ito

You’ve probably heard

of “clean” eating, or choosing fresh, unprocessed, chemical-free food. But what about “clean” weed?

That’s the idea behind a wave of new products hitting the cannabis space in recent months.

Rochester Hills-based Glorious Cannabis recently launched a line of solventless “rosin” cartridges made without any added chemicals, as opposed to “resin,” the golden goo typically used inside of vape carts. Pete Truby, the vice president of marketing at Glorious Cannabis, says while making its Icewater Bubble Hash Rosin products is a labor-intensive process, he believes cannabis consumers could be interested in a higher-quality product.

He notes the Glorious Cannabis slogan: “We cut buds, not corners.”

“Distillate carts are just so readily available and cheap. It’s really hard to compete,” he says of typical carts, which are made using chemicals like butane. “We think maybe we can get people to try something that’s smoother and a little bit higher quality than a distillate.”

Truby says the line is inspired by the company’s popular Icewater Bubble Hash-infused pre-rolls, which refers to a type of hash that bubbles when smoked, and is made using only ice and water — no chemical solvents like butane.

“We don’t use any trim or shake, we use full flower, ruby says nd then we infuse it with bubble hash, not distillate, which is a sort of cleaner ingredient, if you will, since it only takes ice and water to make. There’s no ethanol or any butane or any harsh chemicals to produce the concentrate, and it really does result in a cleaner, smoother product.”

Bubble hash is made using a process that involves freezing fresh cannabis flower, which is then added to a large tub filled with ice and water, and agitated. The resin then freezes and breaks off from the flower, and is sifted out This results in what Truby describes as a “dusty-type of textured concentrate,” which is rich in THC and terpenes.

For the Icewater bubble hash-infused pre-rolls, this is added to the flower and rolled into joints. To produce the carts, an added step is needed: the bubble hash product is pressurized and turned into a liquid “rosin” that can be put into a vape cart, heated in a battery, and smoked.

“Our way is harder, but we’re not just doing it because it’s harder and cleaner, although I do love that it is cleaner,” Truby says. “Despite the high THC, it’s super smooth and you’re not going to cough. It doesn’t really give you that sort of burning feeling in your chest. It’s just super smooth. So there is a method to the madness of why we would do it the hard way. We really do think it’s a better product in the end.”

We sampled Glorious Cannabis 24K Punch live rosin cartridge, and did notice less of a lingering sensation in our lungs and a fuller high.

Other Michigan cannabis companies have also gotten into the rosin game, including Pleasantrees and Michigrown.

“It is a small kind of niche market right now,” Truby says. “Hopefully it grows.”

He adds, “We can’t make these cheap, so there’s not too many people that are doing it. We’re doing it because we’re proud that we have this pre-roll that people know and hopefully we can kind of piggyback off that to get people to try something that isn’t distillate.”

The carts are also available in other Glorious Cannabis strains like 420 Peach and Banana Kush. t our local dispensary, rosin carts were selling for about $55, or $10 more than typical resin carts.

In 2019, the industry was rattled by a rash of vaping-related injuries linked to a chemical called vitamin E acetate that was found to be used to cut black-market cannabis vape carts — hence part of the appeal of “clean” chemical-free weed for many customers.

The idea has been compared to choosing organic fruits or vegetables to eat, though it remains to be seen if these products are in fact safer to use than typical vapes.

Truby says he hopes the rosin will resonate with consumers who want to avoid the “race to the bottom” driven by plunging cannabis prices.

“We’re really trying to take the long view of cannabis and not the short view, which is important because if you know anything about the cannabis industry, it has its ups and downs, the prices go wildly swinging,” he says. “So we’re really just trying to do things the right way, and be one of those companies that hopefully is around 20, 30, 40 years.”