District Market Detroit
2645 Woodward AvenueLittle Caesars Arena was announced to much fanfare in December of 2012. The arena would become part of a 50 block neighborhood revitalization that would include shopping, dining, hotels, and new residential.
That all sounds pretty amazing on paper but a lot of it hasn’t happened yet. Things take time.
We were making our first trip to Little Caesars Arena for a concert this past weekend. We booked a hotel in Romulus for the night so we took our time getting down to The District Detroit for the show.
I had done a little research looking for someplace to eat in the area. There weren’t a lot of choice. We first tried Harry’s Bar which is about the only place not connected to the arena to eat. It looked promising until J opened the door and people came spilling out of the packed pub.
We knew it was probably a long shot but we walked around to the Woodward side of the arena to find the built in restaurants. They both had lines waiting to get in so we just got in line to get in the arena.
Once inside, J and L got in line for a t-shirt. I went exploring to see if the lines had calmed down some from the inside and if it was possible we could get a table somewhere. I walked in to a place called The District Market Detroit and found short lines and what looked like not your average arena food. I texted J and she got out of line with L (it was taking too long and I would just wait in line by myself later to get her a t-shirt).
The District Market Detroit is one of Little Caesars Arenas non-arena food dining options. It’s run by Delaware North which runs similar places in airports and arenas around the world. The space is on the Woodward side facing the street. It’s open on non-event days as well as a place for people living and working in the neighborhood to eat. From the inside of LCA, it literally looks like you’re walking into a shop in the mall and it’s even kind of set up like a mall food court.
There are several different options to eat at District Market Detroit. Each one of them has their own set up with it’s own line. The first one you see when you walk in is Grill featuring stuff like hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries. There’s also Sugar & Brew with coffee drinks, pastries, and gelato, Greens that features salads, Handmade that gives you the options of several hand carved sandwiches and soups, On Ice which is the bar with several mixed drink options, and the one we chose, Mex & Co which features Mexican street foods.
The line was fairly long and moving slowly so when I saw a table open up, I ducked out of line to go grab it and text J my order. The menu is fairly simple so it wasn’t hard for her to do by herself.
Essentially, you pick you base (tacos, burritos, bowl, or walking taco), pick your rice & benas, then your protein, and your fillers. I chose to start with corn tacos but they only had flour shells left. I skipped the rice and beans and went straight to protein where I chose the carne asada. For fillers, I just stuck the simple cheese and lettuce. The steak in these tacos were thick, tender cubes with just a little bit of a spiciness to them. The flour tortillas were fine but these really would have been better with the corn. I can’t complain too much though because it really was a pretty delicious meal and better than a hot dog from a concession stand.
J did her base as as a bowl. She topped it off with beans, rice, lettuce, cheese, and a corn salsa opting to skip the protein all together. This is very similar to what she will typically order a fast casual Mexican place so she was pretty happy with her meal as well.
L kept saying she wasn’t really hungry and didn’t want much other than chips so we got her an order of chips and queso. The chips were crispy, salty little triangles that came pre-packcaged in a brown paper bag. The queso was a small cup of a somewhat spicy cheese sauce. L ate a few chips but doesn’t really like spicy foods yet. Once she stopped with the queso, she had a few more chips but J and I ended up eating most of those too.
The total for our meal was about $40 which also included a Fanta and a bottle of water so yeah…it was a little expensive. It wasn’t expensive when you consider you’re eating at an arena before a show though so I can’t complain.
Before leaving District Market Detroit, J and I both got drinks to take with us. J saw On Ice has Frose’s….or Frozen Rose wine. She got one of those to take to our seats while I hit up the market in the corner that sold beer. I picked up a can of Brut IPA from Old Nation Brewing as part of their Woodshed Pilot Series. Gotta admit…was a little surprised to find such a sought after beer at an arena and it’s one I haven’t had yet so I grabbed it. It did cost me $14 dollars but I just couldn’t pass it up knowing I might not be able to get a can from my local party store.
District Market Detroit wasn’t the option we had planned on when we headed to downtown Detroit but it worked out pretty well. We got a pretty good meal before heading to our seats and we didn’t have to make any other concession stand runs during the show so I would say the extra money we spent on getting a hearty meal paid off in the end.
SW Michigan Dining 