Every year right around this time, Crain’s Detroit Business publishes their annual “Living & Investing in the D” magazine packed with tons of awesome info about all of the cool things going on in the city. From fantastic people and entrepreneurs to new businesses and housing projects, if you weren’t already convinced Detroit was worth investing in before you read, you’ll be hard pressed to not feel that way afterwards.

Being an intern and all over at Crains for the summer, I had the opportunity to produce all of the multimedia content for this year’s series.  It was an absolute blast going all over the city meeting incredible visionaries and essentially getting a front-row seat to what living and working in the D is really like.  

Some highlights from the 2011 issue:

The Changing Face of Detroit

Entrepreneur creates ‘hostel’ environment

Spreading Midtown’s Success

Value of Place

Conduit to College Grads

The Ultimate List

Plus, be sure to check out all the multimedia content as well. Below is one of the videos I worked on exploring the buzz in Midtown.

Production by Josh Sidorowicz/Crain’s Detroit Business

And Crain’s Detroit was first with the story! This past Friday El Guapo Mexican Grill opened for business on the corner of Randolph and Monroe street in downtown Detroit.  The corner is a prime location backing up to Greektown and just blocks from the financial district and Campus Martius Park.

While other food truck operators in downtown Detroit have set up shop without permits, Anthony Curis and Doug Runyon, co-owners of El Guapo, made dozens of trips to City Hall to find a path to legality. 

Check out the full story here and my video with El Guapo’s co-owener Douglas Runyon below. Ladies and gents, this is definitely the start of something fantastic for food culture the city of Detroit.

Production by Josh Sidorowicz/Crain’s Detroit Business

Eastern Market is now open during the week on Tuesdays through the end of September!

Production by Josh Sidorowicz/Crain’s Detroit Business

It has been quite entertaining this past week watching the food cart story catch on around Metro Detroit.  Entertaining because it was over a week ago that little ‘ol Crain’s Detroit Business broke the story first and since then the Detroit News and The Free Press have all finally hopped on board.

Being in (or at least attempting to become a part of) the news business here in Detroit and being able to watch this story grow from something my editor proposed to me a week and a half ago (that had never even crossed my radar beforehand) to now something that is going to be a major narrative in the city going forward is pretty exciting.

But nonetheless, the more exposure this issue receives the better because, simply put, it is just one more facet to the ever-growing resurgence we are seeing taking place in and around the city.  I can only hope that it continue to pick up momentum as the summer wears on and that changes will be made soon.  But in the meantime, keep an eye on Crain’s coverage.

Josh Sidorowicz/Crain’s Detroit Business

It turns out that after that original story in Crain’s Detroit was published last week, some of the street cart vendors mentioned—specifically Kristyn Koth of the Pink FlaminGO and Jeff Aqualina of Concrete Cuisine—have already been contacted by members of the City Council and Planning Commissions and have been invited to an upcoming meeting regarding the matter.

Nonetheless, Crain’s Detroit published a follow-up to that story detailing some of the more recent developments as well as going further into detail to explain the current ordinances that are causing so many problems.

Current vending laws state that it is illegal, even for licensed vendors, to sell on both public and private property in the most populated areas of Detroit, including Midtown, the central business district and near the stadiums.

There are currently 61 licensed vendors in the city, and none of them can vend in those areas.

Along with the story is a video (below) I shot profiling the Pink FlaminGO’s Kristyn Koth and Jeff Aqualina and Justin Kava of Concrete Cuisine. It will definitely be interesting to see how this pans out over the next couple weeks and months and whether or not any major headway will be made on the issue before the summer is over.

Read the full story here.

Video production by Josh Sidorowicz/Crain’s Detroit Business

A story from this past week’s issue of Crain’s Detroit Business (written by my editor Nathan Skid actually) highlights an issue that hasn’t gotten much attention…yet. When compared to other major cities—New York and Chicago come to mind—something is prominently absent from Detroit’s streets and sidewalks: food carts.

For residents and workers in the city this would seem to present a pretty obvious void and seems to be a missed business opportunity.  The only problem is that while there are already many individuals ready and willing to set up shop, it’s the city government that is preventing anything of the sort from happening.

Detroit’s current ordinances prohibit food trucks and stationary vendors from selling in both the central business district and the cultural center — eliminating potential lunch hubs like Campus Martius, Midtown, the museum district and the stadiums. 

So what gives? Well, one city planner argues the current ordinance restricting such food carts from setting up is in place to protect the “brick and mortar” establishments.  

Chris Gulock, a city planner with the Detroit Planning Commission, said the commission is hesitant to change the ordinances because it wants to protect current restaurant owners from competition. 

“Our established retail base is so fragile that it would hurt the restaurants that are already here,” Gulock said. “The vending ordinances have been in place since the 1940s.” 

One has to wonder though why a city, especially one like Detroit desperate for jobs and new business, couldn’t find room for both restaurants and food cart to compliment each other.

Well, luckily some local foodies have stepped up and voiced their concerns to the city council.  You can check out the entire article here.  Also, stay tuned for a video this Thursday profiling some cool local food carts trying to set up shop here in the Detroit area.