Recess food hall and bar pops-up for NFL Draft weekend showcasing Black chefs

A pop-up food hall aims to shine a light on Detroit businesses this week while the city gets hundreds of thousands of visitors in town for the NFL Draft.

Recess Detroit features four food stalls, two from established Black-owned restaurants and two from up-and-coming local concepts. It will be open for lunch, dinner and late-night service Wednesday through Saturday at 160 W. Fort at Shelby in downtown Detroit. There's also a full bar, DJs and a VIP lounge with bottle service.

Here are the four concepts serving food at Recess this week:

Hot Rod's Wing Ding Joint: A brick-and-mortar business at 16224 W. Seven Mile, Roddy Allen's fried chicken wing concept will be posted downtown for the week serving wing dings by the dozen, boneless bites and deep-fried vegan cauliflower, plus many sauces and sides.

Jerk @ Nite: A concept based in Washington, D.C., that serves jerk chicken, oxtail, tacos, nachos and more. Recess organizer Kai Bowman said there are plans for a Jerk @ Nite to open a brick-and-mortar location in Detroit in the near future.

Savannah's Smokehouse: This is a forthcoming project from chefs Davante Burnley, who recently competed on the Food Network's "Chopped" and Petty Cash's Dominic McCord. This week at Recess they'll serve beef brisket, pineapple rum wings, Cajun beef Polish sausage, bourbon-glazed salmon and smoked cauliflower wings, plus sides like mac and cheese, coleslaw, baked beans and fries.

Pequeno: Those familiar with Detroit's dining scene will recognize Pequeno Cantina, a Mexican restaurant at 19329 Livernois on the Avenue of Fashion. Bowman says the owners are eyeing a second location in downtown Detroit, so being part of the Recess pop-up is a good way to connect them with people in the immediate area. Pequeno's Recess menu has birria tacos, nachos, quesadillas, street corn, churros, chips and salsa and strawberry lemonade.

In addition to serving food and drinks, there will be a lot of activity packed into the next four days.

"We'll have day parties, we'll have DJs probably in the noon-4 p.m. timeframe, and then every evening there's a different event happening," said Bowman.

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"Wednesday is the Michigan Black Business Alliance Spring Mixer … Thursday we've got DJ Don Q coming through to spin in the evening. Friday night we'll have Afro Vibes, and then Saturday during the day there's a champagne brunch. Saturday in the evening we'll do the grand finale with the Secret Garden with Ro Spit and Ron Dance. We've got a pretty good lineup."

Allen, a partner and vendor at Recess, said it's important for neighborhood restaurants to have a presence downtown during the big event this week, and he hopes to see a lot of traffic.

"We'll see so many people, even from our own city and state, that probably would have never seen any of these restaurants," said Allen, who opened his wing ding business, Hot Rod's, in 2022 on the city's west side. "They'll be able to try stuff and get in the mix. And everybody has good food here, so they'll probably turnaround and go support their flagship locations."

Recess Food Court and Bar is open noon-2 a.m. April 24-27 at 160 W. Fort in Detroit.

mbaetens@detroitnews.com