Granite City Food & Brewery to Open in Troy

Granite City Food and Brewery will be opening its first restaurant since 2008 this coming February with a prototype location in Troy.

The new restaurant, which is scheduled to open in February and will be located next to the building at Big Beaver and Interstate 75, features a contemporary upscale design that will serve as the model for future restaurants in the chain.

Steve Wagenheim, president and founder of Granite City Food and Brewery, said the new restaurant marks an evolution for the company, which had opened 26 locations prior to the recession.

"Like a lot of businesses, we held still in 2009 and 2010," said Wagenheim, a former Oak Park resident. "We came out of the recession a lot stronger. When developing a plan, we looked at what we wanted Granite City to be in the future."

The vision, he said, is a polished, casual dining experience that combines great service with reasonably priced, high-quality food and beverages.

Wagenheim said the 9,800-square-foot Troy location was purchased before the recession, but plans to open the restaurant had been put on hold for more than two years. When opened, it will have seating for 300 people and feature a wrap-around bar that flows into an atrium, an exposed kitchen and a central wood-fired oven. 

"We couldn't be happier to put Granite City back in a growth mode, and Troy is the perfect place to begin that growth," Rob Doran, Granite City CEO said in a news release. "This location was highly scrutinized by our team and has more growth drivers than any of our current high volume restaurants.

"Troy is the prime business and retail hub in the suburban Detroit market. This corridor serves as home to some of the best restaurant volumes in the entire Metro Detroit, has excellent demographics and a large daytime office population."

Granite City serves modern American upscale, with most items priced below $20, including more than 90 made-from-scratch items and regional favorites from locally sourced ingredients.