Busy Bee Cafe to open second location in Atlantic Station
Why it matters: The iconic soul food restaurant, which opened in 1947, is the go-to eatery for anyone visiting the city and has earned industry recognition with a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation and a James Beard "America's Classic" award.
Driving the news: Busy Bee will open in a 4,000-square-foot space at Atlantic Station.
The new restaurant will offer a dine-in option, which hasn't been available at the original Vine City location since the pandemic.
It will also have a larger menu and patio seating.
What they're saying: Expanding was about "finding the right partner, place and moment to continue the Busy Bee legacy with care and intention," owner Tracy Gates said in a press release.
"At Busy Bee, it's never just been about the food — it's about the feeling it brings," she said. "Every plate is a piece of our history, and we've worked hard to deliver that same comfort, joy and flavor every single time. We didn't chase the spotlight — we honored our roots, stayed true to the recipe and let the love speak for itself."
Catch up quick: The original location on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive has attracted notable guests over the years, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey and the late Anthony Bourdain.
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USA Today
11 hours ago
- USA Today
Chef Richard Blais' latest concoction may make your skin crawl
Chef Richard Blais is pretty adventurous when it comes to food. 'I've always been like that. If it sounds a little weird, it's cool for me,' the Top Chef All-Stars winner, restauranteur, James Beard-nominated cookbook author and 'Next Level Chef' judge said with a smile. But his latest project may make some people's skin crawl. Blais partnered with Orkin on series of recipes incorporating insects for a video called 'Bug Bites' debuting on Orkin's website on Aug. 18. 'One of our best recipes was a mealworm pesto, which was great because Orkin is the best in pests and I'm the best in pesto, so it was a match made in heaven,' he joked. However, it wasn't all easy to stomach, even for himself. He spoke with USA TODAY about facing his fears, why It's important for chefs to travel, the surprising thing he's done on planes and more. This interview was edited and condensed for clarity. Question: What inspired your involvement in this particular project? Richard Blais: Just up for the challenge. Also for me, if you would have asked me a question a couple years ago: what are some foods that you might not like? I would say insects, to be fair. I got to eat some on different shows, etc., so it was sort of overcoming my own mental hurdle to do this. And I'm so glad I did because I learned so much, and besides that, it was just a lot of fun. Like, "Hey, do you want to eat a tarantula on camera?' Yes. Let's see how that goes. Have you previously tried insects on your travels? Not on my own, like, hey, I'm in a restaurant, and I'm going to order. But in my reality show career, I have been tasked with a few, eating some insects. And in my travels, I have seen them in markets and stuff like that and always been amazed at their aroma or flavor and how it's not just, oh, it's just another protein source, but how every ingredient has its own flavor. That goes for meal worms and ants as well as it goes for octopus and sea urchin. Food can have a stigma when it's something that people are not familiar with. And this video may help break some of those barriers and let people know, it's OK to try all sorts of things. One-hundred percent. I always preach to my kids, "Hey, try it. You don't have to like it, but it's good to try things." And I think "Bug Bites" was great for me for that because it forced me to try some of these things. Am I going to be on the tarantula of the month gift club? Probably not. That still freaks me out, but I'm glad I did it and I overcame some fears. It's really, really important to realize that different people and different cultures eat different things and one's not better than the other. They just happen to be different. In other parts of the world, this is part of their diet. I've been to Thailand and seen grasshoppers and grasshopper wings and all sorts of things, and again it is normal. I think what really it came down to (is) at some point you're like, it's a scorpion or it's a crab, They're similar. We often call lobsters, the cockroaches of the sea. Once you wrap your mind around it, that it's just another food source – it is a normal food source, depending what that ingredient is and where you are in the world – it does make it a little easier to grasp. But we do have the skittishness, squeamishness, of which I had as well and still have a little bit. How did you come up with ways to make it more palatable so you even could enjoy them as much as possible? You know, I love being in front of the camera and producing things now, too and writing my own stuff, so one of the challenges was yes, I would like to be able to get through this challenge. I'd like to keep raising the ladder and the stakes as we eat each insect. So yeah, let's toss it in some sauce or let's ground it up there. There's that way that you could approach it, and I did with some recipes, but the other end of it is no, I want this to be hard for me, and I want to see a tarantula leg sticking out of this sushi roll, and I want the ants to just be whole on this ice cream cone. So it was kind of a balance – also knowing, I think for the viewer, you want to see, hey, is he going to eat a whole scorpion? They're little, by the way. Spoiler alert. Did anything surprise you? The mealworm pesto. Speaking to the entomologist about meal worms, that they're in grains and you sort of get into this you taste like what you eat. You know, like if a pig's eating acorns, they taste like acorns. And then using it, they have a nutty flavor. Replacing pine nuts in a pesto with the meal worms, that was one of the cheffy moments where I'm like, OK, this makes total sense. If I'm cooking on a competition show, or even in a restaurant quite honestly, and that was a recipe, you would think it was delicious and you would advance in the show. I'm still pretty excited about it. How does food influence you when you travel and how do you approach food when you travel? I'm a chef because I love to eat ... And it's a big part of all of my travel. If I'm traveling, I'm pretty simple when I'm alone on a business trip. Not to lose my chef credentials here, but you can find me at the local fast-casual salad pickup spot pretty frequently, if I'm traveling domestically by myself. When my wife is involved, she's much more of the planner and we'll set a lot of things up and we'll read a lot of publications and find out what the cool, hip behind-the-scenes ramen spot is or what's the taco shop that we have to go to or what's the fine dining restaurant wherever we're at. But it's definitely a big part of travel for us, even if it just happens to be like we're going to go to the local market, we're going to buy a bunch of things, and we're going to come home and cook. We just spent a week on the island of Nevis, and it happens to be mango season there, so when you accidentally fall into one of those moments – you have all these beautiful, ripe mangoes – making a nice, easy salsa at the house on your vacation, that's perfect. It's a part of vacationing. How has your travel influenced the way that you cook? I think you are a sum of all of your experiences, so I think every cook and every chef goes someplace and comes back with an ingredient that they found or a technique or a flavor profile or even as a restauranteur, a concept you've seen that you want to riff off of. So I think it's probably the most important thing for a chef is to travel. Do you have a favorite travel memory? Not one specific memory, but I think just collectively, my family loves going to Hawaii. It's become a really special place for us, and even on the food and the cuisine side, it's just some of my favorite foods. And because we travel there somewhat regularly, one of my daughters, on like a third-grade questionnaire, the question was, what's your favorite food, and she wrote luau. Internationally, our family's first trip to Paris, the first trip to Rome. For me, as someone who studied a lot of European cuisines and then to be on the ground with your family and – kind of getting back to "Bug Bites" – introducing escargot to your daughter for the first time and she's like, yum. What is your preferred way to travel? I spend so much time in the air ... It is becoming now, in my life, more of a chore than it used to be. Used to love to lock in and watch five hours of movies and now it's more just like transportation, but I do like flying. There is something also really wild about being on the open ocean in a boat, if you're up for it. My whole family isn't, so we would do a lot more of that if it wasn't for some seasickness. When you fly, aisle or window seat? I am the middle on the family flights, where it has to happen. I'm taking one for the team. I prefer a window. Even though with all the all the time I've spent in the air, I love a good Instagram story of take-off or landing. There's something still just very entertaining to me about looking out a window and seeing the world from 30,000 feet. Is there anything you splurge on, on vacation? Depends, on the type of vacation. I think food for sure. I think we're always looking for one or two meals, and that might mean a Michelin-star restaurant or a really nice restaurant. I think for me, as someone who likes sports, it might be an expensive tee time at a nice golf course or hanging out at the spa. All of those sound great, by the way. If you can do all of those things on one trip, check it off: spa, a little golf, a Michelin-star restaurant, then go find like that local hole in the wall place, that works for me. And then as parents, just being able to sit in a hotel bed and watch TV for two hours uninterrupted is pretty fun. Disney's Michelin-starred restaurant: What to expect at Victoria & Albert's Is there a travel must-have that you always take with you? I've run six New York City Marathons – sorry, that's a weird flexy brag – and the first one I ran ... I have the bag from that marathon, and I still travel with that bag. You can't see that it says New York City Marathon. All the letters have just dissolved off of it. It's just a backpack, and now it's just like a security blanket sort of thing. I always travel with this bag. It has served me well. Do you have any travel pet peeves or maybe an unpopular travel opinion? It's a weird one. You know what, if I have enough time, I'm a big fan of the (airport) lounge shower, which not everyone is a big fan of. I'm just being very authentic here. And if I have a 2-hour layover and the shower is available, why not just try to smell your best at all moments? Does anything grind your gears, that other travelers do? If you're on a phone call or on your iPad or whatever and you're just playing it loud or we're literally rolling down the taxi (way) and you're on a phone call, I don't need to hear your business. No one needs to hear all of your stuff. But another pet peeve that a lot of people have that I'm up for is making your tuna fish salad sandwich on the plane. Go for it. One time I had a little black truffle that I was gifted at an event, and I started traveling with this little black truffle. I would get the eggs on the air flight meal, but I would pull out my own little black truffle and shave it on the eggs. I think if you can cook and like you're making a sandwich or a little charcuterie board and we're in the air, hey, listen, go for it.
Eater
05-08-2025
- Eater
An Inaugural Festival Celebrates Northern Michigan's Burgeoning Food Scene
is an award-winning writer and journalist who covers the local food scene from her home base in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This month, one of Michigan's most beloved destinations will debut what organizers hope will be a new tradition. At the inaugural Traverse City Food & Wine festival, Wednesday, August 20, through Sunday, August 24, attendees will explore the region's rich culinary landscape through five days of experiences hosted by high-profile, award-winning chefs and media personalities. More than 70 events will take place — from farm dinners and lakeside brunches, to wine pairing classes and tastings aboard a historic schooner on Grand Traverse Bay. The goal? To offer a deeper, more delicious taste of what makes the region so special. Chef Mei Lin is a part of the lineup at Traverse City Food & Wine. She grew up in Dearborn. Traverse City Tourism With Northern Michigan's cerulean lakes, 50-plus wineries, a palpable farm-to-table energy, and a diverse agricultural bounty, it's actually surprising this sort of event hasn't happened sooner. (Traverse City is best known for its annual, family oriented Cherry Festival in early summer.) Unlike massive food festivals where you're lost in the crowd, organizers designed Traverse City Food & Wine to be more intimate, says Whitney Waara, COO at Traverse City Tourism. The Grand Tasting on Saturday, August 23, in Open Space Park — the largest event of the week — offers a chance to interact with the chefs, farmers, and winemakers behind the flavors. Tickets range from $125 to $225 per person, plus tax. Festivalgoers will roam among tents to snag bites from local restaurants, plus wines, ciders, beers, mocktails, and also pairings, such as a crisp Black Star Farms pinot blanc with a rich, nutty raclette from Leelanau Cheese Company. 'We didn't want to replicate another city's food and wine festival — we wanted to highlight what's uniquely Traverse City,' Waara tells Eater. The line-up of award-winning chefs is impressive for an inaugural festival, and most have connections to Traverse City or broader Michigan. Celebrity chef Tyler Florence spent the early part of his career in Traverse City. Miller & Lux Additional talent includes Top Chef finalist and James Beard nominee Sarah Welch, who left her executive chef job at award-winning Marrow in Detroit to develop a Traverse City fine dining restaurant with husband Cameron Rolka, the executive chef at Detroit's Mink. Their new restaurant and oyster bar, Umbo (referring to the highest point of a bivalve shell), at 430 E. Front Street, is scheduled for a 2026 opening and is on the bites roster for the Grand Tasting event. Jennifer Blakeslee and Eric Patterson, co-chefs at the Cook's House in Traverse City and the only two Michigan chefs named finalists in this year's James Beard awards, will take attendees on a farmer's market shopping trip, followed by a cooking demo at their restaurant. Ji Hye Kim, a five-time James Beard semifinalist and owner at Miss Kim and the recently opened Little Kim in Ann Arbor, will host a luncheon on the patio at Artisan. 'We're bringing in chefs who know and love this area, alongside our local talent,' Waara tells Eater. 'It's a creative space where they can collaborate and maybe even invent something new.' The region around Traverse City is home to more than 50 wineries. Traverse City Tourism Mario Batali, who has a home in Northport on the Leelanau Peninsula, has kept a low national profile in recent years outside of virtual events and an investment in Common Good Bakery, a local business with two locations, following sexual misconduct allegations and several related lawsuits (all since settled). He'll host a Tuscano Lunch at Bonobo Winery on the Old Mission Peninsula. Waara declined to comment when asked about Batali's participation in the event. Most of the region's wineries snake up two scenic peninsulas, sandwiched between Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan, just north of the city's center. With its glacial soils, well-drained slopes, and lake-effect climate, the region works very well for varietals like riesling, pinot noir, cabernet franc, gruner veltliner, and even chardonnay, merlot, and sauvignon blanc. Traverse City Food & Wine will feature a variety of events, including vineyard tours and tastings. Grace Photography You're less likely to see cabernet sauvignon grapes, which need more time to grow than Michigan's short summers can deliver. That said, discussions with winemakers reveal that Michigan has gained growing days in recent years with a documented rise in the state's average temperatures. Some are experimenting with techniques to support more types of varietals: Mari Vineyards grows about six acres of heat-loving red grapes in its 'hoop houses,' which allows an additional four to six weeks of maturation. With 20-plus direct flights into Traverse City during the summer, and a registered festivalgoers hailing from Michigan and Illinois to New York, according to Waara, the event is drawing at least some national buzz. 'We're seeing strong interest from locals and visitors alike,' Waara says. 'This is going to be something special for everyone who comes, whether you live down the road or you're flying in from the East Coast.' Traverse City Food & Wine takes place from Wednesday, August 20, through Sunday, August 24; events range from small-group tastings to curated dining experiences and are individually ticketed — many have or are expected to sell out. Eater Detroit All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Eater
04-08-2025
- Eater
The Latest Way JP Morgan Is Attempting to Lure Office Workers? A Danny Meyer-Curated Food Hall
JP Morgan's fancy new $3 billion 60-story skyscraper at 270 Park Avenue between East 47th and 48th streets, is making its latest move to lure employees back: a Danny Meyer-curated food hall. Two restaurants announce they're flipping to catering Harana Market, one of the most exciting restaurants to open in the Catskills – known for Filipino dishes like its tofu sisig – surprised fans when it announced that it would be winding down dine-in service this fall. Through Labor Day, they're moving service to Saturdays and Sundays only from 11:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. After that, they will convert the space into a commissary kitchen to cater to pop-ups and other events. 'This evolution is part of our commitment to keeping Harana sustainable for us as a family while remaining rooted in the things we love most: feeding people, building connections, and amplifying and uplifting our Queer, Trans, and AAPI culture,' the post reads. Harana Market first opened in Woodstock in 2020 as a deli and pantry shop before relocating to a larger space in Accord, New York, in a former barn in 2023 as a full-on restaurant. In 2024, it was a James Beard finalist. Meanwhile, over in Brooklyn, the Greenpoint neighborhood French restaurant Fin Du Monde announced over the weekend that it would be discontinuing its restaurant service as of August 16. Come fall, the restaurant will also pivot to a private events space, as well as a hub for classes and catering. Before opening in 2020, chef Nick Perkins had worked for Diner and Marlow & Sons, with his wife Mona Poor-Olschafskie, an alum of several Brooklyn breweries. More fro-yo coming to Manhattan We are in the midst of a big fro-yo boom. Last month, Eater reported Mimi'swould be opening at 231 Lafayette Street, at Spring Street, where Soho meets Nolita. Now we have the scoop on another fro-yo shop: Birdie's is coming to 152 Seventh Avenue South, at Charles Street, in the West Village. Owner Alexa Marks, a former social worker, tells Eater that she wanted to start the business because she missed the way 'the local fro-yo shops were everyone's watering hole' back home in Los Angeles, and wanted to bring that here. 'Frozen yogurt really needed a refresh, something that meets the times while still keeping the simple joy people love about.' Flavors will include chocolate, vanilla, original tart, peanut butter, coffee, and a dairy-free option, with a toppings bar. Eater NY All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
