Former Stanley Hong's Mannia Café building sells; cultural, hospitality space planned - Crain's Detroit Business

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A cofounder of the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival has purchased a Detroit landmark — the Stanley Hong's Mannia Cafe building — in the city's Milwaukee Junction neighborhood for $750,000.

Jen Lyon said Wednesday she plans to create cultural and hospitality space in the building at 265 E. Baltimore St. between John R and Brush streets.

Lyon, who moved to Michigan four years ago with her family, said she is working with The Right Productions, which operates and manages the Aretha Franklin Ampitheater on the Detroit riverfront, on the project, which she said is still in its early planning stages.

"It's an important space to take care of," said Lyon, also the owner of MeanRed Productions, an independent music promoter. "The architecture should be honored with a restoration."

According to city land records, the property was previously owned by the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, which paid $320,000 for it in May 2017.

The deal was brokered by Bill Swanson of Detroit-based O'Connor Real Estate and Drew Chorney in the Detroit office of Savills plc.

The building, which was placed in a local historic district in 2018, is steeped in Detroit cultural history.

Early in their careers, The Temptations practiced in it and others who frequented the restaurant included Mayor Coleman Young, Aretha Franklin and prominent athletes and musicians, according to a Historic District Advisory Board report. In the early 1990s, the building became integral in the rap and hip-hop music scene, hosting "Rhythm Kitchen" on a weekly basis, according to the report.

The building was designed by Nathan Johnson, a Black architect "who broke new ground by opening his own architectural office in Detroit during the height of the civil rights challenges of the mid-1950s," the report says.

Stanley Hong came to Detroit with his family in the 1930s from what is now called the Guangdong Province in southeast China, according to the report. The Hongs were successful restaurateurs, operating Stanley's Mannia Cafe on Baltimore Street, another location at 565 E. Canfield St. at Hastings Street (now part of the Detroit Medical Center) and Stanley's Other Place at 2411 W. Eight Mile Rd.

The Baltimore Street location closed in 1995, the report says.

The city's Chinese population peaked in the 1920s, although a Chinatown community was in Detroit through the early 1950s, the report says. At that time, there were about 2,000 people of Chinese ancestry in the city. Many were displaced by urban renewal and highway construction, according to the report.

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Former Stanley Hong's Mannia Café building sells; cultural, hospitality space planned - Crain's Detroit Business
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