Coney Detroit

Preface

etroit is the heart of the Coney Nation, as you are about to see. Nowhere else in the world will you find as many coney island restaurants, as many ways to eat coneys, or as many people who love them. Every politician campaigning in Detroit must get photographed with a coney in hand. Athletes and music stars going for aftergame or concert coneys run into fans doing the same thing. When national media declare a coney showdown, we flock to the restaurants to cheer on our favorites like we cheer on our sports teams. There are probably more coney island restaurants packed into the Detroit area than into the whole rest of the country. It’s hard to know for certain, as there are coney island restaurants opening, closing, or moving every day. It’s not that they are unstable. Some coney islands have been serving the same food to parents, kids, and grandkids for generations. It’s just because there are so dang many of them. Live here all your life and you will still hear about another great coney island from the friend you’ve just met. They are inescapable. But who’s trying to escape them? Detroiters are used to saying, “Let’s meet at a coney,” and we are reasonably certain there will be one within a mile or two of wherever we want to meet. Michigan, home to Detroit, is a coney-loving state. You’re about to learn about some great coney traditions in Flint, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Port Huron, and Traverse City. These are not offshoots of Detroit but places with coney histories all their own. Michigan exports coneys to sentimental ex-patriots, and some of us have moved out of state and set up whole restaurants for our kind of coney islands in Nevada, Arizona, and California. In parts of New York State and Vermont, people sell a hot dog in a steamed bun with a meat sauce and chopped onions and they call it a “Michigan.” We did not find anyone in Michigan selling a Michigan dog. To be sure, coney islands have sprung up independently of Detroit. There are great ones in Massachusetts and Florida and Texas. But nowhere have coney islands caught fire like they have in Michigan. In as much time as it takes to get served, here’s how it happened: Coney island lunch counters were supercharged in downtown Detroit in the 1920s. At that time, there were so many Preface D ix ...