Traffic Jam and Snug Spotlight: Detroit, Michigan

Traffic Jam and Snug has been on Second Avenue in Midtown Detroit since 1965, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating brewpubs in Michigan and a neighborhood institution that has outlasted entire generations of restaurants that came and went around it.

Located at 511 W Canfield St at the corner of Second Avenue, Traffic Jam operates as a full-service restaurant, a craft brewery, a bakery, and a dairy all under one roof. The bread is baked fresh daily on site. The cheese is made in house. The beer is brewed in the cellar. The milk and cream for the dairy case come in and get processed for the restaurant’s own use. Very few restaurants in Michigan do this many things under one roof, and fewer still have been doing it since Lyndon Johnson was president.

The menu is built around what the in-house production allows: dishes that make use of the cheese, the bread, and the beer in combinations that reflect a kitchen with genuine access to quality inputs. The result is food that tastes like it was assembled from parts made here, because it was.

The bar has the comfortable, broken-in character of a place that has served the neighborhood through every era Detroit has moved through since 1965. Students from Wayne State, neighborhood regulars, medical district workers, and visitors who know the history all find their way to the same bar.

Visit at trafficjamdetroit.com on W Canfield in Detroit’s Midtown.

Michigan Small Business Spotlight is proud to feature Traffic Jam and Snug as one of Southeast Michigan’s most historic and self-sufficient small businesses.