Yellow Light Coffee opens inside Michigan Central, the Station's first food tenant since 1988

Yellow Light Coffee has opened inside Michigan Central Station, becoming the first food and drink tenant in the building since it closed in 1988. The shop sits in the Station's historic retail arcade, just off the east entrance, and serves house-roasted coffee, scratch-made doughnuts, and biscuit sandwiches.

The opening lands 36 years after the last vendor sold anything on the property. Michigan Central, the campus Ford has been restoring since buying the long-vacant terminal in 2018, named Yellow Light as its first retail tenant ahead of the launch. The Station reopened in June 2024 and, per Michigan Central, drew 167,000 visitors during its free summer tours before moving to ticketed guided tours run with Detroit History Tours.

Yellow Light is run by the same Detroit group behind Green Dot Stables and Johnny Noodle King. It was co-founded in 2020 by In-Laws Hospitality owners Christine and Jacques Driscoll along with partner Niko Dimitrijevic, opening first as a drive-thru in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood at 14447 East Jefferson, where it became a morning regular for eastsiders. The Michigan Central location is its second.

"Offering our in-house roasted coffee, scratch-made doughnuts and biscuit sandwiches to Corktown and Southwest is beyond exciting for our growth in Detroit," Christine Driscoll said in Michigan Central's announcement. "We're also humbled that we will be part of this newest chapter in The Station's history."

The Corktown shop skips the drive-thru. Customers order at the counter and can eat on site or carry coffee and a donut back into the building they came to tour. After more than three decades dark, the Station now has somewhere to grab breakfast.