Dirty Shake opens an ivy-covered corner bar in Cass Corridor

The red brick building at Forest and Second has worn ivy up its facade and held down its corner long enough to look like it belongs there. On March 13, 2025, Detroit's 313 Day, Sandy Levine and Doug Hewitt put a bar in it. They called it Dirty Shake.

The move is a deliberate downshift. Levine and Hewitt are best known for ambitious rooms: Freya and Dragonfly in Milwaukee Junction, Chartreuse Kitchen and Cocktails in the Art Center, and the Oakland Art Novelty Company in Ferndale. Hewitt is a James Beard honored chef. None of those places sell an eleven-dollar burger. Dirty Shake does, and that is the point.

In the bar's opening statement, Levine framed the location as the reason for the lighter touch. "This part of Midtown is one of the few neighborhoods where people who lived here 15 or 20 years ago are still around," he said. "We want to honor that history while also welcoming students and newcomers." The room sits a short walk from Wayne State, so the welcome to students is not abstract.

The cocktail list comes from Kamalani Overall, who ran the bar at the Oakland in Ferndale. It leans into Detroit drinks the city has half forgotten, starting with the Hummer, the local invention of frozen rum, ice cream and coffee liqueur. The house showpiece is the Strong Island, a supercharged Long Island built on overproof rum, navy-strength gin and whiskey and topped with a vanilla Coke float. It carries a two-per-guest cap, which reads less like a gimmick than a warning.

The food stays simple and takes itself seriously where it counts. The double-patty burger runs eleven dollars: house-ground beef, sharp cheddar, pickles, grilled onions and mayo-mustard on a potato roll. There is house sausage with kraut, and a battered cauliflower with pepper jam, scallion and cilantro for the vegetable crowd. The wings get the longest leash on the menu. Per the opening statement, the kitchen brines them, cures them, smokes them and fries them across a three-day process. Hewitt kept the ambition in perspective. "It's a three-day process," he said, "but at the end of the day, it's still chicken wings."

The footprint matches the neighborhood-bar idea: roughly 40 seats inside and a wraparound patio that adds about 50 more. The team that runs some of Detroit's most ambitious kitchens opened a corner bar that fusses over its wings and almost nothing else, ivy still climbing the brick.

Dirty Shake is at 4642 Second Ave. in Detroit's Cass Corridor.