Pine Hall opens Thursday on the 12th floor of Hudson's Detroit

After 40 years, something like the Pine Room is back on Woodward.

Pine Hall, the rooftop cocktail bar and tavern opening Thursday at Hudson's Detroit, is named deliberately and with real ambition. The original Pine Room sat on the 13th floor of J.L. Hudson's department store, a wood-paneled room where Detroit did lunch, heard speakers, and attended fashion shows through the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. It was the kind of place that turned a department store errand into something worth taking the elevator for. The store closed in 1983 and the building came down in 1998.

What opens at 4 p.m. Thursday occupies the 12th floor of Bedrock's Hudson's Detroit development, operated by Union Square Hospitality Group, the New York company founded by restaurateur Danny Meyer. It's USHG's first Michigan location. The room is built in warm wood tones that reference the original Pine Room, with large booths on the Woodward-facing side looking out onto a wraparound terrace. A 3,300-square-foot deck offers views from Comerica Park south down Woodward Avenue. The space seats 300, spread across bar seating, window lounges, and those booths facing out.

The drink program draws from Michigan spirits and regionally sourced ingredients. Food is bar-forward: deviled eggs, crab fritters, a Pine Hall Burger with a dry-aged patty and aged New York cheddar. The most deliberate menu item is the Maurice Salad ($24, roast turkey, smoked ham, and Gruyere), a direct callback to the dish the original Hudson's gourmet floor became known for.

Danny Meyer described what he wants the place to be: "Pine Hall is a neighborhood bar worthy of becoming a destination. Our hope is that Detroiters make it part of their regular rotation, a locals joint that brings people together and fits whatever the moment calls for."

For a group that built its reputation on earned hospitality, choosing Detroit as its first Midwest outpost and centering the concept around a room Detroit once had and lost is a particular kind of bet on this city.

Rooftop bars open in Detroit with some regularity. What makes Pine Hall worth paying attention to is the weight it's trying to carry. USHG named their first Midwest location after something Detroit already lost, placed it on the same stretch of Woodward where the original stood, and built a physical room that echoes what was there before. The warm wood, the Maurice on the menu, the name above the door are not incidental.

Whether it earns lasting affection from the city is a question only time settles. But Thursday at 4, the 12th floor opens.

For reservations: OpenTable, or call 313-545-8770.