Mutiny Tiki Bar closed at 4654 Vernor Hwy after almost ten years. The Detroit Optimist Society, the hospitality group behind the original Mutiny, is opening El Trombone in the same room in early May.
The new concept is a gay bar. Bartender Luka Backus is the operator and the design lead. Owner Dave Kwiatkowski is keeping his name on the lease and adding a tenth venue to the Optimist portfolio.
Sugar House. Wright & Company. Bad Luck Bar. Honest John's. Grandma Bob's. Last Chance Saloon. Time Will Tell. Third Street Bar. Finger's Crossed up in Northport. El Trombone is the tenth.
Backus has described the look in two registers that don't entirely match. He told Metro Times he was building a "hyperpop, leather daddy vibe" with bright, punchy colors and a dark, hot, masculine aesthetic. Kwiatkowski's framing was more retro: orange, black, and mahogany, very 70s and 80s. Both versions of the room will probably be in the room when it opens.
Mutiny is not gone. Kwiatkowski is targeting a fall reopening in October, somewhere else in the city. The space, in the meantime, becomes the only gay bar on West Vernor.
Southwest Detroit has not had a dedicated LGBTQ bar in years. The east side has had Menjo's. Pleasantrees-adjacent Hamtramck has had Ant Hall and pop-ups at Outer Limits. Vernor Highway, the central artery of Mexicantown, has had nothing.
The bet is that the corridor wants one. The Optimist Society has bet on this room before, and the room held up for a decade as a tiki bar with a regulars list. Whether a hyperpop leather room and a 70s-and-80s aesthetic land in the same crowd is a separate question, and the room itself will answer it.
4654 Vernor Hwy, Southwest Detroit.
