The signage is one neon sign that says COCKTAILS in red. That's it. Walk past it and you will.
The door is on the second floor at 1454 Gratiot Avenue, in the 1,200-square-foot space Collect Beer Bar moved out of last August when it relocated to Little Village in West Village. Up the stairs, past a curtain, and the room turns dark, deep red, lit by candles, with a rooftop attached. Pocket Change.
Nelson Kazan is the bartender behind it. He spent more than a decade on Detroit bars: Flowers of Vietnam, the Apparatus Room, the now-closed Republic Tavern in the GAR Building, and most recently SheWolf, where he ran the bar program through and after Hour Detroit's 2020 Restaurant of the Year run. The Lelcaj brothers, Kris and Fred, are his business partners.
The three met working together at Sava's in Ann Arbor more than ten years ago. Kris owns Babo Detroit, the Park Shelton diner. Fred ran Fred's, the Ann Arbor health café, and is opening a new version of it on the ground floor below Pocket Change in the former Bunny Bunny Chinese takeout space.
The design pulls from New York cocktail culture and Japanese listening bars. Local designer Colin Tury did it. He is the same designer behind the build of Vecino in the Cass Corridor, plus the Supino Pizzeria expansion three blocks down Gratiot.
His fingerprints on the room are obvious: textural, dim, intimate, no real signage anywhere. Forty-nine seats. Hand-thrown lighting.
Curtains everywhere. The drink program is a small and specific thing, which is the point. The Bingo Bango, a spicy tequila, is the signature.
The wine list rotates and runs Italy, France, Slovenia, and Austria, with most bottles at $60 or under. The food is small. The DJs are local.
Sunday rooftop pop-ups have run with chef partners including a Mink Detroit oyster service. Pocket Change opened April 23, 2025. Inside seven months it had become the answer when somebody in Eastern Market asks where to take a date that doesn't involve a Tigers game.
Kazan said in the press release he built the bar he wanted to spend his nights in. That is hospitality talk, but in this case it appears to be true. The thing that makes this room work is that it doesn't look like it's trying.
1454 Gratiot Ave., Detroit.
