The pop-up has been Detroit's most ambitious vegan operation for seven years. McDaddy's. Taco Hell.
The plant-based versions of the things you actually want to eat at one a.m. Meghan Shaw and Nina Paletta started it in 2018, ran nights out of PJ's Lager House and Nancy Whiskey's, then took over a back-room residency at Third Street Bar in Cass Corridor in 2019. They paused for a stretch in 2022. They came back.
Now they have their own room. Street Beet opened December 11, 2025, at 1800 Michigan Avenue in the former Bobcat Bonnie's space. Bobcat closed in March.
Shaw and Paletta announced they were taking the spot within days. Full circle for the brand, since Corktown was where they popped up first. The menu reads exactly like the pop-up menu, which is the point.
Tex-Mex, Southern diner classics, vegan riffs on fast food. Four kinds of fries. A vegan smashburger.
The fried "chicken" sandwich that built the Instagram account. There is a kids menu. There is a serious nonalcoholic drink program with milkshakes, floats, malts, dirty sodas, and zero-proof cocktails.
Pastry chef Mary "Lou" Hammer handles desserts. General manager Eva Guillen runs the room. A Coffee Haus coffee counter is coming.
In the back room, Offworld Arcade has set up vintage consoles and pinball machines. This is unusual decor for a Corktown restaurant in 2025. It is also the right move.
Street Beet's audience grew up in the Tex-Mex-and-Mortal-Kombat era, and the room knows it. Opening weekend ran four to eleven Thursday through Saturday and four to ten on Sunday. Brunch will follow, including weekday hours.
Earlier this year, Shaw announced a Birmingham outpost inside an upcoming grocery store, plus a hedge-fund partnership aimed at making Street Beet "a household name." That is a heavy sentence for a vegan pop-up. The Corktown room is loud, the wait is real, and the chicken sandwich arrives looking exactly like it did at Third Street Bar. Some people will read that as a lateral move.
It isn't.
1800 Michigan Ave., Detroit.
