Paradise Valley got its name back in 2015. Mayor Mike Duggan renamed Harmonie Park that year, formally tying it to the Black entertainment district that thrived a few blocks south from the 1920s through the 1950s. The original Paradise Valley sat near where Ford Field and Lafayette Park now stand.
It got bulldozed for I-375. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, all performed in clubs along Hastings Street and around the Flame Show Bar before urban renewal ended the neighborhood. The Vinyl Society opened in late May at 1427 Randolph, in the renamed district, nine years after Dennis Archer Jr. won the Downtown Development Authority's RFP to redevelop the block.
He acquired the buildings in 2020. The pandemic happened. Then more delays happened.
The lounge is the result. This is a project with a lot of fingerprints on it. Archer's Congress Hospitality runs Central Kitchen + Bar a few blocks away.
Birmingham firm Ron & Roman did the interior design (the same team behind Central Kitchen) and went after a specific aesthetic. African mahogany. Diamond-tufted booths.
A green, blush, and blue palette borrowed from the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel, plus Hotel Costes in Paris and the Connaught Bar in London. The lounge holds about 130. There is a strict dress code.
Joggers and baseball caps are out. Jackets after six. The cocktail list is the part of the room that does the historical work.
Beverage director Desmond Oliver built it around the era. The Paradise Valley is a Hennessy V.S.O.P. sidecar with strawberry hibiscus and egg white. The American Requiem, a Beyoncé reference, runs Wild Turkey 101, Drambuie, chai, and walnut smoke.
The Greenbook is an apple martini named for the Negro Motorist Green Book, the segregation-era guide to safe lodging and dining for Black travelers. Caviar and gold-dusted strawberries on the small-bites side, which is the kind of thing you do or you don't. The Vinyl Society does.
Vintage advertisements and photographs of original Paradise Valley venues line the walls. The bet is that Detroit will support an upscale Black-owned lounge that takes itself seriously about its own history. Archer Jr. has said as much in roughly every interview.
This is cultural infrastructure with a cocktail program.
1427 Randolph St., Detroit. Wednesday through Saturday evenings.
