The Avenue of Fashion: A Livernois Walk from 7 Mile to 8 Mile
One mile of Livernois, seven stops: a tea house, birria, an organic bakery, a men’s boutique, a pottery studio and a jazz club that has been pouring since 1933.
- Stops 7
- Time Two to three hours, or a whole evening if you stay for a set at Baker’s
- Cost Free guide
- Best by On foot (it’s about a mile from 7 Mile to 8 Mile)
The guide is free. Admission, food, drinks and parking along the way are on you.
This is a sidewalk walk along one straight mile of Livernois, with wide sidewalks from the 2019–2020 streetscape rebuild and street parking on the side streets. Most stops are shops and restaurants with their own hours, and several keep short midweek schedules; Thursday through Saturday is when the most doors are open at once. It’s about a mile each way, so plan a ride back from Baker’s or enjoy the walk twice. We haven’t been to any of these seven stops yet. They’re all marked, and we’d love your help with them.
The route in Google Maps, in parts
Stop 1
The Avenue of Fashion
On the Avenue sinceNamed in the 1950s and ’60sVisitingOpen to visitOur visitNot yet
Start at the corner of Livernois and 7 Mile, where West Outer Drive comes in from the west. From here to 8 Mile is the stretch Detroiters have called the Avenue of Fashion since the 1950s and ’60s, when its shops sold high-end clothing to the families of Sherwood Forest, Palmer Woods and the University District next door.
By the 1960s it was one of the city’s great shopping streets for Black Detroiters with money to spend. Then came the suburban malls, Northland first among them, and decades of empty storefronts.
The comeback is recent and local. An $18 million streetscape project in 2019 and 2020 widened the sidewalks and added protected bike lanes, and the businesses that hung on through the construction are still the backbone of the street. By most counts the large majority of them are independent and Black-owned, which is the whole point of walking it.
Head north. Everything on this route is on Livernois.
Stop 2
Lily’s & Elise
On the Avenue since2024VisitingRestaurant or barOur visitNot yet
Lily’s & Elise opened in the spring of 2024 at 19037 Livernois, at the 7 Mile end of the strip. Owner Kimberly Elise built it as a luxury tea lounge, and the room leans all the way in: European-style afternoon and high tea, fresh pastries, small plates and mocktails, served in a space that one reviewer called whimsical and nobody would call minimal.
It isn’t a walk-in coffee stop. High tea is booked and paid for ahead of time through OpenTable, and the place keeps limited hours: recently Thursday and Sunday from 10 to 6, and Friday and Saturday from 10 to 8, closed the rest of the week. If you want the full sit-down, plan the walk around your reservation.
If you’d rather keep moving, it’s still worth a look through the window on your way north.
Stop 3
Pequeño Cantina
On the Avenue since2021VisitingRestaurant or barOur visitNot yet
A few blocks up, at 19329 Livernois, Pequeño Cantina has been serving a modern take on Mexican food since October 2021. It’s a small, clean room with plants along the edges and a big logo on the back wall, run by the Blackman family.
The birria tacos are what people talk about. The burritos come wet, smothered in house enchilada or verde sauce, or dry if you’re eating with your hands. There’s a craft cocktail list, and mesa wings for the table. Local TV profiled it in 2023 as a little restaurant bringing big flavors to the Avenue, and that still describes the place: small room, serious food.
It did well enough here to open a second location downtown near Comerica Park in 2026, carrying over the Avenue’s menu. This one is the original.
Stop 4
Good Cakes and Bakes
On the Avenue since2013VisitingOpen to visitOur visitNot yet
Next door, more or less, at 19363 Livernois, is Good Cakes and Bakes, the organic bakery April Anderson opened on the Avenue in 2013. She runs it with her wife, Michelle. Everything is made from scratch with organic ingredients, and there are vegan options alongside the cakes, cupcakes and cookies.
Fox 2 was already calling it a neighborhood success in 2019, and since then it has outlasted a full street rebuild and a pandemic. It’s one of the businesses that carried the Avenue through the lean years, and it has drawn its share of famous customers along the way. The shop was redesigned in 2020, so it’s a brighter room than you might expect from a neighborhood bakery.
Get something for the road.
Stop 5
Simply Casual
On the Avenue since2005VisitingOpen to visitOur visitNot yet
Across the street, at 19400 Livernois, Simply Casual is the men’s boutique Rufus Bartell has run on the Avenue since 2005.
Bartell is a big part of why the street came back. Over the years he and his family and friends have bought and filled a long list of storefronts along Livernois, and he organizes Light Up Livernois, the summer street festival that closes the Avenue for fashion, art and music. He has called this stretch one of the highest concentrations of Black-owned businesses on a single street in America, and he’d like to see the district grow south toward the Lodge.
Come for the clothes, which run from casual to sharp. If Bartell’s in, he can tell you who owns what on this block better than any guide.
Stop 6
Art in Motion Ceramic Studio & Gallery
On the Avenue sinceAbout 2013VisitingOpen to visitOur visitNot yet
Near the top of the walk, at 19939 Livernois, Art in Motion Ceramic Studio and Gallery is a working pottery studio with a shop and gallery in front. Kay Willingham opened it around 2013, and in 2022 moved into this larger storefront on the Avenue because demand for ceramics kept growing.
The studio teaches hand building, sculpting, wheel throwing, slip casting and pottery painting, for kids and adults and every skill level in between, and hosts parties in a playroom in back. The gallery and shop carry finished work, so there’s something to take home even if you don’t get your hands dirty.
Recent posted hours have been Wednesday through Saturday, 11 to 6. Classes fill up, so check ahead if you want a seat at a wheel.
Full listing: Art in Motion Ceramic Studio & GalleryGet directions
Stop 7
Baker’s Keyboard Lounge
On the Avenue since1933VisitingRestaurant or barOur visitNot yet
Finish at 8 Mile, at 20510 Livernois. Chris and Fannie Baker opened a sandwich shop here in May 1933; their son Clarence started booking jazz pianists the next year, took over in 1939, and ran it for 57 years. Baker’s Keyboard Lounge bills itself as the world’s oldest jazz club, and it is at least Detroit’s oldest continuously operating one.
The 1952 remodel is the room you still walk into: Art Deco murals, 99 seats, and a bar painted like a piano keyboard, with tilted mirrors overhead so you can watch the pianist’s hands. Art Tatum picked out the club’s Steinway in New York. Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and John Coltrane all played here.
The state named it a historic site in 1986. New owners bought it out of bankruptcy in 2011 and kept the music going, and it has had a recent refresh with a new menu. Check the calendar and book a table.
Recommended listening
“Tea for Two” — Art Tatum, 1933
The year Baker’s opened, from the man who chose its piano.