Hello, and welcome
We’re so glad you’re here.
Delovely Detroit is a love letter to metro Detroit — written by two people who came for a visit, fell hard, and decided to stay.
Who we are
We’re Mike & Andrea — and somewhere nearby, almost certainly napping, is Bruce Lee, our pug and chief morale officer. (He’s been to more states than most people. More on that in a minute.)
Between us, we’ve spent our careers in the business of good experiences. Andrea ran luxury spas from coast to coast — she knows the difference between a place that truly pampers and a place that just charges like it does. Mike has planned events large and small all over the country, from intimate dinners to productions with thousands of guests, and he’s been building websites the whole time. (He still runs our studio, Purple Wave Creative, and still plans events.) Hospitality is in both our bones.
And as guests, we’ve done the whole spectrum — dive bars and Michelin-starred dining rooms, glamping sites and luxury hotels — and we love all of it, honestly, when it’s done well. That’s the lens we bring to Delovely Detroit: not snobs, not pushovers, just two people who know what “worth it” feels like and want to point you toward it.
How we got here
Andrea was born and raised in Flint — scrappy and refined in equal measure — and she’s a die-hard, lifelong Lions fan. After Michigan State, she chased the map: Chicago, Southern California, Orlando, then back to Chicago, where she met Mike.
Mike grew up in Chicago, a born-and-raised Bears fan who spent years planning events and touring with bands — often rolling through metro Detroit and the west-Michigan towns along the way. (Fun fact: his last gig in Detroit was at The Old Miami.) He’d been quietly falling for this city for years before he ever lived here. He’ll always root for the Bears — but the Lions are a close second in his heart. At least neither of us are Packers fans.
We started dating right before the world shut down, and in 2021 we took a leap together — moved to Asheville, then spent 18 months living and working full-time out of an RV. Thirty-eight states later, we came back to Michigan and simply couldn’t bring ourselves to leave. After a couple of years up in Frankfort, we landed in Metro Detroit in May 2026 — thrilled to be back to urban living, great food, and the occasional luxury.
What Delovely Detroit is for
We’re not from here, and that’s exactly the point. We get to see metro Detroit the way you might wish you could — with fresh eyes, falling for it one spot at a time. Delovely Detroit is where we share what we find: the restaurants, bars, shops, spas, day trips, and hidden corners that are genuinely worth leaving the house for, across all of Metro Detroit.
This isn’t a directory that lists everything. It’s a guide that tells you what we actually love — and why. Think of us less as critics on a pedestal and more as the friends who happen to have spent their whole lives in hospitality, pulling up a chair next to you and saying, “okay, here’s where you have to go.”
Our promise to you
Every place we feature gets visited — often anonymously, so we experience it exactly the way you will, with no special treatment. We only write up the places we genuinely love.
If something’s comped or sponsored, we’ll always tell you, and the review will always be 100% real.
And if a spot isn’t quite there yet? We’ll share honest, constructive feedback with the owner privately — we’re here to lift local businesses up, not drag them through the mud.
No pay-to-play. No fluff. Just the good stuff.
Come along with us.
The best of what we find goes out once a week — the single thing worth leaving the house for, plus where to eat, drink, and wander. Pull up a chair.