Great White Buffalo Brewing Co.

Great White Buffalo Brewing Co. occupies a building with more history than its taproom vibe lets on — the corner of Main and Center was once home to the Ambler Hotel, documented in a 1927 Northville Record article as a station on the Underground Railroad, assisting freedom seekers on their way toward Canada in the 1800s. These days it’s a former yogurt shop turned brewery, brewing everything on-site — four year-round staples (IPA, Kolsch, Amber, Stout) plus rotating taps, small batches, and a nitro line — while running an actual kitchen with a real chef rather than the food-truck-adjacent menu a lot of breweries settle for.

The bison Yellowstone Burger, topped with house-made beer cheese and jalapeños, comes up again and again in reviews as the thing to order, and the menu runs wider than typical bar food with sharables, salads, wings, paninis, and tacos, plus both indoor and outdoor seating on Main Street with weekend live music on the patio. There’s even a “Puppers Menu,” which tells you the outdoor tables welcome dogs as much as they welcome you.

On our radar for a proper Northville dinner that happens to also be a brewery, or for raising a glass on a corner that’s quietly one of the more historically significant spots downtown.