Vinsetta Garage

You can’t stop looking around. That’s the first thing to know about Vinsetta Garage — the 1919 auto shop on Woodward that spent decades as the oldest garage east of the Mississippi before the Union Joints team reopened it as a restaurant in 2012. They kept the bones and then some, and the result is a room where your eyes keep drifting off your plate. The menu plays along too; half the fun is reading the names before you order.

We came for lunch, split a salad and a burger, and spent most of it watching the open kitchen behind the bar do its thing — genuinely part of the show. The soundtrack ran alternative rock, the volume was cheerful rather than punishing, and while we were eating, a couple of beautifully restored cars rolled in and parked out front. Of course they did. This is a place people drive to, in the meaningful sense of the word.

The patio out front overlooks Woodward, which is either the point or the price of admission depending on your feelings about traffic. We loved it. It’s the anchor of a Berkley afternoon, and Bombshell Treat Bar is not too far away if you’re not done yet.