Eastpointe

Few towns have changed their name as often as this one. Settled by Irish and German immigrants in the 1830s, the area was first Orange Township, then Erin Township (a nod to its Irish roots). Then it became the Village of “Halfway” — named, charmingly, because the old Halfway House at 9 Mile and Gratiot was the stagecoach rest stop exactly halfway between downtown Detroit and the county seat at Mount Clemens. In 1929 it became the City of East Detroit, and finally, in a 1992 vote, residents renamed it Eastpointe — partly to forge a distinct identity of its own, borrowing the “pointe” from the nearby Grosse Pointe communities.

Through all the names, the place stayed the same at heart: a tightly-built, working-and-middle-class community of brick homes, pressed right against Detroit at 8 Mile Road. It’s one of the densest small cities in the region, proudly calls itself the “Gateway to Macomb County” and “A Family Town,” and runs along Gratiot Avenue — a road that started as a Native American trail, became a military route to Port Huron, and is now the spine of the city. It’s not flashy. It’s just a real, lived-in metro Detroit neighborhood — and it’s got one genuinely delicious claim to fame.

The most delicious “local” here is Detroit-style pizza itself — the Guerras brought their now-iconic recipe to Eastpointe’s Cloverleaf Bar, making this unassuming suburb a genuine landmark in Detroit food history. On the human side, a young Alice Cooper grew up here, the protopunk band MC5 recorded an album in town, and Joe Girard — the Guinness-certified “World’s Greatest Salesman” — set his records selling cars at a local Chevy dealership. Not a bad roster for a city most people just drive through.