Hazel Park
An unpretentious, blue-collar soul, a fast-rising food scene along John R, affordable charm, and a genuine comeback story. "The Friendly City."
The story
Hazel Park got its name from the hazelnut bushes that grew thick in the swampy lowlands here, and it grew up the way a lot of these inner-ring suburbs did — as an affordable landing spot for autoworkers when Henry Ford’s Highland Park plant boomed around 1914. It incorporated as a city in 1941, calls itself “The Friendly City,” and for nearly 70 years its identity was the Hazel Park Raceway, a horse-racing track famously built atop an old landfill. Thousands packed the grandstands for thoroughbred and harness racing until it closed in 2018 (the site’s now an Amazon distribution center — a very on-the-nose symbol of reinvention).
And reinvention is the whole story here lately. In 2015, acclaimed chef James Rigato opened Mabel Gray inside a shuttered diner on John R, and it became one of the most celebrated restaurants in the entire metro — Detroit Free Press Restaurant of the Year, a New York Times write-up, the works. That put Hazel Park on the map for a new crowd: young people and creatives priced out of fancier Woodward towns like Ferndale and Royal Oak, drawn by cheaper homes and a genuinely unpretentious, look-out-for-each-other neighborliness. The result is a scrappy city very much on the upswing — still blue-collar at heart, but increasingly one of the metro’s most interesting places to eat.
Did you know?
- Chef James Rigato’s restaurant Mabel Gray — opened in an old Hazel Park diner in 2015 — won Detroit Free Press Restaurant of the Year and helped spark the city’s whole renaissance.
- Hazel Park is named for the wild hazelnut bushes that once grew across its swampy lowlands.
- The Hazel Park Raceway (1949–2018), a beloved horse-racing track, was famously built right on top of a former landfill — and that land is now a giant Amazon distribution center.
- The city grew up as an affordable home for autoworkers commuting to Ford’s nearby Highland Park plant — and is full of classic post-war Cape Cod bungalows.
- Hazel Park leaned hard into Michigan’s cannabis legalization, becoming home to more recreational dispensaries than just about anywhere in metro Detroit.
Notable locals
Hazel Park has sent some serious talent into pro sports: Bob Welch, the Cy Young Award–winning pitcher and World Series champ, grew up here, along with NFL defensive end Connor Barwin and Olympic gold-medal wrestler Steve Fraser. It’s a fitting roster for a tough, friendly, hardworking town — and these days, its newest “notable locals” are the chefs and small-business owners turning a once-overlooked suburb into a genuine destination.
