Michigan
Smash burgers, duck pasties, craft beer: What’s new at Michigan Stadium concessions
Jonathan Smith on start of Michigan State football’s preseason camp
New coach Jonathan Smith discusses the first day of Michigan State football’s preseason camp on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in East Lansing, Michigan.
Michigan State Athletics
Smash burgers with local flavor, cheesesteak fries smothered with thinly sliced Chicago beef, and a Great Lakes smoked white fish dip.
Toss in a nod to Michigan’s pasties with a duck pasty and a local custard shop’s not-to-miss macarons with creamy custard in between, and you’re ready for some football at the Big House in Ann Arbor.
When Michigan football gets underway later this month, hungry fans will have plenty of food options to cheer about.
Alcohol sales are allowed for the first time at the stadium after rolling out last year at Crisler Center and Yost Ice Arena.
On Tuesday, the University of Michigan and its hospitality partner, Sodexo Live, gave the media a tasty preview of new food options available to fans at concession areas throughout the Big House, including at the club and suite levels.
Bret Donaldson, Sodexo Live’s senior executive chef, comes to Michigan Stadium after several years with the Chicago White Sox.
“(The Big House) is roughly three times the size of the White Sox stadium, there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve just in growing into the scale of this,” he said.
A focus of the new items, Donaldson said, was current trends, such as its new hot honey chicken as well as working with new and current local partners. Its new smash burger is made with a customer blend of beef brisket, short rib and beef chuck from Detroit’s third generation-owned Fairway Packing Co. and returning partner Dearborn Sausage and its all-beef hot dog.
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“Over the coming years, we certainly want to start incorporating more Michigan locally produced and Michigan central food,” Donaldson said.
For fans of barbecue, Donaldson brings Carolina burnt ends served with a peach barbecue sauce and toppings such as crispy fried haystack onions. The burnt ends are chunks of tender beef that have smoked over hardwood charcoal.
A favorite of Donaldson’s is the Founder’s Bratwurst for its balance of flavors and at one-third pound, “it’s huge, bold and big.”
For those leaning more toward vegetarian fare, there’s a jackfruit sandwich and cilantro rice bowl with a cauliflower sofrito option and cauliflower and quinoa burgers.
Sweet tooth fans can indulge in local newcomer to the stadium Custard Hut custard with locations in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights. There’s vegan custard in cups and creamy custard sandwiched between macarons with flecks of maize and blue. Also new to food concessions is Detroit Wing Co. (DWC).
Local food options returning to the Big House are Big Boy’s, Buddy’s Pizza and Olga’s Kitchen.
One of the highlights this season at Michigan Stadium is alcohol sales. The University announced in May they would implement a class C liquor license starting Aug. 31 with the home game against Fresno State. Being able to sell booze on Michigan’s biggest campuses at football, hockey and other games was made possible by a bill signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
While no details of which specific brands will be served, Dave Ablauf, associate athletic director for football communications, said fans can expect Michigan craft beers, domestic and import beers and canned cocktails.
Adding alcohol sales pushed the stadium’s point-of-sale areas to more than double. This year, there are 750, up from last year’s 350, areas for concessions stadium wide for food and alcohol sales. Those buying alcohol will, of course, be required to show ID to staff who have been Tips Alcohol certification trained.
Here’s what to know about alcohol sales, according to Michael Jordan, Sodexo Live general manager.
- Sales will begin one hour prior to kick-off and complete by the start of the fourth quarter.
- You will be asked for picture identification by concessions selling alcohol.
- You can’t purchase more than two at a time.
- Those purchasing alcohol will be given a wristband.
- A compliance team will monitor throughout the stadium, checking that those who have alcohol, also are wearing a wristband.
What’s new at food concessions:
- Classic smashburger: Griddle-seared blend of beef short rib, brisket and chuck, hand-pressed and griddle-seared on a classic bun served with crispy fries
- Bacon Jam burger: Smashburger topped with sweet and savory bacon jam.
- Flock sandwich: Crispy breaded whole-muscle all-natural chicken breast, topped with house-made spicy creole sauce.
- Hot honey tenders: crispy chicken tenders tossed in sweet and spicy hot honey sauce.
- 4th and Bowl: Cilantro rice topped with lettuce, black bean, corn, shredded cheese, fresh pico de gallo, sour cream with choice of spicy chicken tinga or cauliflower sofrito.
- Elotes corndog: Battered and fried all-beef corndog smothered in creamy roasted street corn with poblano, spices, and cream cheese.
- Founder’s Bratwurst: Founder’s beer braised bratwurst topped with caraway sauerkraut and spicy mustard.
- Cheesesteak fries: Savory Italian-style shaved beef and creamy cheese sauce over crispy fries.
Club level
- Smokehouse sandwiches: Brisket, chicken and jackfruit options smoked over hardwood and served with sweet and spicy BBQ sauce.
- Vegan cauliflower and quinoa burger: seasoned with turmeric, coriander and cayenne.
Suite level:
- Smokehouse Great Lakes Fish Dip: House-smoked white fish, charred hatch pepper, lemon served with assorted crackers and baguette.
- Pasty Duck: Moulard Duck confit, vegetables, spice enveloped classic crispy pasty pastry and house mustard dip.
- Carolina burnt ends “slider”: Served on mini brioche bun, chunks of beef are served with sweet pickles, haystack onions side and big house barbecue sauce.
- M Street Bakery Maize and Blue Cake Pops.
Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press.
Sterling Stamping Plant is the largest in the world
Ed Daniels, vice president of North America injection and stamping operations, discusses the process of producing metal parts for Stellantis models.
Warren — Hulking metal presses line one wall of Stellantis NV’s cavernous stamping plant here, punching out the raw shapes of Jeep doors, Dodge hoods and Ram tailgates in rapid succession.
Nearby, swinging yellow robots continue the tightly choreographed work, gluing and pressing and welding smaller components to the sheet metal that eventually will start to resemble the shape of a truck or SUV.
Seven miles north, in Sterling Heights, Stellantis operates an even larger stamping plant — the biggest in the world, at 2.7 million square feet — that does much of the same work, churning out various shapes of steel and aluminum 24 hours a day.
Together, these lesser-known links in the manufacturing supply chain support all of Stellantis’ big North American assembly plants — from next-door Warren Truck Assembly Plant, where the Jeep Grand Wagoneer SUV is built, to facilities in Windsor and Mexico that make minivans and pickups.
Inside Stellantis’ Huge Detroit Stamping Plants
The Detroit News recently got a rare look inside the automaker’s Sterling and Warren stamping plants, which are key to the company’s turnaround plan.
The Metro Detroit stamping plants, the automaker’s only two such facilities in the United States, have at times struggled in recent years, facing major job cuts and worker morale issues amid slowing sales and shifting production plans. But under Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, the facilities are expected to cram in more workload — and add staff — as Stellantis begins a new five-year strategic turnaround plan, which includes a heavy focus on its most profitable North American market.
The carmaker’s goal: grow sales by more than a third to 1.9 million annually by 2030 as it launches 23 vehicles, including 11 all-new models. The company also is directing billions of dollars of investment into its U.S. manufacturing footprint due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“Stamping has never really been viewed as the sexy side of automotive manufacturing, we’re relatively invisible,” said Ed Daniels Jr., vice president of North America injection and stamping operations. “Because when you look at the commercials and advertisements, it’s always a beautiful Ram rolling off the assembly line or climbing the side of a mountain.
“But we’re the inception of that vehicle,” he said. “This is where raw materials are turned into commodities and parts.”
The Detroit News recently got a rare look inside the two plants that combined employ about 3,000 people. The automaker wanted to show off a newly-installed blanking press at Warren Stamping and other machinery like a high-speed transfer press and a robot that spots flaws in the metal.
Hiring expected
The blanking press unspools long coils of metal and chops them up into pieces that can then be shaped into roofs, fenders and floor pans. Stellantis shipped the massive machine to Warren from its idled Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois last year.
After upgrades to the machine, executives said it’s able to produce as many as 120,000 metal blanks per week. It will save Stellantis money since the plant will no longer need to pay a supplier to break down the coils before the metal arrives there.
The blanker addition is a big deal for the plant and signals that the company wants to bring more work in-house and invest in the facility over the coming years, said Romaine McKinney III, president of United Auto Workers Local 869, which represents workers at the factory.
The plant has already brought back all of its laid-off UAW workers, and McKinney said he anticipates more hiring to get underway if sales grow and new Stellantis vehicles come to market.
In another corner of the Warren facility, one of the fastest press lines in the world — known internally as the Hellcat — pushes as many as 15 pieces of metal through per minute. Dies that weigh up to 50 tons apiece squish the material into the shapes of doors and hoods before robotic arms snatch them out and place them on conveyor belts. Midway through a shift, workers can reconfigure the machine to make a different component, a process that takes just five minutes.
Robots check for quality
Curtis Booth, who manages Warren Stamping, said manual processes inside the plant have become increasingly automated, and safer, over the last couple decades, even as the automaker’s two stamping factories still utilize some presses that were installed in the 1960s.
The latest high-tech addition is the Automated Body Inspection System, or ABIS. It’s a camera system mounted on a robot that automatically checks the quality of components and flags anything in need of repair.
Auto plants of all kinds are increasingly turning to these types of camera systems, infused with artificial intelligence, to catch flaws in sheet metal and other components before they are shipped. Booth said worker visual inspections are still used. But in some cases the human eye has too much subjectivity, and the ABIS removes the guesswork.
Greg Bauer, who manages Sterling Stamping, said his plant has added staff over the past year, and expects to continue hiring as more work is assigned to the facility. There is no space at the plant to add more presses, but officials have figured out how to increase efficiency — quickly toggling back and forth between making doors for a Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Charger on on a single machine, for example.
“We want to bring high-volume parts into the plant, and we want to maximize the capacity of the equipment,” Daniels said.
lramseth@detroitnews.com
MENOMINEE, Mich. (WLUK) — 24-year-old Ethan Raymond Masters of Menominee was arrested on sexual assault charges June 30th, according to the Menominee County Sheriff’s Office.
According to a news release from the Sheriff’s Office, deputies learned of an incident involving a 24-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl which happened in Menominee June 22nd. Following a sexual assault investigation, police charged Masters.
Masters was arraigned July 2nd on 2 counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct First Degree. He remains in the Menominee County Jail on a $250,000 cash bond.
Menominee City Police and the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory of Marquette assisted with the investigation.
Michigan
Michigan immigration advocates react after Supreme Court ruling on Temporary Protected Status
Twenty-four thousand immigrants in Michigan have Temporary Protected Status (TPS), but a recent Supreme Court decision could put their protection in jeopardy.
TPS is a humanitarian protection granted to U.S. immigrants fleeing dangerous situations in their home countries, often from natural disasters or political instability. The status allows immigrants from the designated countries to live and work in the U.S.
The Supreme Court overturned those for 356,000 Haitians and Syrians in a recent decision. While the court’s decision directly impacted Haitian and Syrian immigrants, it also established that the Secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to determine TPS status without judicial review or input from the courts.
That means that the Secretary of Homeland Security can eliminate TPS for any immigrant group that is currently in the U.S. under protection. That puts 1.3 million immigrants in the U.S. at risk of deportation. In Florida, 113,000 healthcare workers with TPS are at risk of deportation. The Haitian population in Philadelphia is also expressing concerns about what comes next for them.
“The Supreme Court turned its back on our moral and legal commitments to people seeking safety,” said Christine Sauvé, manager of Policy and Communication at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. “The decision eliminates legal protections for people fleeing danger and allows the Trump Administration to really advance its mass deportation agenda.”
Left without the ability to live or work in the U.S., these Haitian and Syrian immigrants with TPS now face deportation. But going back home could still be incredibly dangerous.
“It’s not really an option to go back to their home country,” said Melanie Goldberg, immigration attorney with the Institute of Metro Detroit. “In the case of Haiti, they don’t even have an airport in Port-au-Prince that’s operational. Yet they say it’s safe for these citizens to go back.”
In Michigan, immigrants with TPS have contributed $349 million to the state’s economy, a sign that they are deeply embedded in the community, according to Sauvé.
“Many TPS holders have been in our communities for a very long time,” Sauvé said. “They’ve really spent decades building their lives here in Michigan. We welcomed them here, only to see that completely ripped away with the stroke of a pen.”
The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center encourages Haitian and Syrian immigrants with TPS, as well as any immigrants in the U.S. with a TPS designation, to seek out a qualified legal service provider and review the “Know Your Rights” Materials on the MIRC’s website
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