Michigan
Lansing ranks as one of the top bbq cities in Michigan. Here are 5 places to try some BBQ
SmokeSlam in Memphis: A look inside the barbecue festival
Photojournalist Stu Boyd II takes you inside SmokeSlam in Memphis, offering a look at everything from the food to the family-friendly fun.
Lansing recently ranked as one of the top 14 cities in Michigan serving up barbecue in a survey by a nationwide lawncare services company.
Michigan has a strong BBQ game, according to a recent survey from Lawnstarter, which ranked nearly 476 major U.S. cities and found 14 in Michigan, including Lansing, served up tasty barbecue.
Several restaurants in Lansing have received awards for their reliable BBQ menus, including Meat Southern BBQ and Carnivore Cuisine, and the Smoke ‘N Pig BBQ.
Here are five barbecue restaurants to explore in Lansing.
What Michigan cities were ranked for best barbecue?
In Michigan, 14 cities were featured in the list of 476 locations:
- Grand Rapids: ranked No. 80
- Lansing: ranked No. 92
- Detroit: ranked No. 100
- Ann Arbor: ranked No. 106
- Westland: ranked No. 140
- Southfield: ranked No. 177
- Livonia: ranked No. 184
- Flint: ranked No. 268
- Sterling Heights: ranked No. 301
- Dearborn: ranked No. 308
- Rochester Hills: ranked No. 310
- Warren: ranked No. 313
- Troy: ranked No. 378
- Farmington Hills: ranked No. 429
Lansing’s Meat Southern BBQ and Carnivore Cuisine
What began as a backyard barbeque turned into an award-winning BBQ restaurant recognized at a local and national scale.
“Our delectable eats have been featured on both ‘Triple D’ and ‘Campus Eats’ on the Big10 Network. We had a great time sharing our passion for BBQ and showing the world what Makes Meat BBQ tick,” Meat said.
For appetizers, customers can choose between the nachos, meat fries or smoked wings. Avoid filling up because their entrees include the “meat mountain,” which is a heap of potatoes, gravy, brisket, bacon and more. Meat plates are also included, such as, a half pound of pulled pork or chicken, smoked turkey and brisket.
Located at 1224 Turner Road in Old Town, the restaurant is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. from Tuesday-Saturday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
Smoke ‘N Pig BBQ has another loaded BBQ menu in Lansing
Another Lansing BBQ spot, Smoke ‘N Pig BBQ, evolved from a food truck to an award-winning restaurant. They previously competed in the Smokin’ Jazz and BBQ Blues Festival: This is a place that knows it’s a hometown favorite.
“Our smoked BBQ menu is packed full of all the smokey classics, from pulled pork to ribs to spicy rib tips. We also smoke Lansing BBQ favorites such as beef brisket and chicken wings,” Smoke ‘N Pig says.
Located at 908 Elmwood Road, the restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday. From 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday-Saturday. Then, from noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday.
Some of their popular items are the loaded mac n’ cheese, pulled pork tacos, pulled pork nachos and more.
Their menu, decorated in flames, includes pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, spicy rib tips, jumbo chicken, turkey ribs and loaded pork or brisket fries.
Saddleback BBQ in REO Town Lansing and Okemos
“Saddleback BBQ is Lansing, Michigan’s premier craft BBQ joint. We feature authentic southern BBQ with a unique Midwestern flair. We smoke all of our meats on site in our multiple reverse-flow, wood-fed smokers,” Saddleback says. “We use a mixture of hardwoods sourced from the mid-Michigan area, which includes, apple, cherry, and hickory.
The menu offers combo plates, so customers can order a variety of meats and sides. Their menu also includes gluten free and dairy free brisket, pulled pork, ribs and chicken.
There are two restaurant locations: REO town at 1147 S. Washington Ave., open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Sunday; and Okemos at 1754 Central Park Dr., open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Sunday.
Customers may order online as a delivery or “Pork & Go,” for a curbside pick-up. The kitchen also caters for events like weddings.
Gravity Smokehouse Brew & Que
At the Gravity Smokehouse, customers can browse the dinner menu, choosing between the BBQ flatbread or BBQ sandwiches while participating in one of their weekly events: music Bingo at 7 p.m. every Wednesday or trivia night at 7:30 p.m. every Tuesday.
According to the menu, specials include brisket philly, turkey bacon melt, BBQ nachos, gravity burger, brisket, sliced turkey, chili, BBQ cobb salad and their side of mac n’ cheese.
The smokehouse is located in Holt at 2440 Cedar St. and open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; from 7 a.m. to midnight Friday-Saturday; and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.
The kitchen also caters for events like weddings or business functions in Holt and Lansing.
Capital City BBQ
Capital City BBQ offers a unique menu, including Vietnamese entrees like egg rolls, noodle salad and the banh mi sandwich to classic barbecue meals like brisket, baby back ribs, smoked pulled chicken and pulled pork cheese fries.
On June 1, the restaurant celebrated it 10th anniversary in Lansing.
The kitchen also serves breakfast on the weekends, including breakfast eggrolls, bowls, homed biscuits and gravy, and the “piggyback ride,” an omelet stuffed with smoked ham with melted cheese.
According to Yelp, CCBBQ placed in the top 10 best BBQ restaurants in Lansing for 2025 — among Meat BBQ, Smoke ‘N Pig BBQ, Saddleback BBQ and the Gravity Smokehouse.
The restaurant is located at 1026 Saginaw St., and open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday; from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, and 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Contact Sarah Moore smoore@lsj.com
Michigan
How two Michigan stamping plants power Stellantis turnaround plan
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
Michigan
Menominee, Michigan man arrested on sexual assault charges involving a minor
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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