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City Guide · Detroit, MI

The Best Places in Detroit

25 must-do spots across the Motor City. This free City Pack from Whosly collects our favorite Detroit spots — restaurants, bars, cafés, museums, parks, and things to do — each one mapped and ready to turn into a plan. Save the ones you love, then text a link and see who's in.

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Restaurants

4

Lafayette Coney Island

🍽️ Restaurants·Downtown

Pick a side in Detroit's oldest argument. Two coneys with everything, a Faygo, brusque service, cash only. Open absurdly late.

Buddy's Pizza

🍽️ Restaurants·Conant Gardens

The 1946 corner bar where Detroit-style pizza was invented, still baking it in blue steel pans. Go to the original on Conant.

Slows Bar BQ

🍽️ Restaurants·Corktown

The barbecue joint that kicked off Corktown's comeback in 2005. Get The Yardbird and settle in for the wait.

Green Dot Stables

🍽️ Restaurants·Hubbard Richard

Dozens of inventive sliders, almost all a few dollars, in a horse-racing-themed room. The cheapest good time in the city.

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Bars & nightlife

3

Cliff Bell's

🍸 Bars·Downtown

Mahogany, brass and low light, exactly as it looked in 1935, with live jazz most nights. Detroit's most romantic room.

Baker's Keyboard Lounge

🍸 Bars·Bagley

The world's oldest jazz club, running since 1934, with a piano-shaped bar. Reopened in June 2026 after a full restoration.

The Old Miami

🍸 Bars·Cass Corridor

A Vietnam veterans' living room turned beloved dive — thrift-store couches, a bonfire out back, cheap beer, no pretense.

Cafés & coffee

1

Sister Pie

☕ Cafés·West Village

Lisa Ludwinski's corner bakery works Michigan fruit into salted-honey and sour-cherry pies worth crossing town for.

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Museums & culture

5

Detroit Institute of Arts

🏛️ Museums·Midtown

One of America's great museums, and the only place you can stand inside Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals.

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

🏛️ Museums·Midtown

The largest institution of its kind anywhere, built around the sweeping 'And Still We Rise' walk through Black history.

Motown Museum

🏛️ Museums·New Center

Hitsville U.S.A. — the little house where Studio A cut the records that rewired American pop. Book ahead; tours sell out.

Ford Piquette Avenue Plant

🏛️ Museums·Milwaukee Junction

The 1904 factory where the Model T was born, still a creaky wooden loft full of brass-era cars. The car city starts here.

Detroit Historical Museum

🏛️ Museums·Midtown

Free, and better than free: the cobblestone Streets of Old Detroit downstairs and a working auto assembly line upstairs.

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Parks & outdoors

4

Belle Isle Park

🌳 Parks·Belle Isle

An Olmsted-designed island in the Detroit River with a conservatory, an aquarium and the best skyline view in the city.

Detroit Riverwalk

🌳 Parks·Riverfront

Three and a half miles of reclaimed riverfront, with Canada across the water and a carousel about halfway along.

Dequindre Cut Greenway

🌳 Parks·Eastern Market

A below-grade rail line turned bike path, walled the whole way in some of Detroit's best graffiti. Links the river to Eastern Market.

Campus Martius Park

🌳 Parks·Downtown

Downtown's living room: a beach in summer, a rink and the city tree in winter, and Point of Origin marking Detroit's mile zero.

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Things to do

8

Eastern Market

🎟️ Things to do·Eastern Market

Saturday morning is the whole city in one place — six blocks of sheds, produce, cut flowers and murals, going since 1891.

Michigan Central Station

🎟️ Things to do·Corktown

Detroit's most famous ruin is a ruin no longer — the Beaux-Arts waiting room reopened in 2024 and you can walk right in.

Guardian Building

🎟️ Things to do·Downtown

Step into the 'Cathedral of Finance' just for the lobby: Pewabic tile, Rookwood arches and a barrel vault of pure 1929 swagger.

Fisher Building

🎟️ Things to do·New Center

Albert Kahn's 'largest art object' — a gilded, marble-lined arcade that is worth the drive up Woodward on its own.

Fox Theatre

🎟️ Things to do·Downtown

A 5,000-seat Siamese-Byzantine fever dream, restored to the last tassel. Any show is an excuse to see the lobby.

Heidelberg Project

🎟️ Things to do·McDougall-Hunt

Tyree Guyton turned two blocks of his childhood street into a polka-dotted open-air artwork. Free, always on, deeply Detroit.

Pewabic Pottery

🎟️ Things to do·West Village

A 1903 National Historic Landmark still firing the iridescent tile that lines half the landmarks downtown. Gallery and shop are free.

Comerica Park

🎟️ Things to do·Downtown

Tiger stone heads, a working carousel and a Ferris wheel of baseballs. Even a bad Tigers night is a good night out.

Planner Pro

Eat and drink your way through Detroit

4 curated guides, one per cuisine — 15 hand-picked spots each, plus the city's best cocktail bars. Download a pack and every spot drops onto your map, ready to turn into a plan with friends.

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Detroit Cocktail BarsPlanner Pro

The city's best cocktail bars — Prohibition rooms to rooftop views.

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Detroit ItalianPlanner Pro

15 great Italian spots — red-sauce institutions to Detroit-style pizza.

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Detroit AmericanPlanner Pro

15 great American spots — chef-driven rooms to neighborhood diners.

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Detroit MexicanPlanner Pro

15 great Mexican spots — Mexicantown taquerías to modern kitchens.

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Detroit AsianPlanner Pro

15 great Asian spots — Corktown Thai to Hamtramck Bangladeshi and Yemeni.

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