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Diamonds celebrates, big changes inch closer

By Noe Hernandez, Livingston Daily, October 26, 2016

By this time next year, Diamonds will be bigger and better and in a new location, Mr. B’s Rustic Tavern will be history and downtown Howell will have a new Italian restaurant.

Then again, all of those changes could happen by the end of this year.

Diamonds and Mr. B’s Rustic Tavern owner Adam Merkel on Friday kicked off a “33 Cents for 33 Days” sale on Facebook that celebrates Diamonds’ 33rd anniversary and the restaurant’s last year at 209 E. Grand River Avenue.

“We wanted to do something fun for our guests to thank them for supporting us through the years,” Merkel said Monday.

Diamonds is offering a skewer of filet mignon tips for 33 cents until Nov. 22. To qualify for the sale, customers must buy a beverage and comment and share Friday’s Facebook post on the sale. Patrons can buy one skewer per visit, with unlimited visits per day. If you’re looking for a full meal, though, a two-skewer dinner usually sells for $17.95.

Merkel, president of Adam Merkel Restaurants, hopes to start transforming Mr. B’s, 101 W. Grand River Ave., into the new Diamonds by the end of the year. He’ll then remodel the old Diamonds space and transform it into Cello, a modern Italian restaurant.

“Both new restaurants will open within weeks of each other,” Merkel said.

Merkel’s group also owns The Silver Pig, a new speakeasy at 102 S. Michigan Avenue that, Merkel says, is drawing diners from Ann Arbor, Birmingham, Royal Oak and other parts of the Detroit area.

The group has hired Ron & Roman, a prestigious restaurant designing firm, to make the new Diamonds cozy, comfortable, intimate, approachable and family-friendly.

Ron & Roman have already completed the architecture and designs plans for the new Diamonds and Cello.

Merkel expects the remodeling work for the new Diamonds to take between seven and 10 days. The restaurant will be closed during the renovation.

The new Diamonds will have 3,500 more square feet than the old one.

“Our design plays upon the rich history of the building at 101 W. Grand River and all the elements of the current Diamonds that people have grown to love,” Merkel said. “Coming from a smaller space, our main objective is to make all our regular guests feel comfortable the minute they walk in, but at the same time see a Diamonds bigger and better than they ever imagined.

“If The Silver Pig is any indication of the direction we’re going, it’s evident that each of our restaurants will have its own personality and make sense for the space that they’re in,” he added. “Diamonds is not a restaurant, it’s an institution. When we designed the new one, we respected the fact that this is the community’s restaurant that we’ve been lucky enough to facilitate.”