How New Restaurants on Woodward Are Reshaping Bloomfield Township

Drive Woodward Avenue past Square Lake Road this month and you'll notice the storefront that used to be Zoup! sitting mid-transformation. New paint, new signage going up, no drive-through banner yet. A few miles south, at Telegraph and Maple, the space that spent years as Zao Jun Sushi has already flipped completely, tables full, valet cones out front. These aren't isolated vacancies filling in at random. They're the same pattern showing up on two different corners of the township, and if you've lived here long enough to remember what used to occupy both spaces, the shift is worth understanding rather than just noticing.

The Corner That Keeps Turning Over

The Woodward and Square Lake intersection has been a soup-and-sandwich fast casual spot for years. Zoup! Eatery opened there in January 2020 as the flagship location for the chain's full brand refresh, the first store to debut the redesigned interior that became the template for every Zoup! location after it. That run is ending. G&B Hospitality, the Detroit-based group behind Naked Burger and Berkley Common, signed a lease this year to bring their smashburger concept, Patty & Press, into the same 42983 Woodward Ave space.

Co-owner Goran Dimic told local reporters the team is targeting a September or October opening, which puts the launch squarely inside the window we're in right now. The new location will run larger than their original Shelby Township spot, with more than 1,700 square feet and 24 seats for dine-in compared to the carryout-heavy original. Before settling on the former Zoup! space, Dimic and co-owner Brandon Gorgies had also looked at the current Middle Eats storefront nearby, which tells you this stretch of Woodward was already on their radar as a landing spot before this particular lease came together.

What's notable isn't that a burger place is opening. It's what it's replacing. Zoup! was a national franchise operation. Patty & Press is locally founded, using grass-fed beef sourced from Fairway Packing Co. at Eastern Market and hand-cut fries fried in beef tallow. The corner is trading a chain for a homegrown concept, and that's a different kind of turnover than a straight swap of one national brand for another.

A Second Corner, Same Pattern

Head south to the Bloomfield Plaza Shopping Center at Telegraph and Maple and you'll find the same story playing out on a different timeline. Zao Jun, the New Asian and sushi restaurant that had operated there for years, closed and posted a farewell message thanking customers for the memories made in that space. Taking its place is Tamar Mediterranean Kitchen & Bar, owned by Ziad Battah, who also owns Shawarma Grill in Southfield.

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees gave Tamar unanimous approval at its February 23 meeting, signing off on a 182-seat restaurant at 6608 Telegraph Rd with a site plan and special land use request that included extended hours and a Class C liquor license. Township planning director Andrea Bibby told trustees at the time that all departments had no concerns with the plans, leaving only the liquor license paperwork and sign review outstanding. Tamar has since opened, and by midsummer it was already taking reservations on OpenTable, with reviewers praising the portions and the decor.

Here's the detail that matters if you're trying to read this corridor accurately: some of the coverage around Tamar's opening refers to it as being in Bloomfield Hills, while the township's own public notice places the address squarely in Bloomfield Township. That's not sloppy reporting so much as a reflection of how tightly the township wraps around the smaller city, sharing intersections and shopping centers close enough that even local outlets sometimes blur the line. If you're a resident trying to figure out which municipal meetings actually govern the plaza where you eat, the township's board of trustees notices are the more reliable read.

Reading the Pattern, Not Just the List

Put these two storylines side by side and a shape emerges. Two of the township's highest-traffic intersections, Woodward at Square Lake and Telegraph at Maple, are both losing a chain or franchise tenant to an independently owned concept with local ties. Patty & Press is a Detroit-founded burger group expanding its footprint. Tamar is owned by a Southfield restaurateur adding a second concept under his own name. Neither is a franchise buying into an existing brand system. Both are individuals betting on a specific corner with their own money and their own name on the lease.

That distinction matters if you're trying to understand what's actually changing here versus what's simply cycling. A franchise closing and another franchise opening in its place tells you the intersection still has good traffic counts and nothing more. An independent operator moving in and signing a multi-year lease, going through a public hearing process, applying for a liquor license, is a bet that the corner can support a concept with an actual identity, not just convenient access off Woodward or Telegraph. Two corners making that same bet in the same year is a stronger signal than either one alone.

What's Holding Steady Around the Churn

None of this displaces the restaurants that have been anchoring the township all along. Cafe ML on West Maple Road continues serving its globally inspired menu seven days a week. Hazel's Seafood still draws a weekend brunch crowd, and Bill's Restaurant, The Village Club, Bell Bistro and Roadside B&G round out the list of names locals bring up when the conversation turns to where they actually eat on a regular week, alongside Zalman's on Woodward, The Moose Preserve Bar & Grill and 5th Tavern. None of these places are tied up in a lease negotiation or a board of trustees agenda. They're simply open, the way they've been for years.

The churn on Woodward and Telegraph is happening against that steady backdrop, not instead of it. Two corners are turning over. The rest of the map isn't, and that distinction matters if the pace of change on those two intersections starts to feel bigger than it actually is.

Marking the Calendar

If you want a low-key way to see some of this change up close, the township's annual Open House is scheduled for Sunday, September 27, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's the usual mix of meeting township staff, donuts and popcorn, and a chance to see what departments are working on outside of the restaurant scene entirely. It won't tell you anything about Patty & Press or Tamar directly, but it's a reminder that the same board of trustees signing off on liquor licenses and site plans is the same body running the open house, road maintenance and the rest of the township's daily operations. Worth an hour if you're local and haven't been to one before.

The two corners worth watching this fall are the ones you already drive past. Whether the change registers as a net gain depends on what you were hoping to find there, but knowing what's actually replacing what, and why, beats guessing from an empty storefront.

If you're weighing a move within Bloomfield Township or curious how a corridor like this affects home values nearby, Tom Holzer has been tracking Metro Detroit's neighborhoods long enough to know which changes matter and which are just noise. Book a consultation to talk through what's actually happening on your block.