'Tapas' restaurant proposed for downtown

May 7, 2009
By Dave Alexander
Muskegon Chronicle

MUSKEGON -- After opening an upscale sports bar in downtown Muskegon, the developers of the Muskegon Athletic Club will attempt to take fine dining in the downtown to a new level.

Managing partner Andrew Buck of Whitehall and lead investor Jo Ann Tregoning of North Muskegon are planning to open Pi -- a Tapas bar in the Sidock Building.

At the edge of the Western Avenue/Third Street traffic circle and directly across the street from the Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts, Pi would play off the creativity at the next-door Baker College Culinary Institute of Michigan slated to open this fall, according to head chef Christopher LaBelle.

"It will be a Tapas-style bar that will be competitively priced but with refined food and service and ambiance that will be impeccable," LaBelle told Muskegon city commissioners this week. "For this town, it will be cutting edge. We want to redefine downtown."

Tapas is a Spanish style of restaurant dining featuring a wide variety of high-end warm and cold appetizers. In the American Tapas tradition, patrons order many different types of appetizers and combine and share them to make a full meal.

In downtown Grand Rapids, San Chez -- A Tapas Bistro has provided this style of restaurant experience since 1992.

Muskegon city commissioners unanimously approved a resolution supporting a special "downtown development authority" liquor license application from Buck and Tregoning's Pi-Bar LCC. The restaurant developers expect the license to take three months to obtain from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. It is the same type of license they received for the MAC.

LaBelle -- one of the chefs currently at the MAC -- said he and the owners are not exactly sure when Pi would open. He said they want to take their time to create the right interior and develop the right staff. The Pi may open in late 2009 or early spring 2010, he said.

The interior plans for Pi would make the cooking part of the restaurant experience. The open-style kitchen would be in the middle of the dining room with customer seating in a horseshoe shape around it.

The west end of the Sidock Building would allow for outside terrace seating overlooking Third Street.

Buck and his crew opened the MAC last October in the lower level of the former National City Bank building at West Western Avenue and Second Street. Initial business at the MAC has prompted the owners to develop their second downtown restaurant concept, LaBelle said.