Old Woodward Now Runs From 7 A.M. Bagels To A 1 A.M. Kitchen Close

"I've always loved hanging out and eating in Birmingham," Max Sussman said when he announced he was bringing his bagel shop to Hamilton Row this fall. He meant it as a homecoming story. What it actually describes, once you line it up against everything else that has opened on Old Woodward this year, is a downtown whose clock has quietly stretched at both ends.

Sussman grew up in Huntington Woods and remembers lunches with his grandparents downtown. Bev's Bagels, the organic sourdough shop he started as a pop-up out of his own kitchen in 2023, opened its first storefront in Detroit's Core City last year. This September it opens its second location at 283 Hamilton Row, a 1,400-square-foot spot that previously housed Marrow on the Go, tucked between Greek Islands Birmingham and Sy Thai Cafe with Commonwealth Cafe directly across the street.

That alone would be a nice small-business story. It is not the whole story.

Two Bagel Counters Within Blocks Of Each Other

Bev's isn't downtown's only new bagel bet this season. PopUp Bagels, the Westport, Connecticut chain founded by Adam Goldberg in 2020, is opening its first Michigan location at 34400 Woodward Avenue, in the storefront that used to be a T-Mobile. Signage is already up. No opening date has been announced yet, but the signal is clear enough: two separate operators looked at the same few blocks of Birmingham and decided this was the place to bet on a bagel.

Bev's will run 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., seven days a week, with weekday pastries eventually joining the weekend-only babkas and cinnamon rolls that built its following in Detroit. That's an early open for a downtown that has traditionally geared its hours around lunch and dinner rather than the pre-work rush.

The Corridor's Latest Closing Time Belongs To A Restaurant That Opened In May

If the bagel shops are stretching the morning, BESOS is stretching the other end of the day. Celebrity chef Matthew Kenney opened his first Michigan restaurant at 239 N. Old Woodward Avenue in late May, a plant-forward concept the owners describe as "clean indulgence," built around a Detroit-style pizza menu, heirloom tomato lasagna, and a full bar. According to the restaurant's own site, doors open at 11 a.m. and the last call is 1 a.m., seven nights a week.

BESOS also launched with kosher certification through Kosher Michigan built in from day one, rather than retrofitted after opening, which matters for the West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills, and Huntington Woods households who have wanted a serious sit-down kosher option in Birmingham and haven't had one at this level. That's a second, quieter reason this address matters beyond its late hours.

What The Clock Actually Shows

Put the new arrivals next to a longstanding downtown fixture and the shift becomes obvious. 220 Merrill, the upscale American restaurant housed in the 1932 Detroit Edison building, closes at 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and pushes to midnight only on Friday and Saturday. That has been a fairly typical closing window for downtown Birmingham dining for years.

BESOS closing at 1 a.m. every night, not just on weekends, is the detail that stands out. Combined with a 7 a.m. bagel counter opening blocks away this month, downtown Birmingham's operating window this year runs roughly eighteen hours end to end, longer on both sides than what residents have been used to.

The Retail Turnover Riding The Same Wave

The same stretch of Old Woodward and Maple is turning over on the retail side too, which tells you this isn't isolated to restaurants. According to reporting from DBusiness, national brands have been signing leases in Surnow Co. properties throughout the district:

• Vuori is filling 100 S. Old Woodward, the space RH used as a temporary showroom before its four-story gallery finished construction
• Rag & Bone is taking a two-level, lofted space at 110 S. Old Woodward, its first standalone Michigan store
• Design Within Reach is moving into roughly two-thirds of the former Anthropologie space at 214 W. Maple
• J.Jill is preparing a new-concept store in the former Moosejaw building on Maple, adjacent to Eileen Fisher

None of that is dining, but it's the same underlying pattern: established names picking Birmingham's core blocks for a first or flagship Michigan presence, the same way Bev's picked Hamilton Row and Kenney picked Old Woodward.

The Market Clock Is Already Counting Down

While the storefronts are stretching the day, the season's biggest weekly gathering is running out its calendar. The Birmingham Farmers Market is in its 24th year, and the 2026 season runs every Sunday from May 3 through October 25 at Public Parking Lot 6, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. As of today, seven Sundays remain before the season closes with its End of Season Celebration on October 25, the same format that opened the year in May with free tote bags for early arrivals.

That's worth building into a weekend routine now rather than later. The market's live music and vendor lineup won't reset until next May, and the fall produce push tends to be the last real chance to catch the season's full vendor roster before the lot empties out for winter.

What It Means For How You Use Your Own Ten Blocks

None of this changes what Birmingham is. It changes when it's open. A resident who has spent years thinking of downtown as a lunch-and-dinner district now has a legitimate 7 a.m. coffee-and-bagel option two blocks from a restaurant that will still be pouring drinks past midnight, on a Tuesday. That's not a small shift in a town built around a compact, walkable core. It means the same ten blocks can now anchor an early morning routine and a late one without requiring a drive anywhere else.

If you're weighing how a neighborhood's daily rhythm holds up over years, not just this season, that kind of expanding footprint, more hours covered by more storefronts within walking distance of each other, is worth paying attention to. It's one of the quieter signals of a downtown that keeps investing in itself.

If you're curious what a shift like this means for property values or timing in Birmingham, or you just want a second set of eyes on the market before you make a move, Farida Properties is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.