My spouse and I visited the Doubletree Fort Shelby’s Round
Bar/MCK on a Saturday afternoon in early July 2017, and we stopped in at the
bar again on Sunday afternoon for drinks. (The bar offers happy hour drink and
food specials at certain times; consult the chalkboard on the wall beside the
door.) The Round Bar serves American cuisine like flatbreads, sandwiches,
tacos, and desserts to both adults and children in a comfortable atmosphere.
Because the space is located on the street level corner of the building, it
offers many windows that permit lots of light in the daytime. The Round Bar
space has two focal points: the large round bar that offers seating for 20+
patrons, and the no-longer-used sushi bar. You can also dine at one of the
regular-height tables and still have a view of one of the many TVs. Not only
should the hotel repurpose the sushi bar space (currently, the bar stools are
missing and it is being used as a storage area to hold stacks of linen napkins),
but it should also change its website so that guests do not think the sushi bar
still operates. In addition, the hotel website suggests that patrons can eat lunch
and dinner in the true Motor City Kitchen across the hallway (instead of in the
abbreviated MCK/Round Bar space), when in actuality, that restaurant is currently
open for breakfast only. (The photographs on the hotel website are a bit
misleading for both the Round Bar and the Motor City Kitchen, showing the sushi
bar available in the Round Bar, and booth seating and general dining in the
Motor City Kitchen when only tables exist and only a breakfast buffet is served.)
The Motor City Kitchen space previously housed a steak a sushi joint called
Finn & Porter (which opened in 2009).
When we dined at the Round Bar for some afternoon snacks, we
shared the pork belly tacos and one of the meat-based flatbreads, as well as
the bread pudding. The flatbread was better than the tacos, the latter of which
contained too many ingredients that did not work well together (for example,
purple cabbage coleslaw, shredded cheddar cheese). The bread pudding was
supposedly made with the famous Doubletree chocolate chip-walnut cookies (which
are absolutely delicious!), but the dessert had no cookie flavor and was very
disappointing.
Without many other dining (or drinking) options in the immediate
two block area, this restaurant/bar has a captive audience in hotel guests.
With that said, service was good, and a manager was always present to
supervise. If you say at the hotel, you will likely stop in for a drink or a
bite to eat.
