New restaurant comes to corner of Cass & Front

A new restaurant in the heart of downtown Traverse City is being opened by some familiar names in the area. 

 

The owners of Trattoria Stella are now opening a new venture, The Franklin, at the southwest corner of Cass and Front streets. It's a two-story restaurant with outdoor patio seating on the second floor, overlooking the intersection. 

 

According to proprietor Paul Danielson, The Franklin has hired about a hundred staff and is still looking for a few more to round out the operations at the new restaurant, which seats a hundred in the outdoor seating area, and forty in an indoor dining area.

 

The development of the building was done with the help of Keen Technological Solutions, and the project is pursuing LEED certification, with lots of energy-efficient building approaches like refrigerant heat recover, solar thermal generation, ultra-efficient boilers, and green lighting, insulation and HVAC systems.

 

"Brick, steel, lots of wood… If we did our design jobs correctly, in five years the building will feel like it has been around for a century," says Danielson. That'll be helped, no doubt, by the addition of a 120-year-old back bar reported to originate from Marquette, and a large common table made from a four-foot-wide cottonwood trunk which seats twenty people.

 

The menu and drink offerings are "rooted in northwest Michigan," and include a seasonal beverage list of beer, wine, spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks including custom-blended local wines and a proprietary cider from sommelier Amanda Danielson. 

 

The executive chef will be Stella's Myles Anton, who with the help of chef de cuisine Gabe Rodriguez, are slotting a menu drawing on both global and Michigan flavors.

 

The Franklin plans to open May 12.