10300 Mack Avenue
Rini Bros. Grocery, Mack Bewick Market
Mack and Bewick is one of Detroit’s most infamous intersections. For decades, it’s been a punching bag for outsiders to explain everything wrong with the Motor City and a place for Detroiters to buy everything from groceries and hot food to beers and loose cigarettes. Regardless of your opinion on the intersection, this structure has served Detroiters for over a century. That said, it wasn’t always a place everyone felt safe visiting.
I believe that this structure was built around 1915 as a store with an apartment above it. In October 1915, there was an auction here. According to the sale notes, the owner was leaving the city, and the contents of the six-room flat were up for grabs. This was likely the apartment above the store.
By April 1916, the ground floor had become a market. An ad in the Detroit Free Press looked to hire a meat cutter to manage the store. Later that year, the business was selling a “Good horse, truck and harness, together or separate.”
By 1919, the market was run by the Rini Brothers, Nick and John. Their experience in the business dates back to at least 1917 when Nick was in an article in the Free Press described as an ‘Italian fruit peddler.’
In 1931, the Rini Brothers placed an advertisement in the Detroit Free Press wishing their friends and customers a Happy Christmas. That same year, Nick’s Chrysler sedan was stolen from outside of their grocery. In 1933, his brother, John Rini, was robbed of $123 at the store. At the time, he lived on Iroquois Street.
In September 1942, the grocers were in hot water. Nick, 44 at the time, fired two shots at Harold H. Bondy, striking his arm. Rini claimed that Bondy, a beer distributor union rep, had threatened him and said he wouldn’t be able to get any more beer if he didn’t join the union, which had a $10 initiation fee and $2 monthly dues.
Rini was released on a $3,000 bond, and the Brewery Workers Union picketed outside the Rini Store, pictured here. According to the Detroit Free Press, Rini said he was “about ready to close up shop” because the group stopped deliveries and patrons from visiting the store.
Recorder’s Judge Christopher E. Stein dropped charges against Rini after Bondy, the victim, informed police that he did not want to press the case.
After that, the timeline gets murky. By the 1970s, the structure had become known as Mack Bewick Market and was run by Salvator Munaco. His father-in-law, Anthony Catalifio Sr., a Sicilian, helped him run the store, as he’d been in the grocery business for decades.
The Munacos didn’t have the best reputation. In 1960, Salvator and Anthony Munaco were charged with accepting Detroit Welfare Department Checks as currency in return for alcohol at a store they ran together downtown. In 1978, the duo were charged with 76 counts of falsifying Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement applications, mail conspiracy, and conspiracy. By 1980, they owned eight nursing homes in the Detroit area.
I’m not certain how long Munaco owned Mack Bewick Market; however, in 1975, the business was hiring an experienced meat cutter or counterman. By 1982, the shop sold lottery tickets and, as evident from the advertisement, had another shop at 2740 Mt. Elliott, which is still operational today.
In 1987, a customer walked out of Mack Bewick Market, crossed the street, and was walking down the sidewalk when they were struck by a car. The driver, heading west down Mack, had a seizure, and their vehicle jumped the curb and sped down the sidewalk. The customer was stuck on the car’s hood after the impact near Getmoe’s Grocery Store and was slammed into Southern Missionary Baptist Church when the car struck it. The customer died.
According to a 1990 report in the Detroit Free Press, 46% of the Mack-Bewick area’s residents 25 and older didn’t graduate from high school. With over 25,000 people in the neighborhood, that statistic is vital to understanding the issues that plagued it at the time. There wasn’t money available to invest in schools, community programs, or many of Detroit’s neighborhoods. Mack and Bewick were known around the city, and not for good reasons.
In 1996, the structure was still operational at the hands of the Munaco family, offering check cashing, liquor, beer, wine, lotto tickets, and a deli. In 2003, it was owned by Sam Munaco.
Around that time, then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was making an effort to curb alcoholism in Detroit. One part of that program was transitioning corner stores that prioritized beer and liquor sales to groceries and neighborhood stores again. Though the program doesn’t appear to have had much steam behind it, Sam Munaco and Kwame Kilpatrick, together, painted over the ‘Beer and Wine’ sign on the front of Mack Bewick Market.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Mayor Kilpatrick said, “The stores—mostly run by residents of Oakland and Macomb counties—for too long have been bad news because many are painted in garish colors and feature booze-touting signs that are too big, too colorful and too visible to children.”
This wasn’t the last time that politicians flocked to Mack and Bewick. In June 2015, District 5 City Councilwoman Mary Sheffield held an event at the corner with the hopes of helping those in the neighborhood “find job leads, get the proper ID, keep their utilities on, keep or get a roof over their head, expunge felonies from their record and even connect them to substance abuse treatment,” according to the Detroit News. The article is tongue-in-cheek, joking that the location shouldn’t have needed such an event, as Mayor Kilpatrick had solved all its issues over a decade prior.
Today, the structure is owned by Mack & Bewick Property, LLC, an enterprise run by Kal Hannawa, first organized in 2011. At that time, the registered address was at 12400 East Warren Avenue (Parkside Market).
There aren’t nearly as many people hanging out in the parking lot at Mack Bewick Market today compared to just a few years ago. It’s a running joke online that you can buy anything under the sun from the parking lot, from a fake passport or car insurance to a slice of pizza and a Faygo.
Reputation aside, I’m just happy this over-century-old structure is still standing.
