2259 East Palmer Street
Kroger, BI-LO Super Market, Rite-Way Supermarket
This isn’t a bowling alley. No, seriously, it never was a bowling alley. Let me explain;
By 1958, a new Kroger had been built at 2259 East Palmer Street in Poletown East. Situated behind the Palmer Bakery and near Chene Ferry market, it was part of a densely packed neighborhood where you could eat, shop, and work within a few blocks of your home. However, by the 1950s, the area had started to change.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Kroger began expanding quickly, building new stores and purchasing other chains in cities. The late 1950s saw brand-new stores in Royal Oak, Howell, Wayne, Milford, Dearborn, and Detroit, pictured here. Kroger had been here for decades, but chains were taking over the cities they’d soon abandon at a fast rate.
At one time, Kroger operated some budget-friendly grocery stores under the name BI-LO Super Market. I’m unsure if this relates to the BI-LO supermarket chain in the south. Regardless, by 1971, the Kroger on East Palmer had become a Bi-Lo run by store manager Steve Silagi.
Oddly enough, it transitioned back into a Kroger by 1975, remaining under that name until at least 1978. At this time, Kroger started to abandon Detroit, closing stores across the city. By 1980, the structure pictured here had become Rite-Way Foods, owned and operated by Samir Danou.
Danou had emigrated to Detroit in 1965 to finish working on his civil engineering degree at Wayne State University. He was one of many Chaldeans who came from Iraq at this time. After college, he owned a jewelry store in Ferndale. He married Mary in October 1967, a United States citizen, which may have helped him stay in the country.
In 1974, Danou opened a party store in Pontiac, eventually buying a store in Northwest Detroit and the failed Kroger site on Palmer to open his first grocery stores. According to the Detroit Free Press, Iraqi immigrants “now operate 200 or more of the city’s grocery stores.”
The article explained that these stores often took over where larger chains had failed because they were willing to work long hours and didn’t have to pay union wages like Kroger and other supermarkets. Despite the food deserts they left in their wake, there were still intact neighborhoods abandoned by big-name retailers in many places. The new stores, Danou’s included, often hired family members. He eventually purchased another failed Kroger on Michigan Avenue, too.
Danou made a good living off his grocery stores. Still, he continued to dream bigger, eventually owning over 16 corporations, including Supermarket Planning and Management, Inc., Danou Enterprises, and Danou Ventures. In 1982, he donated $5,000 to Mayor Young’s Emergency Relief Fund to try and curb hunger among Detroiters and the homeless population. Later in the 1980s, some of Danou’s stores were set to vote on unionization, the same issue that larger chains like Kroger said forced them to close. I’m unsure whether they were able to pass the measure to achieve representation from the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 876.
In 1996, Danou was behind a fundraising event that raised between $400,000 and $500,000 for Bill Clinton’s campaign. Despite hundreds of donations, Danou was said to have been behind a plurality of the giving. He was no stranger to giving to political campaigns, having done so numerous times in the past on both sides of the aisle. The former Iraqi wanted the incumbent to open negotiations with his homeland, as sanctions from the Persian Gulf War were still being imposed.
The following year, Danou topped Dennis Archer’s campaign donor’s list, with the grocer citing improvements to the city under his first term. Archer won reelection. His second largest donor was M.J. “Matty” Maroun, whom the Detroit Free Press described at the time as “a reclusive Grosse Pointe industrialist whose holdings include the Ambassador Bridge and the abandoned train depot in southwest Detroit.” A few years later, Danou’s proposal was one of many vying for a spot as Detroit’s first casino. Their bid, called ‘Detroit, Detroit,’ didn’t make it far.
I’m not sure when Danou closed Rite-Way Foods. However, many of his business operations are still afloat, but not all running perfectly. This year, one of his companies defaulted on a $10+ million loan, forcing the Executive Plaza Building, which has been abandoned for years, to go into receivership. The structure is at 1200 Sixth Street between downtown and Corktown.
Back on East Palmer, more change was occurring in the neighborhood.
By the early 2000s, most of Poletown East had become a ghost town. The storefronts on Chene sat vacant, many homes had already been demolished, and the population was a mere fraction of what it once was. The former Kroger store was still standing but was already in dire shape.
Considering the state of the neighborhood, the Land Bank owned a considerable amount of property in the area. In 2010, Recovery Park was launched, a nonprofit run by Gary Wozniak that aimed to turn a large portion of Poletown East into an urban farm that taught returning citizens new skills and offered jobs to those who found it most challenging to find them. The idea caught fire, receiving media attention in Detroit and nationwide.
In 2012, the city handed over 60 acres of land to Recovery Park for, according to the Metro Times article, $105 per acre. There were stipulations on the deal; however, Recovery Park still owns almost all of it.
The project continued to grow; however, by 2021, things had crumbled. Still in charge, Wozniak said it was because of the pandemic. However, in their report, the Detroit Metro Times discovered that all of Recovery Park’s staff had been terminated on Feb. 11, 2020, weeks before the pandemic officially began. After firing all his employees, Wozniak applied for two rounds of PPP loans, receiving $91,700 in 2020 and $92,900 in 2021.
Today, Recovery Park is trying to rebuild. However, seeing a path forward or wanting them to succeed is tough when the organization had so much funding and a handout from the city. Numerous historic buildings are tied up in Recovery Park’s hands. Many might not see this former Kroger as important, but its current state is not a net positive for the neighborhood, and that’s Recovery Park’s fault.
In 2023, Wozniak was in the news again, hoping to open Ori’Zaba’s Scratch Mexican Grill locations in Michigan.
In 2016, a new Transformers movie was being filmed, and they chose Detroit as one of the locations. In addition to Detroit’s unique look in the 2010s, Michigan began offering tax incentives for filming in the state under Granholm in 2008 until Snyder’s administration shut it down in 2015. Agreements were already in place for them to shoot in Detroit prior, so they could still get the tax breaks.
The former Kroger was painted with a faux-faded bowling alley mural, Max’s Jewelry Store on the corner was given cleaners and an automotive sign, and another building across Chene received one for a fake glass company. Today, two of those structures are owned by Recovery Park, and the third by Dennis Kefallinos. You’d assume both parties received some compensation. However, I’m not sure when Kefallinos purchased his.
So, where does all of this leave us? Well, if I’m honest, I am in the same place as most of my posts concerning Poletown East: frustrated.
Unlike downtown and a handful of trendy neighborhoods across the city, no affluent investors are willing to invest here. They’re ready to shell out a couple thousand dollars to purchase structures like this one, sit on them, and pay off blight tickets if the city decides to give them any.
*This part of the piece is editorialized.*
Considering the whole situation, I’m not sure I can blame Wozniak, even if I could never have handled the situation like he did. Would you say no if the city was willing to give you a massive parcel of land near the heartbeat of a major city? Why would the city give such a huge lump sum to an unproven player whose most significant accomplishment was running a chain of Jet’s Pizza joints? I’m not downplaying that feat; I’m just saying that it doesn’t qualify you to get a deal on a sizable piece of land in Detroit, especially when others with more experience don’t have that same privilege.
*End editorialization.*
At some point, the former Kroger store at 2259 East Palmer Street in Poletown East, pictured here, will be demolished. It’s only a question of when it will happen, who will own it when it finally comes down, and whether what some call a land grab will be confirmed or debunked.
I hope Recovery Park is successful. That said, I’m not holding my breath.
