After you are done with the party hats, champagne flutes and Happy New Year chants. New Year’s Eve celebrating will take its toll on all of us where your stomach and some restaurants are not immune. Ignoring the cravings will leave you feeling unsatisfied, so there’s really only one choice, a coney island.  And for sure, Detroit has its late-night options more than ever for early a.m. eats. In my opinion, Detroit Coney Islands are the pinnacle of Detroit’s culinary creations serving chili, onion-topped, and mustard-laced originals called the “coney dog”.

But, if you were anywhere near Downtown Detroit looking for food after New Year’s Eve midnight, the place to be was definitely the Lafayette or American Coney Island on the corner of Michigan Ave. and Lafayette Blvd. Though a Detroit Coney can be found throughout multiple pockets in the city, not all of them are created equal.

On New Years at 3am from far and wide, hundreds of people came to the coney corner to do the same thing I had in mind and that was to sample the city’s most beloved. I even ran into other fellow Challenge Detroiter during those wee hours in the morning. You know who you are…

Two of the most well-known Coney Island restaurants are the Lafayette Coney Island and the American Coney Island, which are located adjacent to one another on Lafayette St. in downtown Detroit. They have a common root, with the original restaurant having been established by Greek immigrant brothers Bill and Gus Keros in 1914. Thanks for the creation!