OK, it’s hardly a road trip from Ann Arbor, but Ypsi offers some nice alternatives to downtown Ann Arbor.
Perhaps the most interesting is Depot Town a small historic shopping/dining area with decent parking.
Corner Brewery, tied to ABC in downtown Ann Arbor, has great beer, good pizza and handles a crowd well. It also has a cosy fireplace area. We went there the weekend before Halloween and it had an amazing turnout. Most of the clientele got all dressed up in weird and wonderful costumes, even if they were not part of the costume contest. Even though there was quite a crowd, we did not have to stand in long lines to get served. I know we will go back soon and we hear they often have events not to miss.
Maiz Cantina is one of our favorites – it seems like it just opened yesterday, but it’s been there quite awhile now. Great happy hour drink abd food specials – and of course their tacos are amazing. Taco Tuesday is always busy! You’ll probably have to park in the big city lot across the street.
Sidetracks has a nice old bar and great beer too. They apparently have great hamburgers and the rest of the menu looks interesting as well, but we have yet to try any food. They also have interesting events – we had some drinks and listed to live opera, certainly a different combination!
Aubrees is the other bar/restaurant in the Depot town area and we haven’t tried it yet. It has a college atmosphere and an affiliated pool bar upstairs.
Woodruff’s Bar seems to primarily be a live music venue as far as we can tell. We stopped by, but it was Halloween weekend and there was much more going on so we didn’t go in for the live music.
We haven’t spent much time in downtown Ypsilanti – there are some interesting looking places but so far we’ve only tried Da Lat. The two entrees we ordered were dry and uninteresting, so we probably won’t go back.