Jay Williams recalls being hoisted up onto his grandmother’s living room table as a child to belt out his favorite song, Larry Graham’s “One in a Million You,” for an audience of relatives and neighbors.
It was hardly a spectacle, he said, since gatherings at the family home in Detroit’s Northwest Goldberg neighborhood always came with the promise of soul-stirring music across all genres. It was a space to come together and unwind.
“Folks would pile over on Friday and Saturday nights and crank up the tunes. Whiskey would be flowing, it was a great time,” Williams told BridgeDetroit. “It was about the music and people and a sense of love in the room and in the air that I’ll never forget.
“I wanted to recreate and share that with the world,” he said.
As a tribute to his grandmother, Williams is doing just that with the opening of “Miss Eva’s Detroit” at 19566 Grand River Avenue. The speakeasy began hosting a new generation of community gatherings in November with Detroit entertainers like Brandon Williams, Thornetta Davis and jessica Care moore along with food trucks, craft cocktails and mocktails.
“There’s a huge gap in the luxury entertainment scene in Detroit,” said Williams, noting that many venues require travel to the suburbs or are confined to the city’s downtown. “Folks in the community really deserve to have food and entertainment options right in the neighborhood.”
Williams has spent the last couple of months piloting a drink menu and hosting events with live music on Friday and Saturday nights. This month, he intends to increase the days and hours of operation and add other activities ahead of an official grand opening this spring.
He likens the speakeasy’s interior to a modern take on the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, with a motif representative of that time and photographs of his family dating back to the early 1900s, including a massive canvas portrait of his grandmother, Mrs. Eva M. Franklin, and grandfather, Eugene T. Franklin, Sr.
“When people come in, they say it just feels so good in here,” he said. “It’s a place where family belongs.”
Williams offers alcoholic and zero-proof cocktails inspired by the African diaspora and Black culture – all of the liquor behind the bar is from Black-owned or Detroit-based distilleries and wineries.
Among the drinks is the “Parliament,” made with Two James Grass Widow bourbon, muscovado sugar, tobacco bitters, Ethiopian liqueur and smoke. The drink, Williams said, was reminiscent of the old-fashioned cocktail his grandparents served at their house parties.
Another cocktail, the “Spruce,” combines IslandJon Vodka, toasted pecans, and cream and is served with a dark chocolate garnish; It’s named after the street his grandmother grew up on in Alabama.
“Whenever she would go back to visit in the summer, she would return with bags of pecans for her grandchildren from the tree in front of Spruce Street,” Williams said.
The building does not have a commercial kitchen, but an adjacent food truck alley offers rotating vendors, like EggRollDiva and Curt Got Crabs. Williams said the speakeasy is looking for more vendors to cycle in. Interested businesses can call (313) 230-4535 or email jay@missevasdetroit.com.
‘She cared for people’
Miss Eva. M Franklin was born in 1924 in Gadsden, Alabama, and came north in her 20s amid the Great Migration with the dream of a better future, her daughter, Beverly Williams, said.
She attended Lewis Business College and found clerical employment. In 1944, she got married and started a family and in 1954 she became a nurse’s aide in Detroit.
“She loved working with the patients, and they loved her so much,” she said. “She was always very kind, gracious and never impatient with them. She cared for people.”
Williams said her mother spent time working for the accomplished Detroit physician and founder of Detroit’s African American history museum Charles H. Wright at the Hutzel Women’s Hospital in the 1950s and 60s. During that time, Black women were often refused private hospital rooms, so Franklin advocated alongside Wright, a force in the integration movement for Detroit hospitals, for fair and equal patient treatment.
“That’s a Black history moment for me,” Beverly Williams said. “Back during that time, it was difficult for African American doctors to be on staff at the major hospital.”
Wright, she said, had patients whose husbands worked at factories and had good insurance – still, when it was time for their wives to deliver their babies they were sent to wards rather than semi-private rooms. Wright would have Franklin scout OB floors for open rooms and then would successfully advocate to have the women moved.
Franklin also ran a seafood restaurant with her niece in West Michigan’s Idlewild, a popular resort destination for African Americans during the early and mid-1900s.
“They sold shrimp and fried chicken and french fries and that was where the name Miss Eva caught on,” Williams said, noting her aunt, Flora Polk, owned the adjacent Polk’s Roller Rink.
Jay Williams said his grandmother was always dressed to the nines, had a magnanimous personality and was often sought after for her kindness, wisdom and guidance.
“She touched so many lives,” he said. “People gravitated toward her.”
Beverly Williams said her mother returned to Alabama in 1992 after her own mother fell ill and ended up staying with her brother there until 2003, when she suffered a stroke and returned to Detroit. She died in 2008.
“Her mantra was ‘nothing the heart gives away is gone, it’s kept in the hearts of others’ and that was how she lived her life,” she said.
She said she’s been proud to go to events at the speakeasy to let people know “I’m Miss Eva’s daughter.”
“As I hear people respond and react to it, it’s like ‘oh, wow. It’s my life. This is my mom,’” she said. “To find out that other people appreciate or are impressed or impacted by it. Jay was always innovative. He’s that kid.”
A passion for tradition
Jay Williams has nearly 30 years of experience in the corporate sector and most recently headed up project management for the DTE Foundation.
He helped stand up Detroit Means Business in partnership with the city of Detroit and Detroit Economic Growth Corp., and through that initiative – focused on supporting jobs and neighborhood development – he was encouraged by Detroiters who took part to pursue his own entrepreneurial concept.
Williams signed a lease in 2023 for a building owned by the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation. He spent nearly a year on renovations with help from the GRDC, his siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles and his mother.
The nonprofit received multiple proposals to redevelop the space, but what Williams submitted rose to the top, said GRDC Executive Director Michael Randall.
“His passion really resonated with us,” Randall said. “Miss Eva’s story, his grandparents, and just bringing that tradition of great music and cocktails – it really fit well with the Grandmont Rosedale neighborhood vibe and what we were looking for.”
The historic district in northwest Detroit spans five neighborhoods: Rosedale Park, North Rosedale, Grandmont 1, Grandmont and Minock Park. The communities have about 5,500 single-family homes, 500-plus businesses and three major commercial corridors including Grand River, Schoolcraft and Six Mile, Randall noted.
Williams and Randall said the GRDC is trying to build a community corridor to be proud of and, besides Miss Eva’s, the area is home to Pages Bookshop, Pressed Juice Bar, the Norwest Gallery of Art and more.
Next door to Miss Eva’s is a renovated commercial space owned by GRDC open for lease, and a 42-unit senior housing complex and 5,400-square-foot restaurant are under development within the same block.
“This stretch of the corridor has been a major focus for GRDC,” Randall said. “Owning that strip and bringing businesses like Miss Eva’s is critical to our strategy.”
Williams said he sees this venture as a vehicle to build generational wealth for his family and to have his passion project be a part of it. The entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family: Williams’ wife, Karlyta Williams, in the fall opened her own bottle shop, Mockery Zero Proof, at 7400 W. McNichols. She offers nonalcoholic spirits, wines and beers – some of which will make an appearance on Miss Eva’s menu in early 2025, he said.
The main goal, Williams said, is to ensure that visitors have “the feels.”
“That’s the No. 1 thing. We want people to come in and feel the feels of community, of love, family and togetherness and connectivity,” he said.
