Stephanie ByrdCo-OwnerThe Block

What her business does: The Block is a casual, gastropub-style dining restaurant on Woodward Avenue between Selden and West Alexandrine streets. She also manages the adjacent Garden Theater, an events space for wedding receptions and banquets.

How she got started: Byrd left Detroit to get a college education at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she studied marketing and communications. She lived and worked in D.C. for most of her 20s in marketing at H&R Block and XM Radio. In 2013, she moved back to Detroit to join her family's restaurant business. Her father, Michael Byrd, is the longtime owner of Flood's Bar & Grille on St. Antoine Street, adjacent to the headquarters of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Michael Byrd and his business partner, George Stewart, own all of the buildings on Woodward between Selden and Alexandrine, known as the Woodward Garden Block Development. In building out an 88-seat restaurant at 3919 Woodward Ave., a group of consultants convinced the Byrds to open an upscale restaurant in November 2013, during construction of the QLine streetcar track on Woodward Avenue. "That was definitely our valley, that time during QLine construction," Stephanie Byrd said. After less than two years, the Byrds pulled the plug on Grille Midtown. "We found the concept didn't work, so we rebranded to something much more casual," Byrd said.

In rebranding the restaurant, the father and daughter were initially at an impasse over the new name. "We were considering calling it Byrd House or Byrd something," Stephanie Byrd said. "Me and my dad had a little argument about it and he said, 'Just call it The Block.' He didn't think I would take it and run with it. But I did run with it."

Keys to growth: In her years of going to college and working in Washington, D.C., Byrd saw restaurants come and go in multiple cycles as a "fickle" base of patrons never became loyal to any one establishment. In Detroit, she's found that loyalty is everything after four years of running The Block with a neighborhood bar and grill vibe. "Folks really want that Cheers environment they want their bartender to recognize them by name," she said.

Advice to other restaurateurs: Understand your clientele and be ready and willing to make changes. Byrd acknowledges she and her dad were too "hands off" with the Grille Midtown restaurant in 2013 competing with other nearby upscale establishments like Selden Standard and Grey Ghost. "That was a learning experience for us," she said.

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