In Michigan, A Fresh Approach to Lakeside Eats
Benton Harbor siblings James and Cheyenne Galbraith get creative at Houndstooth and Anemel. A third restaurant is on the way.
Welcome to the weekend! Here’s what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:
Cover Story: Behind Houndstooth and Anemel, two buzzy spots in Benton Harbor, Michigan, you’ll find the Galbraith siblings.
The Order: If you’re heading to Kentucky’s Bourbon Country, start with this stellar gas station breakfast.
July’s Featured Field Guide: Ready to plan your trip to Harbor Country? Our full list of favorites is available in our Field Guide to Harbor Country — free this month for our paid newsletter subscribers.
Weekend Reading: A Madison favorite reopens,
samples some of Chicago’s best bánh mì, great hotels from Georgia to the Pacific Coast, and more!
Meet the Siblings Behind Two of Southwest Michigan’s Top Spots
BENTON HARBOR, MICH. — There is a growing genre of restaurant that I’m particularly partial to: Fun, casual, Mexican-leaning spots housed in converted service stations. Big Star has become a Chicago institution. In New Orleans, Val’s has been a welcome addition to the Freret Street food scene. And Mexico City’s El Vilsito (which is in an active service station) is the single recommendation I give everyone headed to CDMX.
In Benton Harbor, Michigan, a small lake town of just 9,000 people, the format works just as well. Anemel is a neighborhood joint helping to revive the city’s Arts District. The menu hews closer to Tex-Mex, but it combines influences and crosses genres for dishes like a Nashville hot chicken torta with aji amarillo ranch; a cheeseburger quesadilla stuffed with ground beef, special sauce, onions, and pickles; tuna tostadas with chipotle mayo, tobacco onions, and avocado; and chicken katsu bao with lettuce and lime mayo. Order a few dishes and a frozen swirl margarita, post up on the patio, and you have a perfect afternoon.
When it’s time for dinner, walk four minutes down the street to Houndstooth. The refined space there — tiled floors, bookshelves lined with cookbooks, a lively bar, wooden tables with wicker chairs — matches the upscale cuisine from the kitchen. The menu reflects inspirations from Latin America and Asia, and for our recent dinner, we focused on the latter, eating Filipino-influenced shrimp siomai with toyomansi and bagoong and black bean chicken with Chinese doughnuts and gochujang aioli.
Both restaurants are from a Galbraith sibling — James co-owns Anemel with his wife, Gabrielle, while Cheyenne owns Houndstooth — and together they are turning Benton Harbor into one of Southwest Michigan’s best dining towns. The Galbraiths, both Benton Harbor natives, cooked around the region and the country (James staged in Chicago at restaurants like Blackbird and Elske, while Cheyenne spent 15 years in North Carolina and Albuquerque) before coming together professionally eight years ago at St. Joseph’s Bistro on the Boulevard, where Cheyenne was executive chef and James was sous chef.
After a few years in St. Joseph, they decided to team up to open their own place. “We had little support from our bosses, so we looked at each other and were like, we have to build a place where we can do our food,” Cheyenne says. They held pop-ups around the area, then launched a successful Kickstarter to fund their restaurant. Houndstooth opened in September 2019. “We were slammed from the very beginning,” James recalls. “I think we offered something that the town had needed and never seen before. I don’t think anywhere in Southwest Michigan was doing what we wanted to do.”
What they wanted to do was cook their favorite flavors, the kinds of things not very prevalent around Benton Harbor. “Cheyenne and I both really appreciate other cultures and the globe as a whole for ingredients," James says. “There are so many farms here and Cheyenne has done a great job making sure we have great local stuff on hand.” Cheyenne adds, “We developed dishes that we wanted to eat. At the end of the day it was, what food is craveable to us? We started designing dishes around that.”
It’s food that a lot of other people want to eat, too. The spicy Houndjang noodle dish with duck confit and bok choy, plus a bacon, kimchi, and onion condiment, was a favorite of ours, as was the sablefish donabe with miso, burnt leek oil, and crispy unagi. The dish that was on every single table was the Japanese milk bread with black garlic and chives.
“That was a Covid dish,” Cheyenne says. “James and I were trying to think of all our favorite childhood foods to recreate them in a way to comfort people and ourselves at the same time. One of my favorite things growing up was that garlic bread from the grocery store that was just sopped with butter. And I was like, I'm going to make a fancy bread that’s reminiscent of that.” They started playing with milk bread and landed on this version, which has black garlic puree with cognac and is dipped in chives. It’s a super-savory bread course, and a good way to start a meal, or use to swipe up extra sauce from the noodles.
James recently stepped away from Houndstooth to focus on Anemel and an upcoming spot, PostBoy, which he’s working on with business partner Ben Holland. Slated for September, PostBoy will open in the heart of downtown New Buffalo. I went to a pop-up event for the restaurant last month at Dove’s Luncheonette in Chicago, and to me, this early PostBoy food — harissa wings with ranch labneh, milk bread doughnuts with gochujang mayo, steak with sikil pak and morita salsa — blended the best of Anemel and Houndstooth. PostBoy will seat up to 300, and James plans to create a menu in line with what he expects New Buffalo diners will want.
“Houndstooth is very much a destination restaurant because we don’t have foot traffic in the Arts District,” he says. “PostBoy is on a road that gets 15,000 people a day walking by in the summer. You can’t put anything on the menu that people will have to Google. It’s chef-driven but I’m trying to deliver it in ways that are nostalgic to people. There has to be a burger on the menu, there has to be a chicken sandwich, there has to be a salad. But I’m going to do my best to make it the best damn burger I possibly can and make it cheffy enough to remain proud of myself.” He’s planning dishes like a play on a loaded baked potato with gnocchi, stracciatella, cheddar mornay, chives, and guanciale.
His other spot, Anemel, opened in September 2022. James was inspired by the now-closed Chicago restaurant Big Kids from chefs Ryan Pfeiffer (Blackbird) and Mason Hereford (New Orleans’ Turkey and the Wolf). “I made hamburgers with Ryan when Big Kids first opened,” he says. “I really wanted a restaurant that was funky and campy that didn’t have any kind of uniforms or anything, to show up as you are.” James also wanted a restaurant with a forward-thinking pay structure, which Hereford helped him with. “Everyone that works there makes the same amount of money,” he says. “There’s an 18% service fee and 100% of that goes to staff. Everyone there is in their thirties for the most part and has mortgages and things so paying them a living wage was a mission.”
Opening three restaurants in five years is a significant contribution to the region — not just for what it offers local diners, but also for what it offers industry workers. “It’s attracted people who have an opportunity to learn things that would happen more in a big city kitchen, or to have a type of cuisine that will help form them into better culinarians and hospitality people,” Cheyenne says. “It’s so important to have a space for people to learn to be creative and have these skills.”
James adds, “Some of our staff have gained enough confidence to move to Chicago. One of them works at S.K.Y. under Stephen Gillanders; I had my first stage with him at Intro. There are a lot of full circle moments and those are special.”
Houndstooth: 132 Pipestone St, Benton Harbor, MI 49022 | @houndstoothmi
Anemel: 225 E Main St, Benton Harbor, MI 49022 | @anemeltorta
More Cover Stories
Explore the World of Hospitality
This week's newsletter is brought to you by Joiners, the podcast that explores the world of hospitality by chatting with its most colorful characters. Each week, co-hosts Tim Tierney and Danny Shapiro sit down with industry legends and up-and-coming talent to discuss everything from how they got their start in hospitality and hot-button issues facing the industry, to their favorite hidden gem restaurants and fast food joints. Over the course of 100+ episodes, Joiners peels back the curtain on hospitality through dynamic conversations with the people who have made, and continue to make, the landscape what it is today. New episodes air weekly on Mondays and are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and at JoinersPodcast.com. For more content, follow Joiners on Instagram @joinerspod.
Sausage Biscuits at 150 Quick Stop
BARDSTOWN, KY. — Gas station fare makes a regular appearance on American Weekender road trips, whether that’s chicken on a stick in Oxford, Mississippi or boudin in Kentwood, Louisiana. When in Bourbon Country, we have one can’t-miss gas station food: The sausage biscuits at 150 Quick Stop. The gas station is also the headquarters for Jake’s Fresh Country Sausage. That perfectly spiced sausage is what you’ll find made into thick patties and tucked into tender buttermilk biscuits. There are versions that include an egg or slice of cheese, but you don’t need anything fancy here — the sausage is enough on its own. (The country ham one is also very good.) If you’d like to take sausage to go, it’s sold by the roll. Just be careful — as the sign on the refrigerator says, “Please watch your feet! Sausage slides out!”
4598 Springfield Rd, Bardstown, KY 40004
This Month: Download All Our Recommendations for Michigan Harbor Country!
Ready to plan your next trip to Michigan Harbor Country? Our full list of favorites is available in our Field Guide to Harbor Country — free this month to paid newsletter subscribers. This 40-page dining guide includes a curated four-day itinerary with 20+ recommendations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks. It’s downloadable for offline reading, includes Google Maps and Instagram links, and is formatted for your phone — perfect for easy reference on your next trip. Paid subscribers to American Weekender can download this Field Guide for free using the discount code in this month’s Weekend Getaway issue. They also receive 50% off any additional guides. We’ll see you on the lake!
Madison, Wisconsin’s Mint Mark Reopens
“After a five-week hiatus, Mint Mark, the highly acclaimed restaurant formerly at 1929 Winnebago St., is ready to welcome guests at its new home,” writes Ashley Rodriguez for The Cap Times. “The new space isn't the end for the team at Mint Mark,” she adds. “They plan to open a store, called Superette, adjacent to the restaurant next month, and the rooftop bar Perch will open in 2025.” Mint Mark has long been a must-visit for us when we are in Madison. I can’t wait to check out the new incarnation.
ILLINOIS
You Can't Go Wrong with a Good Banh Mi: Writing for his newsletter,
, visits Chicago’s Nhu Lan Bakery for spring rolls and sandwiches, including the signature pork pâté, ham, and head cheese.GEORGIA
Athens’ Rivet House Blends History and Luxury: “Rivet House opens its doors this weekend as both an homage to the area’s industrial heritage and a welcome retreat in a city that, despite drawing crowds of visitors year-round (and more than doubling its population on certain weekends during football season) has limited hotel choices,” writes Caroline Sanders Clements in Garden & Gun. “Rivet House boasts a twenty-seat lobby bar; a spa, designed in collaboration with Lydia Mondavi, who helped develop spas for the likes of Old Edwards Inn and the Dewberry; as well as a modern Italian restaurant, Osteria Olio, helmed by executive chef J.R. Bearden, who worked in Memphis for seven years at Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman’s Hog and Hominy.” Sounds good to me!
CALIFORNIA
A Fine-Dining Success Story in Petaluma: Writing for Sonoma Magazine, Margo True offers a peek behind the counter at Table Culture Provisions, where collaboration and a can-do optimism underlies a top-level menu filled with Sonoma flavor.
PACIFIC COAST
Epic Surf Hotels: Writing for Sunset magazine, Krista Simmons shares some of her favorite coastal stays, including The Surfrider in Malibu, The Wayfinder Waikiki in Honolulu, and more. Is there anything better than an oceanside hotel room?
— Compiled by Kenney Marlatt
Want more? Chat with us on Substack, download our Field Guides, check out our archives, or follow us on Instagram @americanweekender. We’ll be back next week.
Japanese milk bread and shrimp siomai - oh my gosh i saw the photos and was like what actually are these gorgeous dishes!! you always manage to find the most exciting spots anywhere!
The bread at Houndstooth is one of the top dishes I’ve had in a restaurant in the past couple years! Absolutely incredible.