Franklin Oyster Bar and Eatery is metro Detroit's best new restaurant
Lyndsay C. Green Detroit Free Press The Franklin Oyster Bar & Eatery, bringing fresh oysters to Oakland County from the country’s best terroirs, is No. 1 on the 2026 Detroit Free Press/Chevy Detroit Best New Restaurants and Dining Experiences list.
If you believe in fate, you might say the plans for The Franklin Oyster Bar and Eatery were inscribed on its bones.
When Jay Farner and Nicole McGrail walked the grounds at 32760 Franklin Roadin the Village Center, they had the flicker of an idea for a neighborhood oyster bar, inspired by cities like Charleston, S.C. and Savannah, Georgia, where historic homes have been reimagined as bijou restaurants, namely oyster bars where the mollusks are shucked in the dining room and served by the half shell on ice.
With the floorboards creaking underfoot, the former 1800s carriage shop fit the profile for the dreamy dwelling that would become a place where Franklin residents and visitors alike could slurp oysters in the evening, or start their days with a cup of coffee on weekends.
And once the deal closed, the building hinted at ways to return to its former glory: "We found artifacts that showed they would cart in oysters by train and carriage to do oyster suppers in December in Franklin, 150 years ago," said Farner, former vice chairman and chief executive officer of Rocket Companies and founder of the venture capital firm Ronin Capital Partners and its Thyme and Place Hospitality.
Farner and McGrail wanted to believe they chose the oyster bar, but it was the other way around: The oyster bar chose them. And so it was decided. In the summer of 2025, what previously operated for 16years as the tavern The Franklin Grill, would become The Franklin Oyster Bar and Eatery.
Farner and McGrail, Thyme and Place's chief marketing officer, worked with co-designer Justyna Payne to transform The Franklin into a place inspired by Southern charm while maintaining its Michigan pride. The exterior’s red paneling got a fresh coat of white paint and the addition of dark shutters, channeling the small businesses that line Charleston’s King Street.
When it came to the oysters, delicacies for landlocked Midwesterners, it was important they’d be able to assure diners that The Franklin’s offerings would be fresh and top quality. The team turned to the Highland Park seafood wholesaler, Motor City Seafood Co., which sources the restaurant’s oysters from terroirs with the world’s best, like Canada’s Prince Edward Island and Washington State.
As Farner and McGrail dreamed up what The Franklin’s moody dining room would look like filled with diners, they might’ve imagined me, on a Saturday night, seated at the downstairs bar slurping meat from the most delicious oyster I’ve had in years— a slippery Japanese breed, buttery, briny and sweet on its own. Splashed with a horseradish mignonette, it made me squeeze my cheeks between my teeth to quell the heat rising from my chin to the whites of my eyes. The trick is to let horseradish linger long enough on your tongue without tickling your nose.
They might’ve imagined the chef shucking oysters at the raw bar in the far back corner of the restaurant, or the diner next to me, who’d leaned over my shoulder to ask about those Kumamoto oysters and their collectors’ edition shells. She’d placed a catering order of oysters for her holiday dinner party and wanted a read on their quality. I assured her: “They’re perfect.”
The village of Franklin, is a tiny wealthy enclave. Its downtown area, where The Franklin sits, is Michigan’s first designated historic district, and homes in the village range from charming ranch-styles to sprawling estates. The town is beautiful. A kaleidoscope of tree-lined streets in the fall, a snow-capped wonderland in winter, the preciousness of the place whispers affluence with humility.
Farner, who spent time as a youth in Franklin, remembers driving through the village in the back of his grandfather’s car en route to the golf course. “I remember being a little kid, and he would say, ‘This is the town that time forgot.’”
Just as the village it’s set in, at The Franklin there is ease. Though McGrail and Payne's design brought elegance to a space that, for more than 15 years, slung burgers and fries, fried asparagus, fried avocado and fried calamari, the energy is relaxed. The Franklin is the kind of place you'd go for a date, a casual dinner with friends or a family outing with young children. Come dressed up, or as you are. Shoot oysters with champagne or chug a beer with a cheeseburger.
“There are all different types of people in Franklin,” Farner said, “and so we needed to strike this balance of really excellent food, but also food for a community restaurant. If you make it something that's not that approachable, then it can’t be the community destination.”
The Franklin has two levels, and each dining room floor plan mirrors the other, with an L-shaped bar positioned along a back wall. “I wanted to make sure that both areas felt equally as desirable,” McGrail said. No diner should feel like they didn’t nab the best seat in the house.
The kitchen is led by executive chef Nick Geftos, who cut his teeth at restaurants in Las Vegas, and later landed at local restaurants such as Tallulah Wine Bar and Bistro and Iridescence at Motor City Casino. Here, he aims to support underutilized local purveyors, like the Franklin native who operates Stonefall Farm, a Wagyu cattle farm out of Whitmore Lake. The beef from Stonefall shows up in the burger grind at The Franklin, and as the steak offering on the dinner menu. “Stuff tastes better when it’s coming from right around the corner,” Geftos said. Mushrooms are culled from Stoney Creek Mushrooms in Ferndale, and when Thomas Ameloot, a small coffee roaster Geftos had known for years, decided to open his Hamtramck roastery Coffeetron, the chef asked to be his first wholesale client.
The food here is simple, yet executed with precision. Smoked sturgeon is fanned across the plate, flaky and the texture of seared poultry. It’s served with sweet, hot cornbread blackened around the edges as if home-cooked. Pancakes on the brunch menu are about the size of your plate. They taste of buttermilk and the doughiness makes each bite stick to the roof of your mouth.
On a seafood platter, hunks of Hamachi crudo shine with an herbaceous bite of green onion. Meaty pieces of stone crab claw and massive Caledonian shrimp are served with a housemade cocktail sauce with warm notes of apple butter. Black algae is strewn onto the tower resembling a splash of squid ink, or a string of black pearls.
At the end of a meal at The Franklin, your tab is presented in a small vintage hardcover book. It is not required, nor is it inferred by your server, but you, like the hundreds of diners whose handwriting is scribbled across the pages of these books, will be tempted to share glimpses and recaps of your dining experience at the restaurant. These notes of gratitude and fond memories will become archeological remnants of the site’s history; if you believe in fate, perhaps the oyster bar chose you, too.
32760 Franklin Rd., Franklin. 248-771-4747; thefranklinmi.com