Starter’s Bar and Grill

Can you say Applebees, TGI Fridays, or Chilis? That’s basically what this place feels like but in a upcoming area. Bright, Loud, kids everywhere, etc. They seemed unorganized almost like it was a nuisance that we were there.
Walked in on a Sunday with 4 friends and sat at the bar. There was a decent crowd but not busy. It took the bartender 15 minutes to greet us and ask if we wanted drinks. She said everyone arrived at the same time. LOL! Drink prices and drink menu were decent. All kinds of fruity drinks. Not sure I would venture to fancy on the drink menu as it didn’t look like they were prepared to make «craft cocktails».
We ordered basic appetizers that weren’t horrible but just seemed like they were of the frozen food quality. Nothing taste original or hand made. Food prices are decent and you get good portions. My guess is its a little of the «quantity over quality» that bring people here.
I doubt I would ever go back but this is a place I suggest you try on your own.

Not a huge fan of starter’s Bar and Grill however if you need to watch the game and have a couple drinks this is the perfect place for you! Personally I don’t care for places where I can smell different types of food all under one restaurant. Is extremely affordable but the drinks where water down. When with family and friends over I had a good time.

A Sports Bar like Friday’s but with more medicore food. On the bright side of things, the food portions are massive!

This place is just below average. They have a lot a work to do with consistency of food. Servers are always friendly and polite.

They should just drop the word «grill» from the title and just call this a bar because that’s what this is. A loud bar with food that taste a tad bit better than food from the frozen food section. If you are one of those people who love to watch the game with other fans or groups of people then this is the place for you. But watch it because validated parking is LIMITED! The drinks are ok nothing that wows me. Its just an average bar in Detroit.

I have to commend the staff: Jean Paul and Casey. They provide great service. They are knowledgeable and friendly.

I recently went to the original place on Plymouth the service there has not changed still excellent. I will always give a fair review it is to bad no one has tried to contact me therefore I will just leave Starters alone I won’t spend my money when the owners don’t care about their customers.

I ordered the delmonico steak for lunch today. I asked for butter for the baked potato and broccoli and the server told me the vegetable spread on my plate was butter. I pointed out on on the label it was vegetable spread. The steak was mostly fat unfortunately, I was hoping for better.

Just no.
I’ve been to Starters on multiple occasions. The wait in the daytime isn’t that long. But at night, it’s dreadful. It’s like every night is a Friday night. Starters is a «bar and grille», but every time I go in, it’s more like a nightclub. Stilettos everywhere. And that’s fine if you like that atmosphere, but I don’t like how intrusive it is when I’m trying to eat my food.
Also the food isn’t that great. I’m giving Starters two stars for the variety of food on the menu. You can get steak, any seafood or just fried cheese sticks. Which is fantastic. Desserts are good, but that’s about it. Usually disappointed by the cocktails. One time I ordered a Strawberry Surprise and boy, I was surprised! Stick to the bottled beer.
Sorry, Starters, but I won’t be coming back.

A really big place with not too long of a wait for a table. The front does seem a bit disorganized and asked us multiple times who everyone is and seems confused who to sit first. There are huge high def screens everywhere perfect for watching a game which is why we came here. Starters served it’s purpose. The food is your typical bar food– nothing to write home about. My friend got a burger with «fries.» Her burger was big but she thought it was okay. Her fries were more like heated up frozen potato wedges. I ordered a shrimp cobb salad. I don’t know if I would call this a cobb salad but it was better than I expected but lacking the essence of a true cobb salad. Shredded Cheddar cheese with packaged bacon bits. It can get a bit loud so don’t expect to come here for conversation. It is what it is.
Bathrooms has stalls. Doesn’t seem like people like to flush.
Parking is validated but is limited.

Browsing around looking for a place to eat some food and watch the wings game, my sister and I decided to check out Starters.
We ending up sitting at the bar. They turned on the game no problem. I am not sure if our female bartender just had a bad day or what was going on, but she was not enthused about much of anything. Dull interactions the whole time… with her at least. There was another good looking tall male bartender who was nice and tried to help on more than one occasion.
We both ordered the kabob at a good price too. We got a salad to start which wasn’t too exciting, you could whip up better in your own kitchen. For the entrée, a skewer of vegetables and a good amount of meat as well as a choice of potato. It was decent all around… except we were supposed to receive pita bread and that was MIA. When I asked the bartender she said she checked to see if they had any, they did not, she offered tortillas. She said there were rolls which she was waiting on, well guess what I’m still waiting on them too!
Food was decent, prices were good, other staff was good, happy hour looks promising so I will be back. As a fellow server I might be too critical but at least act like you are working for tips for a living or have a personality.

We stayed in Detroit prior to the Utes playing at the Big house. We wandered around through steaming manhole covers and some burned buildings only to find a pretty nice area around the campus of Wayne state University. Along the way we got pretty hungry/​thirsty and decided that starters looked like a pretty nice place so we stopped to watch a game and grab some refreshments. We ordered a few appetizers which were really good and ended up staying for dinner. The catfish was really good and my blue cheese burger was also good, my Dad had a porterhouse steak which was cooked perfectly and the beer was cold as well as reasonably priced. The owner checked on us regularly and even had a Lemon drop shot with us. In addition our server was friendly and prompt making this place hard to beat especially if your just looking for a comfortable nice place to watch a game or get a good bite to eat. Of you ever find yourself on Detroit you can’t go wrong with Starters.

I really like this place… my husband and I were in the area at Detroit historical museum and this bar/​grill was in the area. Great happy hour menu. Huge selection of food & drink. I had the lamb dinner… Excellent. My husband had the steak salad. He seemed to enjoy. Service was awesome. The crowd turned a bit rowdy after 6pm. I would come back

I’ve had a couple drinks there on weekdays. The bartender was cool and wasn’t stingy with the liquor. I’d go again.

I came here with this being the second day of living in Detroit. I’ve visited several times before the move, and been to a lot of dining establishments in the area, so I’m not a total newbie, but I still didn’t know where I should go to watch the NBA playoffs on a Saturday night. Unilocal to the rescue.
First, let me say, this is a black spot, which is cool for me because I am black, but white Unilocalers out there… do not come in surprised that all your waiters are «black and angry,» as one racist reviewer so eloquently stated before me. That said, this Saturday night, it appeared to be a straight, black pre-​club spot, which is not my lane at all. It was cool though, I didn’t have any problems, I just kinda laughed at all the women in skin tights and dudes in fitteds and kept to myself.
I did not eat here, but I ordered 4 drinks. The bartender didn’t seem to know the cocktail menu especially well, but after 3 drinks I was lit, so I won’t complain. The drinks are all sugary and fairly unimaginative; the menu is a collection of cocktails that mix grenadine, orange juice, pineapple juice, etc. in 300 different ways. The food menu was humongous, and I saw a lot of food being served around me, usually involving stacks of variously prepared chicken mixed with other things. It all smelled pretty good, but reminded me of Applebee’s or some other large chain. I’ll pass.
A fight broke out between two women at a birthday party in the back room, which was entertaining. It was handled pretty swiftly and no one was hurt.
Overall, the drinks were a little too basic for me to love the place, and the TVs were plentiful, but all fairly small for someone who forgot to bring her glasses in to the bar. It’s not really my scene, but it’s really close to my house, and I left more than buzzed, so I’ll be back.

It Is a bar and restaurant located in mid town. I have been here before and had a decent meal. I had the seafood combo with vegtables and potatos. They were good but not the best. The waitstaff was also nice.
My nephew asked me to go with him since his wife had the car. We went and primarily sat at the bar. The bartenders must have been having a bad day. They had serious attitudes. The drinks were good but the bad attituds were not. However, I will actually admit the most of the staff which incuded security were kind.
Not sure why some make a big deal out of starters. This is not a spot I would frequent often but would go if I was in the area or friends wanted to meet. Otherwise for the prices I can go elsewhere.

I’ve been to Starters at least three times in the past three months. However, I can’t give it much more than 3 stars.
The food is decent and the prices are pretty good for what you get. The menu is huge so you are going to find something everyone likes. I’ve tried everything from the lamb, to the lobster, to the crab legs, to the steak. I think my favorite pairing is the delmonico with the lobster. They tend to lean to the «well» side when cooking, when I order my steak medium well, I usually do not find a large amount of pink. None the less, it’s still very good.
The drink menu is also huge… again you WILL find something you like here.
The problem here is the service. It’s hit or miss. I have never had a «rude’ waiter per se, just a very distracted waiter. One woman, for instance, was so busy with other tables that we waited quite a while for our drinks that the bar tender brought the drinks over — TWICE. The last time I was here my party of ladies waited so long for a person to take our order, it was almost comical… okay, no not really because I REALLY wanted my drink. A lady in our party had stopped one server who told us something about having to go home and when he came back he’d get us… I was like «Okay, thanks for flirting but we really want to order… no really». So I figured he’d get our server. Then another guy came by and started to take our order… then walked away… I was like «What happened.» My friend, whose b-​day it was and the reason we were there, told me he said he wasn’t feeling well. Okay, I am sorry to hear that but if that’s the case you need to let someone else take your table. He finally did make his way back 10 minutes or so later and was nice but that was very unprofessional.
The food here is good. It’s a nice ambiance for downtown. Trendy enough to attract the «before the club» crowd yet okay for kids to join you for dinner. For some reason, I had thought of this place as more BAR that serves food (a la Floods) but to me it’s more of a place to eat with a great bar. While I like both options, I find more reason to come to Starters and will be back. However, it’s a shame that the service can’t get right.

First time at this Starter’s and it was… decent.
It took a while to get service granted we came in after midnight. We had to ask a manager to send a waitress over to our table since no one had waited on us for about 15min of sitting down.
Our waitress came and apologized for the delay. Tiffany was very kind, funny, and accommodating. She put our drink and food orders right in. We had the Liquid Cocaine and those were great. We ordered margaritas on ice and I would never drink those again… EVER. The mix came out of a carton if that’s an indicator of the disappointment my taste buds received.
The food was standard. Nothing special but not gross either. The boom boom sauce for the chicken was delicious… a spicy thousand island type of mixture.
The crowd was decent. I’d visit again.

First off, I love that I have checked in here twice and am the duchess. Apparently Unilocalers — ones with smart phones anyway — just don’t really come here. LOL
Starters is a pretty standard restuarant/​sports bar. There is a parking lot in back but it fills up quick, especially on weekend evenings. I had a Cesar salad here and it was nothing to write home about. The menu looks standard, nothing that you can’t find anywhere else — burgers, sandwiches, salads, some pastas, fried apps, steak, etc. They have decent happy hour specials on drinks and some special priced (and smaller than usual size) appetizers. They have a full drink menu with lots of signature drinks that are fruity and colorful and sugary.
I have only been here on weekend evenings, and it is evident that, as the name amusingly suggests, it is a popular «starter» spot. Girls done up in club wear, and groups of guys in fresh pressed button downs all kicking their night off with a bite to eat and some shots, obviously getting ready to head straight from Starters to their next destination of the evening.
It’s ok here, I won’t go out of my way but it’s an ok crowd and nothing to really complain about. When the bar is busy I’ve had some slow service from the bartenders, but nothing so serious or outrageous that I really got upset about it.
Middle of the road. Check it out if you want. If not, that’s cool too. lol.

So I’ve been to the Starters on Plymouth and Dearborn and I’ve even been to the Woodward location one other time.
I went today because I had a hankering for some steak bites and one of their fabulous loaded baked potatoes. YUM. My desires were definitely exceeded! We managed to make it within our 60 minute lunch time frame. It wasn’t busy, it was just right for a lunch. We knew what we wanted, so we gave our order right away — didn’t have to wait too long for it. The steak bites were seasoned perfectly. I like my steak «medium», so it was juicy and flavorful. The baked potato was tasty and chock full of bacon bits, cheese and butter.
The interior is nice — I like the décor and the color scheme. The light fixtures over the tables, however, could use a good dusting.
Our hostess greeted us and quickly seated us… the waitress was friendly and attentive.
I absolutely love their background music. Relaxing while dining.
I will definitely go back to Starters on Woodward for a lunchtime steak bite mission.