Cousin, Longtime Chefs Find Home Together

At the Side Street Diner, Elvis is in the building.

The Grosse Pointe diner has the “autographed” photo on display in its lobby at 60 St. Clair Street in the popular Village shopping district. One sight of it, and you know Mehgan Spicer is in and cooking.

Spicer is something of a local food celebrity, best known for her chicken fajita salad and other specialty dishes. Spicer and cousin Sheila Taylor, known for her sky-high cakes, opened the Side Street Diner together in September 2010 – a partnership of family and longtime foodies that has resulted in a great place to visit and eat.

“Grosse Pointe is a great community because word of mouth really works well,” said Spicer, who has had customers ask for her by name when they noticed her signature picture of Elvis in the lobby.

Now that they have their menu and other basics in place, Spicer and Taylor say they are ready to take this labor of love up a notch or two. Among their plans are additional interior renovations, a bakery area, outside summer seating and extended hours as well as an increased emphasis on their carry-out business, dine-in dinners and lunchtime delivery.

“We would love to have outdoor seating, especially in the summer because of the local concert series in the Village,” Spicer said. “It would be nice to have some additional seating for our guests.”

This is in addition to the restaurant’s popular breakfast specialties, homemade sauces and salad dressings and catering. How can one diner do it all? Well, Spicer and Taylor have more than 20 years of food experience between the two of them. For example, Spicer has been doing catering for more than 15 years at a variety of restaurants (including her own, formerly known as Meghan’s Place on Mack Avenue.)

Because they are related, Spicer and Taylor also have decades of history between them. That makes the partnership so much easier, Spicer said.

“This is 44 years in the making,” Spicer said. “Everything we’ve gone through brought us here. It couldn’t have been a better marriage. Our visions are the same.”

And they love serving the traditional Irish dinners that their parents served, Taylor said. All through March, they are offering items such as corned beef, shepherd’s pie, lamb stew and beer-battered fish and chips (the last one as a Lenten special).

SideStreet features a largely homemade menu. They bottle their own salad dressings. They create their own pasta sauces, including Alfredo, pesto Alfredo and sun-dried tomato Alfredo. They even roast their own turkeys, hams and pot roasts to serve alongside their popular, from-scratch mashed potatoes.

Spicer said she hopes the evening hours start to pick up as diners experience the specials, such Pot Roast Mondays. Everyday items include a stir fry with fresh vegetables, lamb shank, pork chops, short ribs and a baked herb chicken.

They also want to do more carry-out and delivery in the months to come. SideStreet can deliver lunch to anywhere within a three-mile range for a small fee. They also sell many items within the restaurant through catering, such as its chili by the gallon, salad dressings and pasta sauces.

“This is a woman-owned business, and we’ve got four kids between us depending on this little restaurant thriving,” Spicer said.

To contact the SideStreet Diner, call 313-884-6810 or go to www.sidestreetdiner.com. Its hours are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.