Personally, I cant wait for Ladder 4 to open. The firehouse has been a center for great tastings and parties these past couple of years. I've made many fond memories playing horseshoes and being knocked down by Jarred Gild during a soccer game at Pet Fete Detroit 2017.*
*Pet Fete is a somewhat annual celebration of wine made petulant natural style.
Inside the firehouse there are two floors, a cavernous main room with a mile long bar, comfy booths and a smart banquette lining the outside wall. Tucked out of the way is the retail wine. Upstairs contains a lounge, private dinning, the office and access to the upper patio. Outside are two patios, an upper and lower. When it opens the wine bar on Vinewood will have a 300 seat capacity. Ladder 4 might just get a reputation as a destination, if not for the atmosphere but how dang good the wine list will be. When I say ‘dang good wine list’, I mean it’ll make waves on a national level.
This interview is an introduction for readers to managing partner James Cadariu and the wine bar that will be Ladder 4. It’s been edited to make it sound like we’re loosely having a conversation. All photos were supplied by James unless otherwise noted.
Hi James. From what I can gather you passed the Bar in 1999, then lived/worked on a goat farm for a few years while doing post law stuff. In 2001 you started working at Great Lakes Coffee Roasting and left in 2019 to work full time on opening Ladder 4 Detroit.
Would you mind filling in the gaps for our readers?
Leading up to the goat farm I interned with a guy who worked at Remy Martin in Cognac and learned how to distill on an alembic still. The rest of my research was spent traveling around France tasting wine and learning about French culture. Paying respect to local food and culture became a mantra for me and informs everything I do. Well, since I didn't want to teach I went to law school and was bored shitless in less than three weeks. I did finish then took the bar and rode my motorcycle to New Albany, Indiana (more south than the south) and worked at Capriole goat farm. Judy Schad was making some incredible cheese there and her husband was a personal injury attorney. So I milked goats, made cheese and helped with the legal briefs. It didn't hurt that they were getting Neal's Yard Dairy cheeses sent from England.
Once the bar results were in I returned to Michigan and went to work with a friend importing MRI and CT scanners from France. We brought them over, then fitted them into mobile trucks and leased them to hospitals. We did quite well but 9/11 fucked everything up and so I ended up starting my own law firm doing business transactions and eventually going to work for a coffee company.
Oh and of course ‘hello.’ I forgot to say that up top.
Hey thanks. Okay, moving past salutations; I saw you had an import company.
Yeah, I traveled a lot in the early aughts up until 2013 with my dad in Romania and started visiting vineyards on the regular. The import business never took off but I'm sure I visited almost every winery in Romania at that point. My dad and I did import a fair amount of art from a glassblower friend of my dads named Ioan Nemtoi.
You were involved with ClandesDine Detroit back in the Aughts, how does that fit into the mix?
ClandesDine/Gourmet Underground where nascent movements of people socializing over food and drink sometimes with a charitable purpose in the case of ClandesDine. They planted the seed for a movement of makers who were not satisfied with the food and drink options in Detroit at the time. So we just started doing it on our own. Just from Gourmet Underground alone and without any restaurant experience. Dave Kwiatkowski opened the Sugar House bar. I opened a natural wine bar inside a coffee house and Evan Hansen opened Selden Standard.
Tell me a little a little bit about the overall idea for Ladder 4 as it stands in July 2021. From our past conversations I know it's a Cafe/Wine bar/Retail/Restaurant with outdoor seating, private dining and event hosting. I think our readers would like to know about the overarching effect of Ladder 4.
Ladder 4 is really just supposed to be a hang out space in an old firehouse. We will proudly fly the natty flag but it's more about natural wine for the masses than getting a fucking allocation. More money into natural wine is more money for farmers and hopefully better wines lists locally. Because fire fighting in Detroit is a difficult, poorly paid job, I wanted the entire space to be open to the public. Public service to public house. We are blessed with a big yard and have added a second floor patio so there are tons of spots to be fully public or in a secluded spot.
How do those early secret Detroit Dining events play into your vision for Ladder 4?
The only thing secret about this development is when we are going to open.
You wrote in 2010 on Underground Gourmet Detroit:
“After my morning cup, I can go punch out a 5 mile run, punch out some text on my computer at work, or punch some idiot at an event who loudly demands a cup of “just regular coffee.” You don’t want to hear my Ayn Rand rant on the subject of choices.”
What is your Ayn Rand rant on the "Subject of Choices?"
Haha. I'm glad you asked. Along with drinking too much coffee at the time and being incredibly argumentative (Romanian trait), I used to be kind of an asshole. I found the Fountainhead in a pile of books at my moms and gave it a read. Seemed interesting at the time. Then I read Atlas Shrugged. So much of it was nonsensical but it felt like you might be on to something. It reminds me of the QAnon stuff now. All I really want to say is that assholes can change.
We’ll I never thought you were an a-hole. Guess I’ll have to take your word for it. So, tell me a little about the building when it was a firehouse, who were the Sons of Banat?
Haha, well thanks for that. So the building was built in 1910 and served as Ladder 4 Company until 2000 and Engine 10 Company until 2012. It was known as the home of the Rockwood which is a heavy brass spray tip at the end of the firehouse. They were the last house to use the Rockwood and a firefighter generously donated one on display here. The Sons of Banat is my way of paying tribute to where I came from. My grandparents came from this area which encompasses parts of Serbia, Romania and Hungary. They considered themselves more to be from the Banat than to be from some nationalist creation. I feel the same in having more loyalty to Detroit as the city of my birth than to some idea of being American. Since my brother is my partner and we are the last two sons with our surname, there you have it.
That’s a great tie in. So…none of the firefighters called themselves the “Sons of Banat?”
Nope
Looks like I didn’t toughly research the Sons of Banat. Lemme just look at the questions I got here and …. What were some of the biggest challenges during the build out? How much does the aesthetic play into Ladder4's mission?
Don’t worry about it. As for the build out, I’d say the largest huddle was, everything. It's hard to turn a building from 1910 into a completely different use but it sure is fun blasting out masonry to turn a window into a door. I didn't know you could do that. We also had the impeccable timing of starting to build out just before the pandemic. I am truly having the time of my life seeing it come together. Aesthetics are critical.
I want to celebrate the splendor that is Detroit. Detroit is full of character and characters.
I'm always a fan of keeping the integrity of the building and in this case adding enough design to know that it's a wine oriented bar. We have original details galore from the glazed brick to the coffered oak ceiling. We added a reused marble bar from a Detroit school bathroom divider and made it narrower for more wine bar intimacy. The upstairs where the firefighters sleep will have a more domestic loungey feel. The new upstairs rooftop deck just feels like a party.
The food! Jesus, I forgot to ask about the food. I can’t assume there isn't a theme, but what cultures will Ladder4's food program take inspiration from?
I don't want the perception or the demands of a restaurant so we will take it slow with food. You can expect experience based dining like a giant cauldron of goulash or a roasting lamb. Not going to reinvent the wheel here.
The Eater Detroit article announcing Ladder 4 is pretty sparse. What do you think they could have done better? It was only one paragraph to start and only touched on a few, albeit key, details. Do you think this lack of research is indicative of the Eater network? Let's be honest about it, this lackadaisical attitude is what’s driving them out of business.
They could have actually talked to me before writing that it was a coffee house project when we bought it. I have little interest in talking to people who make listicles. The only list I want to be on is the one that has our name on the certificate of occupancy.
How deep do you plan on taking the coffee program? Sourcing/roasting your own beans?
Coffee will be Italian style. Espresso machine behind the bar. I've always wanted to do this. We may open for coffee earlier in the future and I would love to do a little roasting in the future.
Is there a direction you'd like to take the wine program?
I'd like to see natty and the classics. The philosophy is basically the same. What you won't see is marketed trends like orange themed plonk. You will see Gravner.
What's the make of up Ladder4's Front of House/Back of House so far? What's the dining style?
I'm hiring. Looking for a job? The dining will be super casual although the seating is elegant and densely laid out in such a large space.
What's happening with your old blog DrinkArt.wordpress.com?
I wish I knew man. I love to write.
James is contactable through email and Instagram at @ladder4detroit.
Interview with James Cadariu of Ladder 4 Wine Bar, Detroit.
We, husband and myself, actually met James and enjoyed meeting him. Personally, it was a treat just seeing what he’s done with the fire house! I’ve envisioned five different designs for five different areas of the wine bar just upon my first visit inside. Amazing is the impression left upon my artistic creative magical imagination. I live to design on an A List budget (unlimited)!! Of course, we’ll converse. Literally, dreaming these five designs as their reality I’ve fruition.