A Foxtrot Through Downtown Ann Arbor

We all gathered downstairs at The Bar at Braun Court, 30 or so guys. The youngest looked to be in his mid-twenties, the oldest in his mid-forties. Everybody got a lanyard with a little book on the end that had our names written in silver paint pen at the bottom. There were plenty of collared shirts and square-toed shoes, a lot of painstakingly tousled hair. We had taken time to look nice for each other. 

 

Slowly, we settled in, introducing ourselves to our tablemates. One guy ran his own film production studio, another raised capital for startups. Real estate, information technology, and finance were all well represented. We were all there to participate in an event called Foxtrot (#foxtrot #gsbetrottin), a guys-only pub-and-shop-crawl that ran from 5:30-11:00 p.m. last Thursday night. Tickets were $50 each, and the event sold out in just four days, showing that, maybe, there’s room for more of this kind of thing in downtown Ann Arbor.

 

We milled about while Eric Farrell from The Bar handed out sangria and we drank quickly, wishing the glass had been larger. Finally, Omari Rush, the host and creator of Foxtrot, made a few opening announcements and those of us still standing took our seats so that the evening could officially begin. 

 

The night started with Farrell showing us different kinds of ice cubes, bar tools, glassware. Using the stuff to impress people was an explicit part of Farrell’s presentation: Use this stuff, you’ll seem cool. We got mini-lectures on the surface area of ice and proper cocktail-mixing style (forward to back, not up and down, gents). When the lesson finished, people peppered Farrell with questions, where can I get a butter stick ice mold, what bourbons do you recommend, what’s wrong with people who like vodka. 

 

After a second drink—champagne punch, this time—the atmosphere became looser, louder. When it was time for us to go, we were ready, eager to get out, to see and be seen. 

 

Omari Rush wore a crisp shirt and Ira Glass spectacles and his amiable and intimate demeanor tends to put people around him at ease. Both Rush and the Ann Arbor Development Authority, one of the sponsors of Foxtrot, both seem interested in getting more bodies downtown. A number of men I spoke to only lived in Ann Arbor part of the year. Many telecommuted and travelled regularly for work. Even those who lived in Ann Arbor full time spoke to me at length about where they had lived before moving to Ann Arbor - in New York and Los Angeles, St. Louis and San Francisco. Rush seems to be trying, through Foxtrot, to encourage the kind of cosmopolitan feeling that a major city can provide and also to support those businesses that enable that feeling to exist here. 

 

At Lily Grace Cosmetics, we walked in to find three stations set up in the store, each adorned with two six packs of Red Stripe and a few brown glass bottles filled with creams and oils. If there’s one moment from the night that represents everything Foxtrot was or was trying to be, it’s there in that image of beer that you have to open with your teeth sitting alongside some high-end pre-shave oil. 

 

Cindy had a whole spiel on the history of shaving, from seashells to straight razors to disposables. She explained what badger brushes were and why shaving cream should be 50% fat. We drank, learned, and drank some more. The guys relaxed, grew friendlier.  

 

Before leaving, we each got a tiny gift bag the size of a party clutch, and let me tell you, we got some looks on the street, 32 dudes strutting around Ann Arbor, filling the air with dirty jokes and carrying tiny Lily Grace Cosmetics bags. No one said the words “Dude, I’m going to exfoliate the shit out of my face when I get home,” but we looked like exactly the kind of guys who would say something like that.  

 

Four drinks in, the night sped up. 

 

At Van Boven, Al McEachern showed us the five things that every man needs to have in his closet—for those keeping score, it’s a navy blazer, patterned tie, check gingham shirt, properly fitting jeans, and flat front dress slacks—while his harried assistant poured more drinks. 

 

By the time we made it to Babo, we had grown unruly, tired, I think, of the rules that a night like Foxtrot necessarily imposes on its participants. Rush re-separated us into groups, which we immediately disposed of, eating and drinking whatever, wherever, with whoever we wanted to. One participant spent almost the entire time talking to an older couple who just happened to be in Babo’s when we showed up. 

 

At each station at Babo’s, we drank old world and new world wines and ate cured and cooked pork dishes—the theme there was “Wine & Swine”—and all of it was delicious, the half-filled glasses of champagne and wine paired perfectly with the food: wafer-thin cuts of succulent pork loin; lumps of creamy, crumbly goat cheese; slices of crusty bread. We asked questions, pointed out our preferences to our servers, asked their opinions of our opinions. After a team name contest—two of the entries involved penis euphemisms—and a final goodbye, the party finally broke up. Some of us went on to La Dolce Vita for an optional cigar lesson, and the rest of us, ready for a break after five hours of self-improvement and liver abuse, went home. 

 

Throughout the night Rush used the word “legit” in as many ways as he could think to, as an adjective, a verb, a noun, an exclamation. He used it so much that before we even left our first destination, it had become a drinking game: Rush says legit, you drink. It seems like an appropriate word for the night. The men wanted to be legit, aspiring toward an Esquire magazine style of sophistication, a state that requires effort to master and money to sustain. The businesses are hoping that Ann Arbor can expand its support of high-end boutiques and specialty stores, creating more opportunities for places that cater to non-undergraduate, non-football-weekend consumers and making a downtown that feels like more like a city and less like a Big 10 college town. While it will likely take a lot more for that to happen, events like Foxtrot seem like a good place to start.