Bellflower Is the Best Restaurant in Ypsilanti. The Rest of the County Should Know.
In a former Michigan Bell telephone exchange, chef Dan Klenotic is cooking food that rivals anything across the river.
Dan Klenotic changes his menu so often that regulars at Bellflower have learned to stop asking what's good. Whatever is on the board when you walk in is what the farms sent this week, and that's what you're eating. It's a small act of trust between a chef and his dining room. It works because Klenotic, a 2024 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Great Lakes, has earned it.
Bellflower is at 209 Pearl Street in downtown Ypsilanti, in a building that spent decades as a Michigan Bell telephone exchange before it burned and sat empty. Owners Mark Maynard, the longtime Ypsilanti advocate, and Jesse Kranyak bought the shell in 2016 and spent four years rebuilding it. They opened Bellflower in August 2020, which is either terrible timing or the kind of conviction that tells you something about the people involved. Four years later, the restaurant has become the anchor of Ypsilanti's dining scene.
The room is one plain square with a bar, an open kitchen, and local artwork by Jason Wright on the walls. Two patios expand the space when the weather cooperates: one covered for year-round use, one open-air. The casualness is deliberate. Klenotic, who previously cooked at Sava's and the Wurst Bar, is not interested in formality for its own sake.
Midwestern Comfort, Southern Coastal Soul
The menu reads like someone who grew up in the Midwest and spent formative time near the Gulf. Eight of the 15 or so entrees on any given night are seafood: fried oyster po'boys on house-made milk bread, shrimp etouffee, whole fried fish, seared scallops. The kitchen has an in-house smoker and two bakers whose milk bread has become a quiet signature.
Eight of the 15 or so entrees on any given night are seafood. The fried oyster po'boy on house-made milk bread is the dish that converted us.
The non-seafood options hold their own. A pork collar with seasonal sides. Boudin sausage. Red beans and rice that tastes like it was made by someone who learned the recipe from a person who actually lived in Louisiana. Sandwiches run $10 to $13, dinner entrees average around $31, with the range stretching from $19 to $54. For cooking at this level, the prices are remarkably fair.
Klenotic works with a dozen local farms, and the daily menu reflects what's arriving. Farm-to-table, in the real sense: a logistical constraint that shapes every night's offerings, not a marketing phrase.
The Wine and the Rest
The drink program is solid without demanding attention. Local beers, a short cocktail list, and a wine selection that skews toward bottles you haven't tried. If you like what Spencer does with wine in Ann Arbor, you'll find a kindred approach here, though Bellflower's list is more compact and the markups are gentler. The honest move is to ask your server what they're excited about.
Ypsilanti's Case
There is a persistent, low-grade condescension that parts of Ann Arbor direct toward Ypsilanti's dining scene. It usually sounds like surprise. "Oh, there's good food in Ypsi?" As if a city with its own university and its own creative community couldn't possibly produce a serious restaurant.
Bellflower is the answer to that question, and it has been since 2020. Klenotic isn't cooking food that's good for Ypsilanti. He's cooking food that's good, period. Good enough that the James Beard Foundation noticed. Dinner costs meaningfully less than a comparable meal across the Huron River, and that's not a sign of lesser ambition. It reflects Ypsilanti's economics and Bellflower's apparent disinterest in pricing out its neighbors.
On a given Tuesday, you might find a table of Pearl Street regulars sharing a bottle next to a couple who drove from Detroit after a friend's recommendation. Both groups belong there equally. That's the room Maynard and Kranyak built, and it's the room Klenotic fills every night.
This is the first Ypsilanti restaurant we've profiled, and that's on us. Bellflower has been doing serious, thoughtful cooking in downtown Ypsilanti without the recognition it deserves outside Washtenaw County. We'll be spending more time in Ypsi. There's more to write about than we've been writing.
Bellflower is at 209 Pearl St, Ypsilanti. Lunch Tuesday through Saturday, dinner Tuesday through Saturday, Sunday brunch. Reservations recommended. Menu changes daily.