Darrow's Family Restaurant

From the time of the earliest native tribes, courier de bois and voyageurs to today’s tourist and sportsmen, people have been meeting here to socialize, fish and trade. For thousands of years, Michilimackinac has been known as the meeting spot. Our family moved to this spot in 1943 when Glen and Beatrice Darrow bought the large stone house that stood here to raise their family of nine children. In the summer of 1957, Beatrice (Grandma Bea), son Patrick and daughter Glenda opened a hot dog stand in the garage that was attached to the house. With the opening of the Bridge and the large increase in traffic, they quickly outgrew the hot dog stand. The old house was torn down and replaced with a drive-in restaurant, complete with car hops, root beer mugs and hot rods.

Around 1967, Grandma Bea sold the drive-in to son Don and daughter-in-law Theresa. They added some additional inside seating and a few items to the menu. Don continued a successful career as a Ford, Lincoln & Mercury salesman, helping Theresa at night. Theresa ran the drive-in successfully for the next 20 years. In 1988, their son Randy and daughter-in-law Traci became partners. Since that time, the restaurant has evolved into a more full service, family style establishment. Loyal customers will recognize some of the touches of the old drive in days and many still call us “Darrow’s Drive-In”.

We are proud to have added a fourth generation. In 2011, Randy & Traci’s son and daughter-in-law Eric and Jesse joined us and we look forward to their involvement. We’ve been very fortunate to have had wonderful employees, many who are close relatives and all who are friends. We want to thank everyone that has helped us over the years, especially Glenda who worked here for 50 years. They put the “family” in our family restaurant.

Our philosophy about food has stayed the same –– make it from scratch using the freshest ingredients. Soup made each morning, fresh baked bread, just brewed coffee and homemade pie. Good wholesome American cooking.