What’s next for French cuisine restaurateurs Eric and Amy Fritch
By Art Bukowski | Feb. 14, 2026
Do you want the good news or the bad news?
The bad news first: No, Le Metropolitain will not reopen. The popular food truck parked outside Traverse City Whiskey Co. was severely damaged in a November fire, and owner Eric Fritch says the truck won’t return this spring.
The good (great?) news: The truck won’t reopen because Fritch and his wife Amy—the folks behind the much beloved Patisserie Amie before their time in the truck—will soon open a new brick-and-mortar establishment in the Warehouse District. Tentatively dubbed Brasserie Bobo, it will offer more of the fine French food the Fritches have become known for in their two decade plus career in Traverse City.
Northern Express connected with Eric Fritch to see how we got here and what’s next.
From the Beginning
The Fritches opened Patisserie Amie in 2004 in the Front Street building where Chubby Unicorn is now. Lines out the door at this smaller location eventually led to their familiar Lake Street digs, where they spent 14 years before the pandemic derailed their business.
“COVID hit in March 2020, and we were open one day, and then closed the next,” Fritch says. “We were closed for months and months, and we still had to keep paying our rent. And when we were able to open…we didn’t have any employees that wanted to come back. They had all found other things to do.”
The next step was Brasserie Amie in the former Franklin space at Front and Cass. (Side note: a brasserie is an all-day restaurant serving all sorts of food and drinks, whereas a patisserie generally only has pastries. Patisserie Amie had long since become a brasserie in function, hence the name change). That restaurant, a partnership with a few other folks, lasted until the end of 2022 when it closed and the partners went their own ways.
After some time traveling in (you guessed it) France, Eric and Amy decided to try a food truck for a while. In 2024, Le Metropolitain was born.
“We had just [taken] a trip to France and we were really inspired with the Metro station. It’s the color of the Parisian green, with the oxidized copper,” Fritch says. “So we took that idea and found a cute little pod that I could tow behind my Fiat.”
“Le Metro,” as it was affectionately called, was at Right Brain Brewery before finding a permanent home at TC Whiskey on 14th Street. All went well as they served up a variety of French vittles to hungry customers. But then…
The Fire
It was in November when the unthinkable happened.
“I got a call from someone down at the whiskey company that the truck was on fire. It was right after that first snowstorm that we had, so it was really slippery getting down there,” Fritch says. “I was just so nervous. I’m like, ‘Please let it be okay. Please let it be okay.’”
It was not okay. The truck was destroyed.
“We’re not really sure how it happened, but the electrical grid was fried,” Fritch says. “We don’t know if it was a faulty wire, but it was definitely electrical in nature.”
Luckily for Eric, Amy, and their three children, the community stepped up.
“The Traverse City Whiskey Company, unbeknownst to me, set up a GoFundMe for us that very morning. And the response was beautiful and humbling. It was just overwhelming, really,” Fritch says. “The people’s hearts opened up…and it’s really helped us in the interim as we’re trying to keep things rolling in our family.”
The Birth of Bobo
A not-so-surprising thing happened during those food truck days: Fritch was peppered with questions about his next move.
“Almost every day, people were like, ‘We love this, but when are you going to open up another café? When are you going to get back into your own space?’” Fritch says.
So not long after the fire, Eric and Amy knew it was time to do just that.
“We made the decision to just search for another spot in Traverse City, because this is where we want to be,” Fritch says “I have a son and he’s only in eighth grade. So we’ve got five or six more years to do a lot of work and feed a lot of people.”
At the time this story was written in the first week of February, the Fritches were in the process of finalizing a lease for a space somewhere in the Warehouse District (he was tight-lipped on details beyond that due to things not being set in stone).
They are beyond excited for this new eatery, tentatively dubbed Brasserie Bobo (a name used for certain initiatives on Lake Avenue). The new spot will offer a lot more of the same French foods with some new twists, Fritch says, and they can’t wait to get in the kitchen again.
“We just want to be able to cook for our people again and get people excited and give them a chance to transport themselves once again to Paris and just be somewhere else for a while,” he says. “We can forget our troubles and eat real, real authentic food.”
Pending liquor license and other hurdles, they hope to have the new operation up and running (at least in some capacity) by March.
Dining and Cooking