Efforts to convert a closed Chili’s restaurant on bustling Hall Road in Sterling Heights into an upscale steak and sushi sit-down restaurant with two associated businesses inside have been placed on hold for the time being.
The Sterling Heights City Council on Sept. 1 voted unanimously to postpone a vote on 12800 Hall Rd., LLC’s plan to transform the former Chili’s into a $1.5 million eatery focused on “top-of- the-line steak, chicken and seafood, along with a variety of popular sushi selections.”
Council members said they support plans for the unnamed restaurant, which would contain separate rooms for a cigar bar and a hookah lounge. But since hookah bars are not technically allowed in Sterling Heights, the project is now delayed.
“Cigar smoke to be is more obnoxious than hookah — it’s not even close,” Mayor Michael Taylor during the council meeting.
Attorney Phil Ruggeri and his business partners had proposed including the hookah facility in the restaurant property via a planned unit development (PUD). But council members said a PUD wasn’t designed to cloak an illegal business and they are looking for alternate ways to legally allow that end of the business.
The vacant Chili’s building on Hall Road with the five-story Sterling Town Center complex behind it. (MITCH HOTTS — THE MACOMB DAILY)
One route may be to ask for approval only for the cigar bar — which is legal in Sterling Heights — and restaurant portion in October through a special land use and have the city develop an ordinance allowing hookah at the same time. Presuming the hookah ordinance would be approved by the Sterling Heights Planning Commission, the hookah aspect could be later approved for the restaurant in January 2027.
Hookah is Arabic is a traditional water pipe used to smoke flavored tobacco in social settings. It is particularly popular in areas with a high Arabic population, such as Sterling Heights.
Ruggeri said the developers have already invested $150,000 into the landscaping and work on the crumbling parking lot.
Officials said the cigar bar and hookah lounge would include a specialized ventilation system and separate entrances so the fumes don’t spread into the restaurant.
Ruggeri said the developers have been successful with opening restaurants in Toronto as well as two that have been reinvented in Macomb County — Ford’s Garage on Hall Road in Utica and the Kabana Bar & Grill, in the former Fuddrucker’s property on Van Dyke in Sterling Heights.
They have been looking for property on Hall Road or M-59, which is often referred to as the Golden Corridor for its business and retail stretch.
“They love that site,” Ruggeri said.
The former Chili’s, which is located on a 1.6 acre parcel of land in front of the Sterling Town Center office complex, was being eyed for a Raising Cane’s chicken finger fast-food drive-thru restaurant last year. However, the planned was dropped as officials determined the traffic associated with a fast-food venue would not work well near an office complex.
The Chili’s has been vacant for at least three years.
Dining and Cooking