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- Ford’s new world headquarters features a huge food hall with nine unique food stations.
- Executive Chef Grant Vera leads a team of 35 people serving thousands of employees and visitors every day.
- Popular menu items include rotisserie chicken, different styles of pizza, and smash burgers.
- The food hall also offers a healthier menu, including salads made with hydroponic vegetables and freshly squeezed juices.
One of the most popular menu items at Gallery Hall, a large dining hall with unique food stations on the second floor of Ford’s New World headquarters, is rotisserie chicken.
Most days, we are out of stock of about 30 to 32 chickens per day.
Pizza is also popular. Each week, they hand-roll 250 pounds of dough to create everything from deep-dish to Detroit- and New York-style pies.
There’s also a smashburger station. And so far, that’s 400 pounds of ground beef being produced each week. Add chicken shawarma, stir-fries, smoothies, and local coffee, and you’ll receive over 85 pounds of beans from James Oliver Coffee Company each week.
To achieve all this and more, at the helm of the 160,000 square foot food hall and its nine food stations is Executive Chef Grant Bellah, his wife who was part of the inspiration for Rotisserie Chicken, and his team of approximately 35 people.
Vera is no stranger to Metro Detroit’s dining scene, going from owning his own food truck to opening his own restaurant to being part of the opening team for two dining spots in Detroit.
But in this role, the Troy native’s job is to serve more than just filling a dining room.
At Ford’s new world headquarters, which opened in November in Dearborn, Vera is responsible for serving thousands of Ford employees and visitors with a variety of menu items and foods, from sandwiches to stir-fries, coffee and even gelato.
Vera has been involved in the creation of more than half a dozen food hall dining concepts, from a world-class rotisserie station called Torque, to Five Spice, which features a wok station nicknamed “Breath of the Dragon,” to Fire and Stone, which bakes pizzas in very large ovens imported from Italy, around which food stations have been built.
In addition to pizza and $6 rotisserie chicken, we also offer salads made with lettuce and vegetables grown hydroponically in-house, international cuisine, and healthy, clean grab-and-go snacks that are free of trans fats and preservatives.
The food hall is big business, but for Vera, who has been with Ford since fall 2023, it’s personal.
An adopted Korean, Bella was raised in Troy by a family of Maltese, Italian, and German descent. Weaved into this food-centered culture are family memories, especially the big plates of lasagna eaten every holiday and the chocolate chip cookies of his other grandmother, that guide and influence him.
“When I think back to those memories, everyone was sitting at the table, serving people, having a good time, eating, having fun,” he said. “That led me to focus on the thought process of cooking, and what it really means is that food brings people together.”
A graduate of Troy Athens and the Culinary Institute of America’s New York campus, Bella has made a splash in the Metro Detroit food scene as a starting partner for the Heroes and Villains food truck, as part of teams at acclaimed restaurants such as Besa in Downtown Detroit and Mad Nice in Midtown. Bella also opened and owned a Korean-inspired restaurant, The Lucky Duck, in the former Moose Winooski space in Clawson.
But it wasn’t until 2016 that Vera sold the food truck to Coriander Kitchen chef Alison Hiers, who went to New York’s prestigious Culinary Institute of America, he said.
“From there we decided to raise the money and put everything in the Saturn Ion and drive to New York,” Vera said.
So Bella said she’s enrolled in an accelerated program for experienced chefs at the Culinary Institute of America. He spent 15 months in the program and graduated in September 2017.
Now, as more Ford employees are returning to their offices at the new global headquarters, I caught up with Chef Vera to talk about the importance of the concept he developed and how it fits into the company’s culture.
(Questions and answers have been slightly edited for brevity.)
question: How did you get your start working at Ford, working and opening several restaurants in Detroit before owning your own restaurant?
answer: “I needed a little bit of work-life balance…As I was getting older, I wanted to find something that would give me that. I actually took the position of Portfolio Executive Chef for Ford North America. I oversaw all of Ford’s culinary operations across the country. We helped a lot with construction, hiring, ensuring overall quality and consistency across all our sites, whether it’s a commercial campus or manufacturing. We built a small coffee house on campus. We built a food truck at our manufacturing plant.
Q. How did you get to Ford’s new world headquarters?
A. “Over the last two years, I’ve met some great people all over the country. Then, of course, we looked at this building being built and after eight to 10 months, we started talking about who was going to do this. And as we were working on the concept, I fell in love with space and fell in love with the concept and couldn’t say no. It was an instant yes.”
Q. What is the range of cuisine according to the concept?
A. Five Spice is an Asian concept. Chop Shop is an American concept with a global twist, making lots of smash burgers, fries, and more. Fresh Press is a health and wellness site. It features carving stations, cold-pressed juices partnered with local company Rhythm & Blue Juice, which presses juices on-site, wellness shots and more. Carte Blanche is like a chef spotlight station, showcasing what the chefs are cooking for the day. If you don’t have a specific focus, you can also bring in local vendors or local chefs to highlight your brand. Assembly Green is a build-your-own salad bar made at the hydroponic Babylon Microgreen Farm. We offer a selection of chef-selected salads, salads that guests can create their own, and chef’s soups. Patisserie Pickett offers barista service with a pastry case showcasing local ingredients and pastries, James Oliver Bagels, gelato (from Detroit’s Moment Gelato and Coffee), and a froyo station. ”
Q. Why was it important to have rotisserie chicken on the menu?
A. “It’s not necessarily the chicken itself; it’s the fact of why we did it. As we developed and fine-tuned the concept, we put ourselves in the guest’s shoes and wanted to add a program that made sense. We do breakfast in the morning, we do coffee, we do patisserie, but no one has really thought about the backside, from 3 to 4 o’clock when they get home. What we wanted to do is build a program that could give them the best of what they do when they get home for dinner.”
“Actually, the inspiration comes from my wife. She always calls me after church or at the end of the day and says, ‘I want you to stop by and get me a rotisserie chicken on the way home.'” Then I make quesadillas or something. The rotisserie chicken is competitively priced so they (guests) can get that amenity. ”
Q. What are the characteristics of the pizza oven?
A. An entire cluster of kitchens was built around the pizza oven. Two large stones are placed on a platform and built around it. This is very stylish. It has a pad that controls the temperature to within 3 degrees. Therefore, the temperature always hovers around 700 degrees, which is very important for perfecting the crust of some pizzas. ”
Q. Do you have a favorite dish?
A. “I have many favorites, but I think my favorite is the Thai Basil Cashew Chicken. It’s our number one seller. It’s the perfect balance of sweet and spicy. We add a little bit of dried chili pepper to stir-fries like the Thai Basil Chicken Cashew. So when it hits the fire, the oil comes out. That gives it the depth, the richness, the heat that we need to make the dish better. We go the extra mile and take our own recipes and always go the extra mile.” ”
Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to selasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to free press. Subscribe to the Eat Drink Freep newsletter for inside information on food and dining in metro Detroit.
