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C6 celebrate! • 2017 jn Off The Beaten Party Path L ooking for something other than a syna- gogue social hall, hotel or restaurant to have your bar/bat mitzvah party, wed- ding or other simchah? Here are a few unusual venues Detroiters can recommend. Great Lakes Culinary Center, Southfield. Mindy and Alan Nusbaum of Farmington Hills were looking for a relatively small venue for their daughter Emily's bat mitzvah party and heard about Great Lakes Culinary Center in Southfield. It's not a banquet hall, but, as the name suggests, a culinary center. Here, one can do almost anything food-related: take a class, teach a class, test kitchen equipment, grow a food business — or throw a party with some of the best food around, thanks to Chef Reva Constantine and the venue's mega-kitchen and large adjacent event space. "You book a date and they do everything else," says Mindy Nusbaum. "The event man- ager, Erika Miller, is just fabulous. Every detail was handled for us. The food was great and it had an intimate club feeling." Emily's party had a "Paris" theme and Miller arranged for some fancy French desserts. The Nusbaums got a lot of compliments from the bat mitzvah guests, two of whom later sched- uled parties of their own at the center. The main event space accommodates 180 seated or 220 strolling. There are outdoor areas that can be used in warmer months, and the center's organic garden can help create a unique farm-to-table experience. (248) 286 3100; glculinarycenter.com. Planterra, West Bloomfield. Rachel Wolock and Steven Kish wanted a lovely wedding, but they didn't want to fuss about the details. Wolock, an attorney with Dickenson-Wright, knew Planterra as the company that took care of the plants in her office. So when she saw an ad for Planterra's West Bloomfield conserva- tory in a wedding magazine, she knew she had to check it out. The company, which opened in 1973, pro- vides interior landscape and horticultural services. With the opening of the conservatory in 2010, Planterra also became a popular event venue. The glass-walled and glass-roofed conserva- tory, which looks like a botanical garden, can accommodate up to 180 guests. The space is available Sept. 1 through June 15; all the glass makes it too hot to use in the summer. "I loved the idea of a beautiful outdoor wed- ding surrounded by nature, but I didn't want to have to make alternate arrangements in case of bad weather," said Wolock of Farmington Hills. And their March 8, 2014, wedding date wasn't conducive to an outdoor party. A lot of the unusual venues Wolock may have considered were just "too much work," she said, because many tend to be do-it-yourself in terms of catering, seating and other necessities. She loved that Planterra handled everything. Planterra has exclusive vendors who are familiar with the facility and know how to put on a spectacular party, she said. For Jewish weddings, they can provide a flower-bedecked trellis for use as a chuppah. Although the caterer is not kosher, Planterra was happy to bring in a strictly kosher meal for Wolock's Orthodox sister. BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER t h S s a t f o C a e a w h a N b u s a t JAY DREIFUS TOP TO BOTTOM: Great Lakes Culinary Center, set up for a bat mitzvah. Rachel Wolock and Steven Kish wed at Planterra. Shaya Schreiber makes a speech to his sister, Eliana, at her bat mitzvah at The Eastern. STELA ZAHARIEVA LEX DODSON continued on page 8