For twenty-three years, 820 Front Street served one menu, poured drinks from one bar, and answered to one name. Walk up to that same address tonight and you will order from four separate kitchens, each with its own chef, and wait for a pager to buzz. The building did not move. The dock outside did not move. Almost everything else did.
That single address is a useful lens for the whole village this summer. This summer brings a mix of change and continuity to Bay Harbor's restaurants, festivals and marina events.
The Twenty-Three Seasons Before Brandy's
The building at 820 Front St. spent most of its life as Knot Just a Bar, founded in 2000 as an upscale yet casual bar and restaurant in the heart of Bay Harbor Village. In 2015, David and Amanda Waskiewicz acquired it, adding to the sister location they already ran in Omena, and for the next eight years David managed the Bay Harbor spot while Amanda ran the one on Grand Traverse Bay. By its own count, the Knot enjoyed 23 seasons as the longest-running business in Bay Harbor Village before closing its doors in September 2023.
The lease passed to a group of local individual investors, Bryant and Jamie Morrison, Philip and Laura Morrison, and Rick Iceberg, who took over the space to build a brand-new concept. That group was not new to the marina. The Morrisons already owned two other Bay Harbor establishments, Maple + Batter and NOMAD. The Small Business Deal Advisors announcement that confirmed the sale also confirmed the opening date: the new restaurant was set to open in Bay Harbor Village on May 1, 2024.
One Ownership Group, Three Different Doors
What replaced the Knot was not another single-menu tavern. Brandy's Harbortown, still located at 820 Front St. in Bay Harbor, runs on a food hall model built around four stations: Heirloom for salads and grain bowls, Wings + Beer, Brandy's Kitchens for burgers and sandwiches, and Fresh Catch for seafood. Laura Morrison describes it as a kitchen collective of sorts, with patrons ordering directly at each counter and picking up food when a pager buzzes.
"...a fun and inviting feel...for anyone coming off the boat, out of the pool," Laura Morrison told Northern Express.
The kitchen has real pedigree behind it. Chef Hans Jessen came over from an executive sous chef role at NOMAD to run Brandy's kitchen, bringing almost four decades in the industry, including a Johnson and Wales University degree and stints at Germany's Schlosshotel Kronberg, Ramada Renaissance Hotels, MGM Grand's Brown Derby, and the 24 Grille in Detroit's Book Cadillac Hotel.
So the marina's three most visible dining rooms, Maple + Batter for breakfast, NOMAD for dinner, and now Brandy's Harbortown for anything in between, share the same ownership group while offering different menus and occasions.
What Hasn't Moved
Alongside the restaurant changes, two long-running village institutions have continued in familiar form.
The Bay Harbor Arts Festival just wrapped its 26th year on the waterfront lawns. Organizers called it their 26th Annual Arts Festival, and it is still built the same way it was two decades ago: a lovely, boutique event with a curated roster of fine artists and an artisan market, not an expanding trade show. There is no version of this festival that grows into a 200-booth affair. It stays small because staying small is the point.
The In-Water Boat Show at Bay Harbor Lake Marina hit the same kind of milestone in June. This year's show was the 24th annual running, still timed to Father's Day weekend, still the marina's unofficial start to boating season. Nobody has tried to move it, rebrand it, or fold it into something bigger. Two of the village's oldest public rituals have simply kept their shape while one of its restaurants changed hands and its menu changed.
Right Now at the Cabana Bar
The Cabana Bar's live music schedule at the Inn at Bay Harbor offers another view of the village's summer calendar. It runs Fridays and Sundays, 5 to 8 p.m., all summer, with a different local musician nearly every slot:
- Sunday, August 9: Luke Woltanski
- Friday, August 14: Nelson Olstrom
- Sunday, August 16: Adam and the Cabana Boys
- Friday, August 21: no public entertainment, private event
- Sunday, August 23: Ricky Hill
The schedule also lists July 10, July 17 and August 21 as dates reserved for private bookings rather than public music. For more on how residents typically fill an evening at the marina, we've written about that here.
Restaurants and Seasonal Events
Together, these examples show how the village's restaurants and seasonal events have changed or remained familiar. Several Front Street dining rooms now share an ownership group. Meanwhile the calendar fixtures that give the village its rhythm, the arts festival every July, the boat show every June, the Cabana Bar's Friday and Sunday slate, have held their scale even as demand for the space around them keeps climbing.
If you live here, these details offer a snapshot of the village as summer gives way to fall. The restaurant scene reflects shared ownership across three dining rooms, while the festivals and boat show continue to mark the seasons year to year. Together, they describe both change and continuity around the marina.
If you're the kind of person who notices this much about your own street, we'd love to hear what you're seeing. Kristin Keiswetter Clark writes about Bay Harbor and the rest of Little Traverse Bay because the details are the whole point, not the footnote. If a conversation about your own place here, whatever that means for you right now, would be useful, reach out any time to plan your next move.
