Modern Bird chefs open DayMade bakery and café on Front Street

A longtime West Front Street bakery space is getting a new morning-to-afternoon role. Modern Bird chef-owners Emily Stewart and Andy Elliott have bought the former Mary’s Kitchen Port building at 541 W. Front St. and plan to open DayMade, a daytime bakery and café, in late fall.

The move says as much about downtown Traverse City’s restaurant market as it does about one pair of chefs. Mary’s Kitchen Port retired and closed on Aug. 1, 2025, after more than 44 years in business, leaving a prominent Front Street storefront to be refilled rather than rebuilt. For a corridor that depends on foot traffic, that matters. Front Street sits inside the Traverse City Downtown Development Authority’s TIF 97 district, and the DDA describes downtown as the city’s commercial core and a priority for economic development. Keeping a busy storefront occupied next to an established draw like Modern Bird helps keep the block active beyond dinner service.

DayMade is designed for that kind of all-day use. Stewart’s pastry background will anchor the menu, with brioche donuts, pastries, sandwiches, breakfast sandwiches, coffee, espresso and homemade breads planned for the case and counter. Stewart, a former pastry lead at Bang Bang Pie and an alum of BOKA and Blackbird in Chicago, first built a following in Traverse City through Sara Hardy Downtown Farmers Market pop-ups selling scones, buns, pop-tarts and other pastries. Stewart said there will also be some crossover with Modern Bird, including fried chicken in bakery sandwiches.

The expansion also reflects the confidence of a chef team that already has local name recognition. Modern Bird opened on West Front Street in 2022 after Stewart and Elliott moved to Traverse City in 2018, and it later became the only Michigan restaurant on The New York Times’ 2025 list of America’s 50 best restaurants. Earlier this year, the James Beard Foundation named Stewart and Elliott semifinalists in the Best Chef: Great Lakes category, putting more attention on a pair of operators who are choosing to grow here rather than look elsewhere.

That choice lands in a market where daytime and chef-driven concepts are proving especially durable. Traverse City had an estimated 15,782 residents in 2024, Grand Traverse County had 96,625, and the Traverse City metropolitan area reached about 157,000 people, up 5.6% since 2014. On a downtown block that already pulls locals, visitors and workers, DayMade is a bet that breakfast, coffee and lunch traffic can carry as much weight as the dinner rush.