Coral Gables restuarant on Grand River Ave. in East Lansing, Mich., on June 11, 2026.
Coral Gables, a nearly century-old East Lansing staple, will be closing its doors on June 30.
The restaurant first opened in the 1920s as a roadhouse, before expanding into the music scene in the '40s and '50s with appearances by the Ink Spots and Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra. The Vanis family assumed ownership in 1968.
The decision to shutter Coral Gables had been in the works for a while, but the June 2 closure announcement shocked the local East Lansing community.
"It's just one of those things where, at some point in life, you decide that maybe you've been here long enough, and it might be time to move on," Coral Gables co-owner Stuart Vanis said.
Following the announcement, the Coral Gables team has been playing catch-up as East Lansing residents and Michigan State University alumni flood the restaurant to grab one last meal before its permanent closure.
The response has been “overwhelming," Vanis said.
Manager Brian DeRath said that customers have begun coming in three to four times a week. People who come in all the time or those who haven’t been in years are coming back to “re-experience" the restaurant, he said.
Vanis worked at Coral Gables for 35 years, but frequented it often as a child when his dad and uncle first purchased the restaurant. Under his dad’s ownership, Vanis said the restaurant was a part of their family.
Over the years, Vanis has watched the establishment grow from a campus hotspot to a banquet hall for large events and, finally, into a family-oriented restaurant and bar.
“It's kind of changed with the times, also with the age of the ownership,” Vanis said. “A lot of the people who were coming in the ‘60s and ‘70s, they are still coming today.”
DeRath said that most of Coral Gables' customers are regulars, who seat themselves at their usual spots in the back or front sections of the restaurant.
Coral Gables is a “restaurant built on relationships," DeRath said.
“People who go there often, are the kindest, most generous people in the world,” DeRath said. “Those are the people that come in, sit, and you can have conversations with them, when you have enough time. (Coral Gables) has been there in some incarnation, or another, for 100 years. That is the uniqueness of it. It's generational.”
Since its early days in the 1940s and 1950s, the spot has been responsible for spouses meeting, Sunday brunches, weddings, banquets, parties and more. During the 1950s, East Lansing was a dry town, making Coral Gables a popular spot for MSU students to socialize and dance.
Outside of its family and classic feel, the restaurant dons its Spartan school spirit proudly with collectables placed by its founder, Tom Johnson, and a more recent duck statue, a former homecoming float, dressed in an MSU shirt.
The vast musical history of the location can be seen by records like Woody Herman and Duke Ellington hanging prominently on the wall, and memories of Duke Ellington’s and Bob Seger’s performances are felt in the atmosphere.
“We served a lot of different community events, and people gathered here and met their friends here,” Vanis said. “It was a meeting place and I think that makes people have an emotional attachment to a restaurant.”
Vanis said the people you see are “the most important part of a restaurant,” along with the food, which was mostly made in-house.
Coral Gables boasted a large menu of Greek favorites, ribs, fish and soup. DeRath’s favorites are the sandwiches, such as the Hot Turkey or the Ham Club, although he said customers really like the pizza.
With some regulars sitting with a certain server all the time, they develop close relationships — some staff have even attended customers’ funerals. DeRath said that the regulars “affect all of us” and that he’s “lucky enough to interact with most everybody.”
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The last month at Coral Gables has been different for staff as everyone works full time ahead of the restaurant's closure, DeRath said.
“Most people who work in restaurants are from the island of misfit toys, and they find a family in a restaurant,” DeRath said. “And now it's kind of like, our family is getting split up and getting sent to different foster homes — and it’s sad. The people who come in there on a regular basis are extended family. And then you get, every once in a while, the crazy uncle that shows up. That's the beautiful part, everybody's welcome. We try to make sure that everybody feels like they have a place.”
Coral Gables also employed civil rights activist Malcolm X when he lived in Lansing. His daughter came back and visited the restaurant a couple of years ago, where DeRath got to speak with her about her father.
“Lansing is a cool place and it has a huge history,” DeRath said. “Sometimes I wish people took more time to get to know what it was, and Coral Gables plays a huge part in that as well.”
