Dance and dine at the Cow Shed

I was looking through my collection of restaurant menus, when I spotted the Cow Shed and remembered that I had always wondered about that name. Was there really once a genuine cow shed in the middle of Detroit that it was commemorating? [Above, 1935 menu cover]

I discovered that it was a night club that had opened in 1933 in an unoccupied building that had long housed a fire station. No cows. So I wondered why the proprietors didn’t choose a name associated with that rather than calling it the Cow Shed, a name I find odd and not that appealing. [Above: 1930s postcard]

But I never found the answer to that question.

Along with dinners, the club offered entertainment with music by the Cow Shed Rascals and other bands, floor shows, and singing waiters. Patrons could spend the entire night dancing if they so desired. [Above: 1938 advertisement]

It also served dinners. Its menu was lengthy, filled with many dinner choices such as Broiled Spring Chicken with fries, salad, rolls and butter for 75c, or Sirloin Steak with the same accompaniments for 60c. Most full dinners cost from a dollar to $1.50, and also included Whitefish, Leg of Veal, Frog Legs, Scallops, and Pork Chops. Guests who weren’t very hungry could choose from a long list of sandwiches.

It had a few bumps in its history.

About a year after the club opened, two men and a woman threw a stench bomb from the Shed’s balcony, sending 100 patrons fleeing. The manager was at a loss to explain it, claiming the club had no labor troubles. This was at the same time that Chicago, for instance, experienced many such incidents, with restaurant and club owners always saying they had no idea what it could be about. In reality, as they knew, it was a threat to make them force their employees to join (fake) labor unions run by mobsters who pocketed the dues.

The Cow Shed was sometimes in trouble for serving people who had already swallowed way too much booze. It also had other problems with the law. Despite stating on the back of one of their menus that “We Positively Do Not Permit Cross Table Dancing at Any Time,” in 1938 the club was fined for exactly that.

Cross-table dancing is an infraction that I had not heard of before, and I have not been able to find it in force anywhere but Detroit. It referred to single women asking men to dance, with the assumption that they were sex workers looking for customers.

Police also spotted the club’s manager directing the cigarette “girl” to sit next to a man at the bar. And they noted that about 80% of the women at the club were without escorts. The club was fined for cross-table dancing several times. It chose to pay a fine rather than have its license suspended for 10 days.

“Known from Coast to Coast”? Not so sure about that. The Cow Shed closed in 1941 and the building was torn down.

© Jan Whitaker, 2026