Belgian Beer Abbey Comes to Royal Oak Monday

After nine successful years, Café Habana closed has its doors to make way for Monk, a Belgian Beer Abbey, which is set to open Monday.

“It wasn’t without hesitation that we closed Café Habana,” said David Ritchie, operating partner, Union Brewery, LLC. “Café Habana has always had very solid sales, but we decided to move forward with our plan to strengthen the Belgian theme that Bastone Brewery was built on.” 

Loyal Café Habana customers can look forward to future plans that include a new, bigger space elsewhere in Royal Oak.

In the meantime, newcomer Monk will offer a deep, rich monastery feel with wood that will reach 10 feet high along its walls. A lantern style lighting package will accentuate the natural color scheme.

Monk will follow a similar layout to Café Habana, but will feature new banquettes and tables. Other changes include: new doorways, an expanded kitchen, a new sit-down counter and flat screen TV’s. 

Seating capacity will remain the same inside, but Monk will add a new outdoor patio with 36 seats along Fifth Street.

Monk’s menu will offer unique chef-created burgers, mussels, frites, and waffle sandwiches. In addition to serving Bastone Brewery’s Belgian style craft beer, guests can expect an extensive bottled Belgian beer list as well as French wine selections. 

Monk, located at 109 E. Fifth St., will open every day at 4 p.m. for dinner only. A menu is attached to this article as a PDF.

Source: Monk press release