Detroit chef Will Branch is taking his dim sum smokehouse idea on the road before it lands in Ferndale next summer, rolling out a series of ticketed pop-ups across metro Detroit under the Paper Sons banner. The events are billed as sneak peeks at a menu built around smoke, live fire, dim sum and Chinese American barbecue.
Preview Dinners And Dates
One of the first big looks comes July 28 with a one-night "Friendly Fire x Paper Sons" guest-chef dinner at Puma in Detroit, priced at about $95 a ticket. OpenTable lists the night as a multi-course, fire-driven menu that runs from smoked dim sum straight through to a whole-pig roast. The booking page also confirms Puma's address at 4725 16th Street and notes that guests have to prepay to lock in a seat.
According to The Detroit News, Paper Sons is using a string of these pop-ups to introduce Detroit diners to its version of Chinese American barbecue before a full restaurant opens in Ferndale. The outlet reports that the events are part of the build-up to the brick-and-mortar debut and a way to test-drive dishes in front of live audiences.
Where Paper Sons Would Open
Paper Sons describes the project as a dim sum smokehouse celebrating Chinese-American flavors, and its events calendar shows the team promoting both ticketed dinners and an events venue called The Breezeway. The calendar lists The Breezeway as "Launching in 2026" and places the project near the I-696 corridor between Ferndale and Royal Oak.
Ferndale planning documents and meeting notes point to a proposed restaurant space at 660 E. 10 Mile Road in the Iron Ridge district, where the planning commission recommended conditional rezoning and site-plan approval late last year. CitizenPortal summarizes the commission discussion, noting that Will Branch was named as the proposed operator and that brownfield remediation work has already taken place on the property.
Chef Background And Local Context
Branch is a familiar name in Detroit food circles thanks to Corridor Sausage Co., the artisanal meat business he co-founded, and his long-running presence in Eastern Market, where his work focuses on craft butchery and smoke. Model D and other local profiles underline his years in the city’s food scene, which helps explain Paper Sons' emphasis on technique and whole-animal cooking.
If Paper Sons follows through on its Ferndale plans, it will bring a very specific kind of flame-kissed, heritage-driven cooking to the evolving Iron Ridge district, continuing a regional trend of chefs blending cultural roots with live-fire techniques. Around metro Detroit, pop-ups have become a go-to way for chefs to build buzz and gather feedback before committing to full-scale openings. Metro Times has tracked Branch's trajectory from sausage maker to would-be restaurant operator, and Paper Sons' upcoming dates give locals a chance to taste what he has planned before any permanent sign goes up on 10 Mile.
