A corner spot on Midland's Main Street that once housed Tavern on Main has a new name, a new menu, and a new generation running the floor. O's Mid & Main opened its doors on July 6 at 101 E. Main St., serving up prime ribeyes, hand-battered Nashville hot chicken, and house-made pastrami in a space the owners describe as an elevated sports-themed bar and restaurant.
The restaurant is the third venture for husband-and-wife owners Marc and Laura Owczarzak, who also operate O's Pub & Grill in Auburn and H2O's Waterside Grill in Bay City. According to MLive, O's Mid & Main is the first downtown restaurant the couple has operated, folding favorite dishes from both of their earlier restaurants into one new menu. Marc and Laura purchased the property on April 27, acquiring what had been Tavern on Main, a pub concept that had opened in early 2024 and undergone recent renovations before the sale, per What Now Detroit.
Running daily operations at the Midland location is Riley Granger, the 27-year-old daughter of Marc and Laura, who serves as general manager. The same MLive report notes that Granger has called the restaurant's first month amazing, telling the outlet the staff and the quality of the products are what set O's Mid & Main apart. Per Granger, the ribeye on the menu is the highest grade available in the country.
A Menu Built From Two Family Restaurants
The kitchen leans on recipes and ideas pulled from both O's Pub & Grill and H2O's Waterside Grill, blending them into a single lineup. Popular dishes include burgers and fries, a salmon street corn bowl, house-made pastrami, and the ribeye, alongside a Nashville hot chicken sandwich built with crispy hand-battered chicken, dill pickles, and a potato bun. The bar program backs up that food menu with handcrafted cocktails, wine, and 12 craft beers on tap, according to What Now Detroit, which also reports the owners kept the original bar layout from Tavern on Main while reworking the colors and interior motifs.
The restaurant offers both indoor and outdoor seating, giving diners a front-row view of downtown Midland's summer scene. Granger has said the restaurant hopes to give back to Midland as it settles into the neighborhood, with plans to be more involved in the community going forward.
A Family That Started With a Bar in Auburn
Marc Owczarzak's path to restaurant ownership did not start in a kitchen. He spent 17 years as a mechanical engineer at General Motors and another eight at Consumers Energy before leaving corporate engineering behind for hospitality full-time, according to Hey, Bay City!, which notes he earned his mechanical engineering degree from Michigan Tech. Laura Owczarzak holds a hospitality management degree from Northwood University, and the pair launched their business together in 2014 by purchasing the former Sportsman Bar in Auburn and converting it into O's Pub & Grill.
That flagship location built a reputation of its own well before the Midland expansion. In November 2022, regional culture outlet The Gander named O's Pub & Grill one of Michigan's top small-town burger spots, citing its house-ground USDA prime Black Angus burgers made from fresh 8-ounce patties ground daily. The Owczarzaks expanded a second time in June 2023, opening H2O's Waterside Grill along the Saginaw River in Bay City inside a revitalized waterfront building on East Midland Street, per the Review.
Downtown Perks: A Social District and a Car-Free Street
O's Mid & Main also lands in a stretch of downtown built for foot traffic. The restaurant sits within The Commons, a social district the Midland City Council established in March 2021 that lets patrons carry select to-go alcoholic beverages outdoors, a benefit open to all qualified downtown liquor license holders. It also sits directly on the Main Street Pedestrian Plaza, a seasonal closure that shuts the street to vehicles from June through September; the City Council voted unanimously in December 2024 to extend that closure through 2028.
Before Tavern on Main occupied the corner, the building was home for years to local restaurant Diamond Jim's, giving the address a long history as a downtown Midland dining destination. With college football season approaching, O's Mid & Main plans to show college and professional games on its screens and roll out game-day specials, pairing its sports-bar identity with ribeye steak dinners and cocktails for fans settling in downtown.
