Machus Red Fox

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Machus Red Fox was a restaurant on Telegraph Road, near the affluent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. It is perhaps most famous as the place where former Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975.

Harris Machus, already a successful restaurateur, opened Machus Red Fox in 1965. It was the crown jewel among Machus Enterprises' chain of restaurants and bakeries. Noted for providing a fine dining experience, the 270-seat restaurant was decorated in an English country, hunt-club motif, rich in red velvet with dimly lit booths. Machus Red Fox closed in 1996 and an Italian restaurant, Andiamo, is now located in its place. Harris Machus died in January 2001.

[edit] Jimmy Hoffa

While many wealthy and socially elite chose Machus Red Fox for their dinner venue, Jimmy Hoffa was perhaps the restaurant's most regular celebrity patron. The restaurant hosted the wedding reception for Hoffa's son, James Hoffa Jr.

Despite Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance from the Machus Red Fox parking lot and Harris Machus's concern for the restaurant's reputation due to the ensuing publicity, patronage flourished, perhaps as much from morbid curiosity as for the cuisine. Customers would jokingly ask the manager if he's seen Jimmy Hoffa lately, to which one of the managers would reply, "No, but I wouldn't eat the Hoffa burger."

After the disappearance of Hoffa in 1975, the FBI set up an office in the basement banquet rooms for several days.

[edit] External links

Yockel, Michael Come Back to the Red Fox, Jimmy Hoffa, Jimmy Hoffa NY Press, v. 14, iss. 6 February 2001 [1]