Bocce inside a bar? Stone Mad, Pete Leneghan’s twist on an Emerald Isle pub, has been years in the making, and promises to give the Detroit Shoreway Neighborhood a taste of its Old World roots. Lee Chilcote
Pete Leneghan is not crazy.
Yes, he has spent three years and untold amounts of cash turning a century-old Detroit Shoreway neighborhood storefront into an Irish bar that he will call Stone Mad. And, yes, he has even installed a sunken bocce court inside it, but hear him out on this one.
“I just liked the location,” he says, leaning against the handcrafted walnut bar that will be ready for patrons in time for St. Patrick’s Day. “I remember playing soccer down here with my friends when I was a kid.”
Stone Mad is housed in an Old World-type storefront with the kind of large glass windows that seem to beckon passersby to stop in for a pint. The building, a bar for more than 100 years, was built as an Italian club (that’s where Leneghan’s bocce court fits in). A second-story bay window looks out over the front sidewalk, and a lot next door has been transformed into a stone patio (hence, the name).
