Luna Belle Takes on GrillFest: Hour Detroit’s Biggest Food & Beverage Competition

By Luna Belle

Some events are big. Some events are really big. Then there are events where you look around and realize you're standing shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the biggest names in Metro Detroit's food, beverage, hospitality, and media scene and think...

"Well, I guess we're playing with the big kids now."

That was me at Hour Detroit's GrillFest. And let me tell you—I was ready.

GrillFest is billed as Metro Detroit's premier summer food and drink festival, bringing together grilled food, beverage samples, live entertainment, marketplace vendors, and a whole lot of summer energy. The 2026 event took place at Eastern Market's Shed 5 in Detroit, with proceeds benefiting COTS Detroit, an organization working to help people experiencing homelessness.

More than 650 attendees came through, along with hundreds of vendors, food and beverage professionals, and some seriously impressive restaurants competing in the Best Bite competition. And somehow... I got invited.

This event came together because of a partnership between The Derby Bar and Two James Spirits.

And honestly? It was a match made in Detroit. Two James needed an eye-catching bar setup for the event. We needed the appropriate liquor license to participate. So when the opportunity came for Two James to partner with The Derby Bar as the beverage sponsor, everything just clicked.

Two James is a Detroit institution in its own right. Located in Corktown, Two James is Detroit's first licensed distillery since Prohibition and focuses on handmade spirits using locally sourced ingredients. Their story is deeply connected to family, community, creativity, and Detroit.

And me?

Well... I'm a vintage mobile bar with a little bit of Southern charm, a whole lot of personality, and a healthy appreciation for looking fabulous at parties. We were a pretty good pair.

Now, GrillFest didn't actually start until noon. But my day started much earlier. 8:30 AM on a Sunday @ Eastern Market. When you're serving beverages at a major food and drink festival, you don't just roll up five minutes before guests arrive and hope everything works out. We needed to be completely set up and ready for the 11:00 AM health department inspection.

So we arrived early. Very early. The team got to work unloading, positioning, stocking, organizing, polishing, connecting, checking, double-checking, and generally making sure I looked like the elegant little mobile bar that I am. And then came the inspection.

And guess what?

We passed.

Of course we did. I wasn't worried. Okay... Maybe I was a little worried. But I passed with flying colors and was ready for the crowd.

This was a milestone event for The Derby Bar. The largest event we've ever been part of.

GrillFest brought together dozens of food, drink, and marketplace vendors, with renowned restaurants competing for the title of Best Bite Champion. The event also featured beverage brands, live entertainment, and a huge crowd of food lovers. The 2026 competition offered more than $12,000 in prizes to participating chefs and restaurants.

And I'll be honest. When I first arrived, I looked around and thought...

"Are we sure we're supposed to be here?"

There were major brands. Established restaurants. Well-known chefs. Craft beverage companies. People who have been doing this a lot longer than I have. For a moment, I felt like the new girl. But then I remembered something.

We know what we're doing. The Derby Bar built me into more than just a mobile bar trailer. We create an experience, we obsess over the details, we care about presentation, we care about service, we care about how guests feel when they walk up to the bar, and when the doors opened, I think I proved that I belonged there.

Two James designed the cocktail menu specifically for the event, and every drink featured their spirits.

The menu included an incredible Espresso Martini made with coconut milk, a gin-based riff on a French 75, and their signature Old Fashioned featuring Buckthorn Bourbon.

Three cocktails. Three very different personalities, and apparently, several hundred people who wanted to try them.

The bartenders Johnathan and Niki from Two James were fantastic, and they were also pretty impressed with me. They commented on how functional my interior is, how much workspace we have, and how elegant the entire setup feels. Professional, quality, and perfect for their cocktails.

That's always fun to hear, because I may look like a vintage horse trailer on the outside, but inside? I've been designed to work. Everything has a place. The bar is built for service. The storage is carefully planned.

The equipment is positioned for efficiency, and the whole thing is designed to keep bartenders moving instead of bumping into one another.

From the moment GrillFest got rolling, my bar was busy. And I mean busy. There was a line almost constantly. But here's the funny thing, it never became a huge, frustrating line.

Guests would walk up order a cocktail, get served and move along. It was this continuous flow of people. Hundreds and hundreds of guests came through. Drink after drink after drink. And I never really got a break. Which is my version of cardio. At one point, there was even a small line of people waiting to talk to The Derby Bar team rather than waiting for drinks.

That's when Anna, Ray, Audrey, and Brad knew they had better be ready to talk business. Because people weren't just asking about the cocktails. They were asking:

"Can I hire you?"

"Do you do weddings?"

"Can Luna come to my party?"

"How much does this cost?"

And suddenly we were networking. I knew I looked good. GrillFest confirmed something I've learned at weddings, graduations, corporate events, and private parties: People are drawn to me. I became a massive guest attraction. People stopped to take pictures, some people asked questions, people wanted to see the inside. Others talked about the design and compared with the other vendor setups around us, I stood out.

Not because I was the biggest. Not because I was the loudest. But because I was different.

I was cozy. Elegant. Inviting. And a little unexpected. At an event packed with food trucks, restaurants, beverage brands, and elaborate vendor displays, being a vintage mobile bar gave me something most of them didn't have. Personality.

GrillFest officially ran from noon until 4 PM. Four hours that's it. But when you're constantly serving drinks, talking to guests, answering questions, meeting vendors, and trying to keep up with the crowd, time moves differently. I swear it felt like about 30 minutes. Then suddenly...It was over.

The crowd disappeared, the music wound down, the grills masters stopped competing. The cocktail orders stopped coming. and the Derby Bar team collectively looked at one another like:

"Did that just happen?"

We were all exhausted. I was really exhausted

Looking back, GrillFest was more than just another event. It was a milestone. It was the first time The Derby Bar had stepped into an event of this scale. It was an opportunity to partner with an iconic Detroit craft distillery. It was a chance to work alongside some of the best restaurants, chefs, beverage brands, and vendors in Metro Detroit, and it was proof that The Derby Bar belongs in that conversation. I'm proud of what we built. I'm proud of how we showed up, and I'm especially proud that when hundreds of people walked through Eastern Market looking for great food and drinks, they kept finding their way back to me.

So thank you to Hour Detroit for putting on an incredible event. Thank you to Two James Spirits for trusting The Derby Bar to be your beverage partner.

And thank you to every single person who stopped by, grabbed a cocktail, complimented my looks, asked about bringing me to your next event, or simply stood there for a minute and admired the view.

I may have arrived at GrillFest wondering if I belonged. I left knowing one thing:

Luna Belle can hang. And she looks damn good doing it.

Until the next big one,

Luna Belle 🐴🍸🔥✨

Host: Hour Detroit

Event: Grill Fest 2026

Bar Services: The Derby Bar

Alcohol Provider: Two James Spirits

Venue: Eastern Market Detroit

The Derby Bar provides luxury mobile bar service, corporate event bartending, beverage sponsorship activations, signature cocktail service, and elevated mobile bar experiences throughout Metro Detroit, Detroit, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Northville, Novi, and Southeast Michigan.