Holiday’s Restaurant

EXPERIENCE

Holiday’s Restaurant makes Friday evening a fish-dinner occasion on Ann Arbor’s west side. Its weekly all-you-can-eat special brings hand-dipped cod to the table, with potato and soup or salad alongside. The restaurant’s broader life is that of a neighborhood gathering place, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner on West Stadium Boulevard. Friday gives fish lovers a particular reason to come back.

This is a longstanding local restaurant rather than a place built around a buffet line. Local reporting was already marking its nineteenth anniversary in 2016, and the restaurant today remains a comfortable, familiar place to eat. Holiday’s is the kind of restaurant where the long-tenured, helpful staff and friendly ownership don’t go unnoticed. The appeal is the kind of ordinary restaurant outing that works for a family meal as readily as a catch-up with a friend.

In warmer weather, the garden patio adds something distinctive. Tables sit beneath a broad canopy beside the restaurant, with planting beds and pots around the paved dining area. Vegetables grow on site, bringing a little of the kitchen’s work into view. It gives the restaurant a greener face than its busy-road address might suggest.

The Friday special runs from late afternoon through dinner. Companions can order from the wider menu, while the all-you-can-eat diner stays with the cod. That keeps the choice simple without asking everyone at the table to want the same meal. It is a familiar Friday plan in a restaurant with plenty of neighborhood life around it.