NM Cafe

The Department Store Dining Room, Reconsidered

There is a particular kind of lunch that happens in upscale department stores across America, and it has almost nothing to do with fashion. The third floor of a Neiman Marcus, with its white tablecloths and steady noon-hour hum, operates as a social institution in the cities where it appears. Troy, Michigan is not exempt from this pattern. NM Cafe, located on the third level of the Somerset Collection at 2705 W Big Beaver Road, occupies that precise role in the northern Detroit suburbs: a dining room where the ritual of the meal matters as much as what arrives on the plate.

The Somerset Collection itself is among the stronger retail anchors in Southeast Michigan, drawing shoppers from Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and the broader Oakland County corridor. That geography matters when you consider who fills the dining room at midday. These are not diners who stumbled in from the street; they are regulars with a route, people for whom a stop at NM Cafe is woven into a specific kind of afternoon. The loyalty that builds in this format is less about novelty and more about reliability — the assurance that the room will feel the same, the service will track familiar patterns, and the menu will reward the same decisions made the last three visits.

What Keeps Regulars Returning

The American department store cafe tradition, which traces through Neiman Marcus locations from Dallas to San Francisco, has always traded on a specific kind of comfort. The format is not trying to compete with destination restaurants; it is offering something those restaurants rarely provide — a low-friction, high-consistency experience in a context where the diner is already committed to being in the building. In that respect, NM Cafe in Troy operates within a well-defined niche. Regulars return because the room delivers on its implicit contract: a dependable midday option with enough quality to justify the detour from the retail floor.

That loyalty is reinforced by the dining room's position relative to its immediate surroundings. Along the Big Beaver Road corridor, Troy has developed a diverse set of restaurant options across several price points and cuisines. Ashoka Indian Cuisine and Orchid Cafe serve distinct ethnic dining traditions, while Mon Jin Lau has held a longer-standing position in the local dining memory. Grand Tavern and Kona Grill occupy a more casual-upscale register. NM Cafe does not directly compete with any of them, because its audience is already inside the building. The competitive set is less about geography and more about occasion.

The Broader Context: Department Store Dining in America

It is worth placing the NM Cafe format within its national context, because the department store dining room has proven more durable than most observers predicted. As mid-tier retail collapsed through the 2010s, the higher end of the market maintained its in-store dining as a retention tool , a reason for customers to extend their visit, slow down, and return. Neiman Marcus locations with functioning cafes consistently outperform those without on dwell time metrics, which is why the format survived while fast-food court options in comparable malls contracted.

This is a very different dining proposition from the kind of destination-driven experience you find at Le Bernardin in New York City, Alinea in Chicago, or The French Laundry in Napa. Those rooms ask the diner to organize their day around the reservation. NM Cafe asks only that the diner already be at the mall. The bar is different, and so is the reward. Venues like Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown, Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, or Lazy Bear in San Francisco operate on the premise that the meal is the event. NM Cafe operates on the premise that the meal enhances an event already in progress.

That distinction is not a criticism. Rooms like Providence in Los Angeles, Addison in San Diego, Atomix in New York City, or The Inn at Little Washington serve a genuinely different appetite. The diner who arrives at NM Cafe on a Tuesday afternoon is not making the same kind of decision as someone who booked three months ahead for a tasting menu. Both decisions are legitimate; they simply reflect different needs on different days.

Troy's Dining Corridor and Where NM Cafe Fits

Troy's restaurant scene along and near Big Beaver Road has expanded steadily over the past decade, absorbing new openings in the fast-casual, ethnic dining, and casual-upscale tiers. What the corridor lacks is a large number of dining rooms that serve a fixed, time-specific ritual rather than a flexible drop-in audience. NM Cafe fills that gap for a particular demographic: the Oakland County shopper who builds lunch into a shopping afternoon as a matter of habit rather than occasion. For a fuller picture of what Troy's dining options look like across different formats and price points, see our full Troy restaurants guide.

Internationally, the department store cafe format has close cousins in the restaurant floors of London's Selfridges, Tokyo's department store basement dining halls, and the brasserie operations inside Galeries Lafayette in Paris. The American version, exemplified by Neiman Marcus locations, is more condensed and lunch-focused. 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong and Emeril's in New Orleans represent destination dining at a different scale entirely, but the principle of context-specific dining, where the room fits a particular moment in the day rather than demanding to be the whole day, connects them at a structural level.

Planning Your Visit

NM Cafe is located on level three of the Somerset Collection at 2705 W Big Beaver Road in Troy, Michigan 48084. The venue sits within the Neiman Marcus anchor of the mall, meaning access runs through the department store rather than from a standalone entrance. Given the Somerset Collection's position as a regional shopping destination, parking is generally available in the attached structure, and the midday window is the format's natural peak. Visitors planning to combine lunch with shopping are well-served by arriving before 12:30 to avoid the heaviest retail traffic through the store's common areas. Current hours, booking options, and menu specifics are leading confirmed directly through the Somerset Collection or Neiman Marcus Troy location, as these details are subject to operational updates.