Delicious Surprise in Delton 

Tujax Tavern’s bright red roof begs for your attention as you drive down the main street of downtown Delton, a rural community 20 miles northeast of Kalamazoo. But once you enter the eatery, it’s the menu that’ll get you.  

Through the tavern’s red door, you’ll encounter a distinct bar-like atmosphere but with a twist: no clinging smell of deep-fryer oil or sports on every TV. Instead, the tavern boasts chefs with the French titles of chef de patisserie and chef de cuisine and a menu with local, seasonal and ethnic cuisine. 

Surprised? “That was the plan,” says Tujax Tavern owner and co-founder Jack Nadwornik. 

In  1984, Nadwornik and his late father, also named Jack, purchased the area’s local watering hole, J&B Tavern. “I was hoping to get my dad out of a factory, doing mandatory overtime seven days a week,” says Nadwornik, who had six years’ experience in the restaurant business when they purchased the tavern. The tavern’s 180-year-old building was originally the Delton Hotel when Delton was a stagecoach stop and a gateway to the dozens of inland lakeside resorts that once peppered the area. 

 Putting a twist on their own first names, the Nadworniks dubbed their new venture Tujax Tavern.

“My original plan was to be here for five years,” says Nadwornik. “When we bought it, it was only burgers and we added pizza. My dad would make pizzas with me and then he started making bread, cookies, baked goods, but he never even poured a beer up front.” 

As the old adage goes, life happens when you’re busy making plans: “My five years turned into 41,” says Nadwornik, whose father died in 2010.

From 1991 to 2003, Nadwornik worked in Chicago during the week selling ostrich meat and spent his weekends back in Delton running Tujax Tavern. Selling exotic bird meat introduced him to the French kitchens of Chicago and ignited a fire and passion in him. 

“I had been waiting for someone to open something different here in Delton, and it was apparent nobody was going to do it,” he says. 

It was then that Nadwornik decided to morph the local pizza-and-burger joint into something different and unexpected. 

“People in the area thought we were crazy,” he admits.

Nadwornik created a full kitchen and started hiring staff to fulfill his vision of creating a tavern that is the complete antithesis of the American bar scene. 

“Ninety-five percent of our first-time customers say, ‘We were not expecting this. This is totally off the wall,’” says Chef de Patisserie Mark Mesaros, who has been at Tujax Tavern for more than a decade. “The walleye dinner and the crostini and the house-made crab cakes. Simple things, but not found at a tavern.” 

Adding a chef de cuisine

The classically trained Mesaros came to Tujax Tavern having had a 45-year-career in high-end restaurants and resorts throughout the Great Lakes region. He had studied in pastry schools and restaurants in cities like Chicago, Montreal and Paris, to name a few, to level up his baking and was working as a chef in Saugatuck when he responded to Nadwornik’s ad on Craigslist for chef de cuisine. 

He proudly held that title for a decade until Chef Hunter French emerged on the scene in 2023. Mesaros says he was able to gladly “step aside” and take the role of chef de patisserie, creating the breads and other baked items and desserts at the tavern. 

French’s  journey to Tujax was something of a homecoming, since he grew up in nearby Augusta. He studied at Johnson & Wales University, in Rhode Island, and his credentials include working under one of New Orleans’ top chefs and assisting with opening a brewery on the East Coast, in the hopes of “serving up brewery food, but more elevated.” 

French has been able to bring this elevated style to Tujax Tavern. He can detail every ingredient’s source and demonstrates unabashed passion for developing intricate menu items such as “deconstructed Beef Wellington,” Connecticut-style lobster rolls, a best-selling ahi tuna, and an herb-encrusted lamb.

“We rotate and base our menu off the local farmers market, what produce is in season,” explains French. “We work with a local food source and let him know what we are looking for. He works with the local Amish community, and we even have a ‘mushroom guy’ in Grand Rapids. 

“We have our standard bar menu, but we change a lot of our stuff daily.” 

For example, asparagus pizza makes a cameo appearance every spring. “Once we can’t get Michigan asparagus anymore, asparagus pizza is off the menu,” says Nadwornik.  

Nostalgia and whimsy

Always inspired to try different things, Nadwornik about five years ago began to include mysterious and unattributed lyrics to ‘60s and ‘70s songs in social media posts about the tavern’s daily specials.

“You’d be surprised how many people show up and want to know what song it is,” he says. “They haven’t looked it up online, and it serves as a hook to get people’s attention and get them to come in.” 

When they do come in, they can expect to see a bit of whimsy but no longer a playable shuffleboard table. That  was upcycled into several two-seater tables, each secured to the wall. “The whole board is still here in the bar, just not in one piece,” notes Nadwornik.  

While sitting at a former shuffleboard or another table, patrons can also imbibe the tavern’s own specialty hard seltzers and seasonal beers, made onsite by Chef French, who also holds a minor in craft brewing. 

After 41 years, Nadwornik still finds joy in his daily work. 

“Plenty of people in town thought that we would never be able to transform it from the biker-friendly local tavern to what it is now,” he says. “Exposing people to new foods that they may never otherwise have tried is exciting. We are introducing different ethnic cuisine to the local community, like a couple of Indian curries, some ramen. People can come out and get something that’s not necessarily just American fare but something that’s really good and homemade.”