About Around Royal Oak

Royal Oak lost its newspaper on October 29, 2025, when the Daily Tribune closed its print and web editions after 123 years. This is an attempt at something to replace part of it — for Royal Oak and the towns that touch it.

What this is

Two things, deliberately. A guide to eating, drinking, and getting things done around Royal Oak — the part that should still be useful in two years. Andnews — what happened at city hall, what’s opening and closing, what’s actually changing — delivered once a week.

Coverage is Royal Oak, Ferndale, Berkley, Clawson, Oak Park, and Hazel Park. The brand is Royal Oak because that’s the name people actually search. The map is bigger than the city limits.

What this isn’t

It isn’t a directory generated from scraped listings by a company that has never been to Royal Oak. Several of those launched here recently. They list hundreds of businesses they’ve never seen, rank them by star average, and pad the pages with AI blurbs that could be about any city.

Locals review the places. We write some of them up. The average on a page is from people here, not from a scrape.Here's the methodology.

Who

Around Royal Oak is written and run by Nathaniel Fishel, who lives in Royal Oak.Get in touch — especially to correct something.