Café Louie opens Halloween weekend in Bay City’s 1881 Lumberman’s State Bank, with a sidewalk coffee window cut from an old Linn Street opening

BAY CITY, Mich. — A 145-year-old bank building on Bay City’s Midland Street gets a new tenant this weekend. Café Louie, a neighborhood coffee shop on the garden level of the former Lumberman’s State Bank at 701 E. Midland St., holds its grand opening Saturday, Oct. 31, and Sunday, Nov. 1, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, Thumbwind reported. Regular hours begin Monday, Nov. 2.

The menu will feature espresso drinks, matcha, teas, pastries, quiche and other light food.

The building. The firm Watkins, Hidden and Arnold built the bank in 1881 at the corner of Midland and North Linn streets, during Bay City’s lumber boom. City historic records say lumberman Spencer O. Fisher kept private offices on the garden level, the same floor the café now uses, while Lumberman’s State Bank and its vaults filled the first and second floors. The two-and-a-half-story building has stone-outlined windows with arched brick, decorative cornices and a stone parapet.

What the city approved. Owner Stephen Stoddard, who runs Lumberman’s Mercantile in the building, received a certificate of appropriateness from the Bay City Historic District Commission on Aug. 26, MLive reported. The approved work removes window air conditioners added long after the building was built, restores clear-glass transom windows, puts the original screen door back in place and adds traditional lantern lights at the entrance.

The most visible change is a walk-up coffee window on Linn Street. Instead of cutting a new hole in the historic brick, the plan converts an existing window opening at sidewalk level, leaving the masonry as it is. Because the café’s main entrance is below street level, the window also gives customers who have trouble with stairs a way to order, Thumbwind noted.

“We’re excited to continue revitalizing our building on Midland Street, with the goal of improving the district while preserving an important piece of Bay City’s history,” Stoddard told MLive in August.

Why it matters. The project is a privately funded reuse of a protected 19th-century building in the Midland Street Historic District, by owners who already operate a shop there, rather than a new storefront built from scratch.

Café Louie is at 701 E. Midland St. Shoppers heading downtown for Halloween weekend can stop by during the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. grand-opening hours on Saturday and Sunday.

Sources:
Thumbwind, “Café Louie Opens in Historic 1881 Bay City Bank Building,” Oct. 28, 2026 (grand opening dates and hours, menu, regular hours, garden level, service window, accessibility), https://thumbwind.com/2026/10/28/cafe-louie-opens-in-bay-city/
MLive, “Historic Bay City bank building to get coffee shop, restoration work,” September 2026 (Aug. 26 certificate of appropriateness, approved work, 1881 builders, Fisher offices, Stoddard quote), https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2026/09/historic-bay-city-bank-building-to-get-coffee-shop-restoration-work.html
Photo: WeaponizingArchitecture, “Midland Street Commercial District.jpg,” July 30, 2022, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-adjusted; derivative shared under the same license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Midland_Street_Commercial_District.jpg

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Tags: Bay City · Café Louie · Midland Street · Small Business · Historic Preservation · Coffee