DETROIT

HOW much good can a restaurant do?

In this city, a much-heralded emblem of industrial-age decline, and home to a cripplingly bad economy, a troubled school system, racial segregation and sometimes unheeded crime, there is one place where most everyone  black, white, poor, rich, urban, not  will invariably recommend you eat: Slows Bar B Q.

Slows opened in 2005 at the edge of downtown Detroit, in Corktown, across from the long-abandoned central train station, itself a symbol of widespread blight. Hidden behind a stylish wooden door with no discernible handle, it has become a beacon, drawing longtime Detroiters, newly arrived young people and scores of suburbanites, who wait for hours to sample the pulled pork and dry-smoked ribs and coo over the upcycled design. The restaurant and its sleek décor were dreamed up by one of Slows’ owners, Phillip Cooley, who has emerged as a de facto spokesman for the now-hip revitalization of this city.

“Before Slows was built, generally speaking people came into the city for hockey games, ball games and to see the ‘Sesame Street Spectacular,’ ” said Toby Barlow, Detroit’s other de facto spokesman. Mr. Cooley, he said, has “validated the idea that people will come into the city.”

Anywhere but Detroit, the notion that people will show up and pay money for barbecue and beer would not be seen as revolutionary. But destination restaurants are still rare enough inside the city limits that Slows was a notable success. Few have taken it as an exact blueprint  the mix of things that make it work are hard to copy  but it has helped change the reputation of a city where a night on the town used to offer mostly the wrong kind of thrills.