Classic Restaurants of Milwaukee

By Jennifer Billock

Milwaukee may be known for beer, brats and custard, but the city's food history is even richer and tastier. At the Public Natatorium, diners supped at an old public pool and watched a dolphin show at the same time. Solly's, Oriental Drugs and others nurtured a thriving lunch counter culture that all ages enjoyed. Supper clubs and steakhouses like Five O'Clock reigned supreme. And we can't forget about the more illicit side of Milwaukee meals, like the mafia hangouts and a local fast-food chain with a mysterious resemblance to a national brand. Pairing the history of classic restaurants with recipes of favorite dishes, author Jennifer Billock explores both the well-known and the quirkier sides of Milwaukee's dining past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781439671665

Jennifer Billock

Jennifer Billock is an award-winning writer, bestselling author, editor and owner of the boutique editorial firm Jennifer Billock Creative Services. She has worked with businesses and publishers, including the Smithsonian, the New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Disney Books, The Atlantic, Kraft Foods, Midwest Living, Arcadia Publishing and the MSU Press. She is currently dreaming of an around-the-world trip with her Boston terrier. Check out her website at www.jenniferbillock.com and follow her on Twitter @jenniferbillock.

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Introduction

If you ask anyone who knows Milwaukee what best defines the food scene, you’re likely to get a singular answer: German food. And this answer comes with good reason. Germans began immigrating to Wisconsin en masse in the 1840s. The state was new, and newcomers to the United States had heard of this town called Milwaukee, a boom town for immigrants. Germans, in particular, came during that period because they were farmers in Europe and crop failures pushed them to move. And in 1848, amid failed calls for Germany to unite democratically, people left the country to escape political persecution and because they no longer had faith that things would get better at home.

They congregated in the city, mostly planning to stay for a bit and then go buy a farm in Wisconsin’s fertile landscape, but they loved that there was a large group of people from their homeland in the city. Many chose to stay where they could converse in their own language and congregate in a community they were comfortable with. By 1880, 27 percent of Milwaukee was German. They opened restaurants and ran businesses, expertly weaving themselves into the fabric of the city.

By then, other communities had heard of Milwaukee’s popularity and began coming over from Europe as well. As German numbers stabilized, the Italians, Irish, Scandinavians, Polish, Jewish and African American communities emerged in Milwaukee as well. Every community tended to congregate in its own neighborhood in the city, creating a miniature version of its world back home. They, too, opened restaurants and ran businesses, and by the end of the 1800s, Milwaukee was incredibly diverse in both population and cuisine.

With the influx of immigrants from predominantly Catholic countries, a new food tradition was introduced to Wisconsin, and it instantly took hold and became an enduring part of life in Milwaukee: Friday fish fries. The immigrants—who were, at that point, mostly German, Irish and Norwegian—observed meatless Fridays. Local churches, which were the main gathering places for ethnic communities, wanted to make the Lenten requirement easier for residents. So, they began hosting fish fry dinners every Friday, serving fish with Old World favorites like potato pancakes, rye bread and coleslaw.

When Prohibition arrived, the taverns and bars that were hurting for business looked to the churches for inspiration. They instituted their own Friday fish fries to make up for lost income. And under the table, they may have sold some of a newly invented drink, the Wisconsin old fashioned. The taverns’ bootleg hooch was…not great. So, tavern owners enhanced the flavor of a standard old fashioned by adding muddled fruit, lemon-lime soda and more sugar.

The Prohibition years solidified these traditions in Milwaukee culture. When it ended, everyone still went to local taverns and restaurants to get their plates of fish and potatoes, and since booze could legally be sold then (and everyone had a taste for the doctored-up cocktail), they also ordered Wisconsin old fashioneds. It’s a hard-and-fast ritual in Milwaukee now. On Fridays, your friends don’t ask where you’re going to dinner; they ask where you’re going for fish fry.

At the same time that Prohibition ended and fish fries really took hold, another Milwaukee tradition emerged: the supper club. Coincidentally, the first supper club in the country opened in California in the 1930s—by a Milwaukeean. Now, they’re almost an exclusively Midwest phenomenon. If fish fries were a reason to socialize and have great food with friends in a tight community, supper clubs pushed that to an even higher degree. Now, you could have your fish fry—or steak or broiled fish—every night of the week, and you could also get live music, a dance floor and an even larger community of like-minded people. You could get dressed up in your best clothes. You could order expensive food. You could enjoy great entertainment. And you could do it all with a newly relegalized drink in your hand.

But drinks or no drinks, fish or no fish, Milwaukeeans have always loved to dine out. The city’s robust and varied dining scene has endured, keeping traditions of those original immigrants alive for generations—and welcoming new classic spots with more modern, Americanized food. The restaurants in this book have all held special places in Milwaukee’s heart, whether it was for just a few years or for more than a century. These time-honored classics were all beloved and have never been forgotten.

PART I

BREAKFAST

1

Coffeeshops and Breakfast Spots

Milwaukeeans love breakfast, brunch and coffee—and they especially love it when those things can extend throughout the day. So, even though these spots are essentially considered coffeeshops or great places for breakfast, locals have enjoyed them for longer hours and with much more varied menus than traditional breakfast restaurants around the country.

CAFÉ AT THE PLAZA

Though this could also be considered a lunch counter restaurant, the Café at the Plaza is known around the city for one main thing: breakfast—and delicious breakfast at that. The pancakes are legendary, particularly the lemon poppy seed ones with homemade blueberry syrup (you can find this recipe later in the book).

When the café opened along with the Plaza Hotel in 1925, it wasn’t actually a café. It started as a tearoom designed for women to entertain guests in because, at the time, they weren’t allowed to have guests up in their own rooms. That strict sense of morality was in line with national sentiment at the time as well. Prohibition was well underway, and tearooms were increasing in popularity as alternatives to bars.

The Café at the Plaza opened in 1925 as a tearoom in the Plaza Hotel. Courtesy of the Plaza.

The Café at the Plaza has the original bar stools from a 1950 remodel of the space. Courtesy of the Plaza.

Contrary to what their name suggests, tearooms didn’t necessarily revolve around tea, the beverage, nor tea, the repast, Jan Whitaker wrote in her book Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America.

In the beginning, some tearooms did serve only one meal, afternoon tea, which did indeed feature the beverage tea. These establishments could not make enough money on afternoon teas alone; Americans simply weren’t all that devoted to drinking tea or taking an afternoon break. Indeed, American tearooms were in fact small restaurants, serving mainly lunch and, secondarily, dinner.

During World War II, the tearoom was repurposed. Cots were added for soldiers who needed rest as they traveled through Milwaukee, and it became one of Milwaukee’s first official bomb shelters. The main lunch counter and stools were added in 1950, when the space was remodeled into the small café it is now.

Today, the café retains most of its art deco charms, as well as some of the original recipes and the original lunch counter and stools. If you go there on a warm day, you can get a seat in the Secret Garden—the restaurant’s outdoor patio between the two hotel buildings. The walls are covered in ivy, and sometimes, the sky shimmers with twinkle lights, bringing another layer of magic to the delicious food.

COFFEE TRADER

Coffee is a big part of breakfast, but the Coffee Trader was so much more than both coffee and breakfast. The coffeeshop-slash-restaurant-slash-bar-slash-hangout-spot first opened as a true coffeeshop—it sold only beans out of a storefront. In 1975, that storefront expanded into a full dining establishment on Downer Avenue in the East Side neighborhood.

This was before Starbucks and independent coffeeshops made it to Milwaukee. According to legend, the Coffee Trader had the first espresso machine in Milwaukee. It instantly became a neighborhood hangout and a revolving door of employment for young locals, mostly students. Everyone on staff was the same age when I started, but they studied and went on and I stayed and a whole new generation of employees came in, said former longtime employee Mary Beatty to www.OnMilwaukee.com. It was hard. I became the ‘mom.’ Some of the kids had never been on their own. Oy vey. I used to work with a manager who asked in the interview who was paying for college. If mom and dad paid, they were useless; they just needed party money. If they were paying for their college themselves, they really worked.

Local artist Kyran O’Brien created this artwork for Coffee Trader’s promotional T-shirts. Courtesy of Kyran O’Brien.

This poster, created by Kyran O’Brien, advertised a Mardi Gras–themed party at the Coffee Trader. Courtesy of Kyran O’Brien.

The Coffee Trader held a celebration for the 300th anniversary of the Vienna Coffeehouse in Austria. Kyran O’Brien designed this poster. Courtesy of Kyran O’Brien.

People flocked here for specialty coffee drinks; a menu of breakfast foods, salads, burgers, sandwiches and desserts; a chill atmosphere; and intelligent conversation. It was the biggest hot spot of Generation X counterculture in the city, and it was the place to be seen in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s Milwaukee. You could linger for hours, gabbing over coffee, and no one would ever kick you out. Even celebrities, including comedian Robin Williams, would flock to the Coffee Trader when they were in town.

Even though it was popular, the Coffee Trader’s business eventually slowed and it closed in the late 1990s. Regulars acknowledged that the food wasn’t all that great and that service was terrible. Employees never stayed long. But for now, everyone can still gather, in their own way; employees and regular customers reminisce on a Facebook page called I Remember The Coffee Trader on Downer Avenue in Milwaukee! It carries the laid-back vibes into the digital era.

HEINEMANN’S

While also open for lunch and dinner, Heinemann’s was mostly known as a great spot for breakfast. The company didn’t start out that way, though. Byron Heinemann opened the very first location at 730 North Milwaukee Street in 1923—as a candy shop. It was all working out fine until the 1950s, when Heinemann’s son-in-law, Thomas Burns, joined the company and introduced tables and tea sandwiches. With that change, the Heinemann’s restaurant chain was born.

The focus of the candy shop changed to baked goods and meals, introducing a full menu including the famous grilled coffee cake, baked oatmeal, burgers, meatloaf and the Heinemann’s breakfast special: three scrambled eggs with chopped ham, toast and homemade jam. Burns became president of the company in 1962 and continued to expand, opening eleven restaurants throughout the city and suburbs in Heinemann’s heyday.

Everything at the restaurants was made from scratch. Burns was so dedicated to the idea that even the wheat for wheat bread was stone-ground in the commissary, a location that was opened to handle many of the specialized menu items.

Though popular, the restaurant chain wasn’t without controversy. Around 1930, part of the restaurant at 102 East Wisconsin Avenue was designated as the Men’s Grill. Women were not allowed to sit there; the restaurant insisted it was because businessmen needed special service so they could get back to work quickly during lunch breaks. By the late 1960s, about 85 percent of that location’s clientele were women—and they were not happy about the segregation. Multiple sit-ins and protests at the Men’s Grill were staged by locals, both women and men, but Burns stood his ground, declaring, We shall not be moved. This is the men’s last refuge. There is plenty of room for women in the other room. This is [a] sanctuary for men.

But modern society (and a judge, thanks to a lawsuit started by several women) properly saw different. Federal Judge John W. Reynolds legally enforced integration of the grill at the end of 1975, noting in his ruling that judicial recognition of the evolving status of women means that Heinemann’s implied premise that there are no business or professional women identically situated to male customers is simply fantasy. The singed Burns, in his indignance, installed a plaque in response to the integration: Over five million male customers have been served in the Men’s Grill.

Ultimately, too much competition and a bad economy took Heinemann’s under. In 1993, the first location closed, and then they dropped off steadily after that. Loyal customers chased the chain around the city and suburbs, going to whichever still-open location was closest to get the grilled coffee cake and other breakfast favorites. In 2009, only three locations remained, and they all closed at the same time, without notice. Customers were shocked; 115 people lost their jobs.

I was here for breakfast yesterday, and they didn’t say anything about closing, regular diner Vera Pina told the Journal Sentinel when the chain shut down. They always had wonderful people working for them, and I wonder what they’re going to do now. And I don’t know what we’re going to do without them.

2

Bakeries

Any good Milwaukee bakery worth its salt (or sugar) will have three staple items: crullers, paczki and hot ham with hard rolls. They’re Milwaukee tradition—items locals remember getting for decades, like their parents and their grandparents did.

Crullers in Milwaukee are far from the traditional airy and round French crullers many people know. The city has its own style: a dense, cake-like, long and straight donut. The recipe is a mixture of German and Dutch versions, and it became popular with the influx of German immigrants in the 1800s. Milwaukee-style crullers are deep-fried and glazed, crunchy and slightly darker on the outside than you’d expect, and they must have a burst on the side where the dough split open a little. The inside is soft and practically melts in your mouth. And generally, you dunk them in coffee. That much, at least, locals can agree on. Pronunciation is another beast altogether. How you say cruller is hotly contested around Milwaukee. It either sounds like crawler or cruhler.

Paczki (pronounced pawnch-key) is actually a Catholic Polish tradition. Back in the Middle Ages, the jelly-filled fried dough creations were made the Thursday before Lent (in Poland, they call it Fat Thursday) to use up the leftover fats, butter and eggs before starting to fast for the Lenten season. When Polish