Studying in Burgundy pays off in Greendale
Jennifer Lyden, whose new Vintage 38 wine bar has opened in Greendale, came to love and learn about wine accidentally, while studying abroad as a college student in Dijon, in France’s Burgundy region.
“I basically started tasting with the best wines,” she said.
Back home in Los Angeles, she continued tasting and learning, visiting California’s wine country. Later, she moved to Wisconsin to raise her children; she bought a house in Greendale after becoming smitten with its downtown.
She decided to open the wine bar — she calls it a wine lounge, with its couch and other soft seating — on a whim.
“I wished I personally had a place (like this) to drink downtown” in Greendale, she said, and told herself, “I can keep on complaining that there’s not a spot, or I can make one.”
She quietly opened the door to the wine bar about a month ago at 5648 Broad St., in Greendale’s downtown shopping district. Vintage 38 now is keeping regular hours of 4 to 10 p.m. daily; Lyden expects to expand the hours in summer and add outdoor seating
She also plans to add seating inside; besides the couch and upholstered chairs, the lounge has 10 stools at the custom-made hickory bar. Chandeliers hang over part of the space; the walls serve as a gallery for works by Grafton artist Emiko Franzen.
Behind the bar, Lyden keeps about 30 wines on hand. Lyden said she seeks out “what I call wine done the right way — no shortcuts taken.”
Her focus is on Old World wines from small producers, but she also stocks bottles from California and other New World wineries. Most of the wines are biodynamic or organic.
“My devilish plan is to get people to drink good wine” and to expand their wine horizons, she said. If a customer usually drinks Chianti, for instance, Lyden might suggest a Montepulciano.
Every wine in stock is sold by the glass or the bottle (the bar doesn’t sell bottles retail). Lyden said she wants to serve higher-end wines at accessible prices; wines by the glass start at $7 and go to $12 for a Saint-Emilion Bordeaux.
Vintage 38 also has eight craft beers on tap, and it’s developing a menu of light small plates. For now, customers can order a cured meats and cheese plate that changes weekly, with selections from Bavette La Boucherie in Milwaukee’s Third Ward.
Vintage 38’s name is a reference both to wine and to Greendale, where the “greenbelt” homes developed by the federal government opened in 1938.
The lounge is on Facebook.
Tosa Benji’s project off
The Benji’s Deli that had been in the works for east Tosa since summer isn’t happening after all, but the owners are looking for another site.
“The scope of the project just got very bloated,” said Mike Price, who owns Benji’s Deli in Shorewood and Fox Point with his brother, Chris. “The costs were just immense to retrofit” the old building at 6606 W. North Ave.
The restaurant made public Feb. 25 on Facebook that the project was off. “We are disappointed to announce that we have to cancel our new location in East Tosa,” it said. The Wauwatosa restaurant initially was projected to open in March.
“We are truly humbled by the community response to our Deli and remain hopeful of opening a Benji’s Tosa in the future.”
Mike Price said, “We’re still interested in coming to Tosa; it’s just going to have to be very scaled-down.” He said a broker is helping them search for a new site.
Paul Hackbarth, the owner of Camp Bar at 6600 W. North Ave., also owns the building at 6606 W. North Ave. that was to house Benji’s. He wanted a restaurant next door to Camp Bar that would have supplied food for bar patrons by way of a pass-through between buildings.
“Both of us tried as hard as we could to make it happen,” Hackbarth said.
“The challenge of making a building of that age up to current restaurant code is a $1 million project,” he said. The building would have needed sprinklers installed and an entire kitchen put in, among other improvements.
Hackbarth held out hope that a different restaurant could fill the space next door to Camp Bar, but he said he wasn’t averse to leasing it to a retailer or using it to house his Sound by Design business, which shares a building with the original Camp Bar in Shorewood, 4044 N. Oakland Ave.
Sound by Design, which provides DJs and lighting for events, has grown 20% a year for the past five years, he said. “It’s just time to move,” he said.
If Sound by Design were to move, Camp Bar in Shorewood would expand into the space with a bigger party room as well as dartboards and pool tables, Hackbarth added.
Meanwhile, the third Camp Bar location, at 525 Menomonee St. in the Third Ward, is expected to open in April, he said. the craft beer and burger bar in Oconomowoc, rolls out weekend brunch Saturday. It will be served from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday.
The regular menu will be served, too, but the brunch menu might be hard to pass up. Some of the dishes: shrimp and smoked cheddarcauliflower grits ($10), coffeerubbed pork belly torta ($8.50), ramen with a softboiled egg ($9.50) and a Benedict burger ($9).
Crafty Cow will serve a half-dozen kinds of pancakes, including s’mores ($2.50 a pancake) and a build-your-own ($1 plus 50 cents or $1 a topping).
Brunch cocktails include a smoked Bloody Mary with sausage, cheese and other garnishes and alderwood smoke in a capped Mason jar ($16).
Crafty Cow is at 153 E. Wisconsin Ave. are $11 each: a 1-pound baked German pancake topped with powdered sugar and fruit, served with warm buttermilk syrup; farmer’s skillet of eggs with smoked bratwurst, potatoes, green pepper, onion and Muenster cheese; and the Official Munich Breakfast, three poached weisswurst with a half-liter of hefeweizen beer, a small pretzel and house mustard.
Eggs, bacon and other items are available a la carte.
Old German Beer Hall is at 1009 N. Old World 3rd St. Boulangerie at 4401 N. Oakland Ave. in Shorewood has expanded the menu for its Sunday brunch, served from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The brunch menu now has items such as house-cured corned beef hash with a fried egg and horseradish sauce ($12.50), bacon, aged cheddar, crisp onions, fried egg and smoked paprika aioli on baguette ($9.25) with salad or pommes Anna, and salade boulangerie ($9.50), marinated chicken, ham, Gruyere, tomato, cucumber and greens in herb vinaigrette, with baguette.
An