Glorioso’s, Parthenon planning expanded spaces
Cooking school in works on Brady St.
If you’re a lover of ethnic foods and a champion of Milwaukee’s reputation as an ethnic food mecca, it’s time to do a happy dance. Two longtime ethnic groceries are planning expansions.
On the east side, demolition has begun toward a renovation of the original Glorioso’s Italian foods store at 1020 E. Brady St., across the street from its present, 6-year-old location.
And in West Allis, Parthenon Foods, a European grocery at 9131 W. Cleveland Ave., is close to opening a second, larger store at 8415 W. Greenfield Ave.
According to Glorioso’s general manager Michael Glorioso, renovating the original space was always the plan, once the store relocated to more spacious quarters at 1011 E. Brady St. in December 2010.
“Waiting has allowed us to grow into our new store,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we got everything here as good as we could before moving forward.
“It’s really two projects — inside and outside,” he continued. The facades of the two adjacent buildings, one built in 1927 and the other earlier, will be restored as closely as possible to how they looked when they were built, he said.
But of more interest to food lovers are the plans for the interior. They include a cooking school, an event space and a large commercial kitchen to help meet demand at the store and allow the business to expand its catering operation.
The cooking school will host everything from hands-on and demonstration classes for the public to private birthday parties and team building events, Glorioso said. Classes could be taught by store employees or guest chefs.
“Customers tell us this is what they want,” said Glorioso, who is the son of store coowners Ted and Rosemary Glorioso. “They want to learn how to make our Italian specialties, they want to be educated.”
While Italian food “certainly is our focus and our niche ... I see (the school and event space) as providing a platform for other people who may have a need for the space, too,” he said. “Maybe it’s an organic gardening class in the summer or a nutritionist coming from the university to talk about healthy eating.
“I do see other food and beverage opportunities that
aren’t necessarily Italian. We have a wonderful foodie town.”
Of course, the hope is that after a class, the students will hop across the street to purchase the ingredients they need to try their new skills at home.
The store — according to Glorioso, Wisconsin’s largest Italian grocery store and its oldest, at 71 — also has evolved into a “destination location.”
“We have busloads of people being brought here from Chicago, northern Wisconsin, Rockville, Indiana. They come up for a day. Milwaukee Food Tours and several others come here on a regular basis. We want to be able to enhance that experience for people.”
The new commercial kitchen will fill a pressing need. “The kitchens in the store were not designed for the type of volume we’re doing on certain items,” Glorioso said.
“We make hundreds of lasagnas at a time. The last time we made rice balls in a mass effort, we made 1,500 at a time. This was at the holidays, and we ran out.”
Glorioso said he hopes the new space will be ready to open sometime this summer. Meanwhile, they’re soliciting ideas for a name for the new school and event space, something that will “capture our ethnic and family feel.” Ideas can be emailed to marketing@ gloriosos.com.
Second store to open
Dan Sarandos, second-generation owner of Parthenon Foods, is hoping his new store — Parthenon Foods European Market — will be ready to open late next month.
The new store, kitty-corner from State Fair Park, will have about 5,000 square feet, twice the size of the current store.
The former office building has been undergoing “a complete remodel,” Sarandos said.
The stock will be similar to that of the Cleveland Ave. store, but there will be more of it, along with a larger deli and bakery area and more fresh fish and meat, Sarandos said.
In addition to offering more hot prepared foods, employees also will be making sandwiches to go using Boar’s Head deli meats.
Parthenon Foods was opened in 1970 at 55th and Center streets by Sarandos’ father, Andrew, who immigrated here from Greece as a teenager.
The store moved to West Allis in 1992. It began as a Greek foods store but now carries foods from more than 40 countries, although “the focus is on Greece, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, France and Germany,” Sarandos said.
Among its specialty items are a vast selection of imported feta cheeses and olives, fresh lamb and fresh, neverfrozen phyllo doughs. Greek desserts such as baklava, diples, halva and kourambiethes are also popular.
This is the place you’ll find imported liquors (of course, ouzo), German chocolates you won’t find elsewhere, ingredients for old-time recipes such as baking ammonia, an array of ethnic sausages, Greek and Italian pastas and such readyto-eat specialties as stuffed grape leaves and frozen burek. Got a craving for imported German herring in mustard sauce or tomato sauce? You’ll find it here.
The new store is only about five miles from the present location but with easy freeway access, which Sarandos said he hopes will bring in new customers.
Parthenon Foods also has an extensive mail-order imported foods business at parthenon foods.com.