Urban Beets expands
Dinnertime table service, brunch and happy hour all are coming soon to the expanded vegan cafe Urban Beets Cafe downtown.
Owner Dawn Balistreri opened the bigger dining room next door to the original and extended the restaurant’s hours about a month ago.
The tiny original cafe at 1401 N. King Drive opened in early 2016 with 15 seats and became a popular spot for lunch and for customers in search of fresh juices and smoothies, and coffee and bagels early in the morning.
Customers still order their food and drinks at the counter, but starting next week, the cafe will have table service after 5 p.m.
With the addition of beer and wine, Urban Beets also is adding happy hour in the coming weeks, intending to appeal to customers heading to Bucks games at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, five blocks away.
Urban Beets is adding appetizers such as nachos and a vegan take on crabcakes, and offering discounts on appetizers and drinks from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The bar has craft beers, including two on tap, and organic wines.
(On Thursdays for at least the next three weeks, Urban Beets will hold fundraisers. This week’s contributed 50% of sales to the Friends of MADACC, the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission.)
Weekend brunch is due to begin in about a month; items such as waffles and oatmeal will be added to the menu.
Some of the dishes on the new all-day menu are “pulled” barbecue carrot on a pretzel bun ($8) and a buddha bowl ($8.75) with quinoa, spinach, pineapple and chickpeas with jerk seasonings, topped with mango dressing.
Small plates include avocado toast ($3.75) and pumpkin-sage hummus ($5.50).
The contemporary new dining room, which seats 50, appropriately has a lot of greenery for a restaurant serving a plant-based menu; plants
grow on one wall, and more grow atop an arbor. Also contributing to the natural feeling of the space: a wooden bar top with a live edge — the bark still attached.
Hours at the expanded Urban Beets are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
To contact: (414) 8006265. The restaurant is online at urbanbeetscafe
.com and on Facebook.
Edgewater due soon
The restaurant that will be the Edgewater Supper Club on Pewaukee Lake is closer to opening, with key staff in place and final touches being put on the menu.
The restaurant, at W278-N2315 Prospect Ave., is expected to open by late October or early November, said general manager James Ko.
Ko most recently was the general manager at the former Joey Gerard’s Supper Club in Mequon; he previously worked for the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group in Chicago.
The chef will be Erik “Mars” Mahr. Mahr has worked in New Orleans, where he was chef of Louisiana Bistro in the French Quarter; he also worked at Joey Gerard’s in Mequon and Greendale.
A draft of the menu reflects his New Orleans background and the restaurant’s supper club theme, with dishes such as Creole surf and turf (filet with crawfish tail scampi) and smoked half duck with mushrooms, wild rice pilaf and bourbon cherry sauce.
A nod to Vienna, where Mahr was born, is the wienerschnitzel, served with herbed spaetzle and green beans.
The menu also calls for grilled meats and fish, including walleye, venison loin, bison T-bone and New York strip steak. It also will have a steak it calls the Edgewater cut, a bone-in rib-eye taken from the last bone on the rib loin.
Appetizers are expected to include corn macque choux fritters, crab cake, New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp and garlicherb monkey bread with cheddar dipping sauce. Among the soups and salads are seafood gumbo and a salad of crab and breaded asparagus.
Prices for main dishes are expected to be about $27 to $42.
The restaurant still is hiring employees to work in the dining room and the kitchen.
The 94-year-old building that’s the site of the Edgewater previously housed the Sandbar sports bar; the new dining room has expansive views of Pewaukee Lake. Renovation has included structural work as well as restoring original elements of the building.
The owner is Bernie Kook, who founded All Country Electric Supply.
New Supper format
Supper, the restaurant at 1962 N. Prospect Ave., has tweaked its format, from supper club to supper table, as the owner says.
Owner Gina Gruenewald, who also owns Wolf Peach, opened Supper in 2015 as a contemporary homage to Wisconsin’s supper clubs.
The menu now includes dishes in a lower price range, from $18 to $28, such as lasagna made with fresh house pasta and served with the house salad.
Another new dish is chopped steak, with mashed potato, green beans, haystack onion and mushroom sauce.
“This has a homier stance to it,” Gruenewald said.
Visiting chefs
The Plate Collective, the dinner pop-up by chef Dan Jacobs and artist Kate Riley, who makes the dishes specially designed for each course, will have out-of-town company for its dinner on Nov. 5.
The dinner, held at the new Birch + Butcher restaurant opening this fall, will have Dan Snowden of Bad Hunter in Chicago and Francesca Hong of Morris Ramen in Madison. Miles Borghraef, chef-owner of Birch & Butcher, and Rachel Rick of Milwaukee’s SURG group also will take part, along with Jacobs, of Dandan and EsterEv.
The five-course dinner with wine pairings is $150, which includes the tip but not tax. Tickets are available online at platecollec tive.net. Birch + Butcher is at 459 E. Pleasant St.
EDGEWATER SUPPER CLUB