Northwoods-themed Buckatabon to replace Cafe Bavaria
Goodbye, spaetzle; hello, booyah.
Cafe Bavaria in Wauwatosa will be replaced early next year with a Northwoods-themed restaurant called the Buckatabon, focusing on state foods and brews, owner the Lowlands Group said Wednesday.
The new restaurant is named for a lake about 10 miles northwest of Eagle River and is pronounced buck-ah-TAH-bin.
“The whole concept is inspired by the entire region up there, but there’s a personal connection to the lake,” said Dan Herwig, the director of marketing and brand for Lowlands, keeping mum on the specific connection.
Cafe Bavaria will remain open to the public until about Nov. 1; after that, it will play host to private parties through the holidays while culinary director Thomas Hauck and the Lowlands crew develop the menu there.
Remodeling of the restaurant is due to start in January, and the Buckatabon will open early in 2020, Lowlands said in its announcement. Lowlands’ restaurants have had European themes until now, mainly focusing on Belgium and the Netherlands.
Herwig said Lowlands staff members have been doing research and taking inspiration around the state this summer and are taking another trip in a couple of weeks or so.
The result in Tosa, at 7700 Harwood Ave. in the Village business district, will be a restaurant aesthetically that’s part up-north family-run tavern, part lakeside lodge and part supper club, Herwig said.
“Every one of them has a different, distinct charm,” he said. The Tosa restaurant still is being designed, but the aim is a “cozy, Northwoods vibe” without the knotty-pine paneling and taxidermy, Herwig said.
The group said that the beer garden that opened this summer outside Cafe Bavaria, overlooking the Menomonee River, was done in preparation for the new restaurant; the patio is painted in University of Wisconsin-Madison colors.
Although the Buckatabon will have TVs for customers to watch games, it won’t be a sports bar, Herwig said.
“It’s not a bar; it’s going to be a restaurant,” he said, and the group wants to pay homage to unique foods found around Wisconsin. “We don’t celebrate that enough,” he said.
Hauck, the Lowlands culinary director, is planning menu items that will incorporate ingredients produced in the state, such as wild rice, cranberries and sour cherries. He indicated in the announcement that the menu also could include items such as booyah, the stew with Belgian roots that’s popular in northeastern Wisconsin; fish fry; and broasted chicken (the Broaster Co., which makes the combination pressure cooker and deep fryer, is in Beloit).
At the bar, the draft lines will switch from German beers to Wisconsin ones. Some of the 16 taps will be given over to cocktails, and some of those will be nonalcoholic.
“We’ve launched those at all of our other places, and all of those have been really well received,” Herwig said.
The bar also will stock spirits by Wisconsin distillers and makers of bitters, to concoct Old Fashioneds, ice cream drinks and some of their own cocktails, as well.
Herwig said the group developed the restaurant’s theme with an eye toward being able to open more restaurants elsewhere in or outside of the state.
Cafe Bavaria opened in 2014.
Fork & Tap in Port Washington
Fork & Tap in Port Washington, the new brick-andmortar restaurant by the YellowBellies food truck owners, has had a busy first few weeks.
So busy that the food truck will be on hiatus for the summer, aside from previous commitments, said Siobhan Mesenbourg, who owns the businesses with her husband, Michael.
“We’ve opened every Friday and Saturday to a line out the door,” she said, adding that food truck customers have been driving in from Milwaukee. “We’re excited that people are actually making the trip.”
The couple, who live in Port Washington with their children, started the food truck in 2013, specializing in rotisserie-chicken sandwiches; Fork & Tap officially debuted July 22.
The restaurant is at 203 E. Main St., on the first floor of the Harbor Lights condominium building. Fork & Tap, too, specializes in sandwiches: the truck’s lineup of chicken sandwiches and also all the beef and pork sandwiches that the truck rotates on and off the menu as specials.
Longtime YellowBellies customers will see favorites like the O.G., a pulled-chicken sandwich with bacon aioli, organic mixed greens, aged-cheddar sauce, roasted tomatoes and bacon from Port sausagemaker Bernie’s.
Pork sandwiches include the new-this-year banh mi, with pickled radish and carrot, cucumber, jalapeno, cilantro and hoisin aioli; among the beef sandwiches is a French dip, with mushroom, onion, provolone, horseradish mayonnaise and jus.
Besides sandwiches, there are mac and cheese, including a less-spicy version of the truck’s; flatbreads; and shareable snacks or appetizers such as hot crab dip and chicken wings that are fried and served with any two of the restaurant’s 25 various sauces and dressings. There’s also a children’s menu, and on Fridays there’s cod fish fry, in potato chip crust or beer batter, both gluten free.
Fork & Tap’s location has a view of Lake Michigan, both from the dining room (which seats about 80) and the patio (which seats about 40). “It’s pretty,” Siobhan Mesenbourg said. “To be right on the harbor ... and it’s just constant boats.”
At the 15-seat bar, the five beers on draft are dispensed from a system that fills the glass from the bottom. In all, Fork & Tap has 50 Wisconsin beers available, and features state-made spirits, as well.
The full menu is online at forkntap.com. The restaurant, where seating is first come, first served, also does takeout; orders can be called in at (262) 235-4878.