Crossroads navigates pandemic
Crossroads Collective opened in December 2018 with space for eight vendors, a common seating and bar area, and a separate speakeasy.
It filled space previously used by a series of restaurants, and was a way to enliven a key east side location at North Farwell and East North avenues.
Crossroads was affected by a state order in March which closed businesses, including indoor restaurant dining, to battle the coronavirus pandemic.
The food hall reopened its dining room and outdoor seating in June when city officials began allowing restaurants to operate with reduced capacity.
Crossroads also continues to provide curbside pickup for carryout orders, and restarted deliveries on Sept. 13.
While some Crossroads vendors have closed, others have filled those available stalls.
Mina, which features European-inspired small plates, opened on July 1. It took the space previously used by Raw Bar, which served oysters and other seafood.
Thum, with Lao cuisine, opened a pop-up operation in July that was to run through October. It has since agreed to extend that lease for two years, Gokhman said.
‘High demand’ in Mequon
Also on the panel was developer Cindy Shaffer, who opened Mequon Public Market in June 2019 at 6300 W. Mequon Road.
Mequon Public Market, with 10 vendors and common seating, was designed to redevelop Mequon’s historic former public works building, built in the 1940s, said Shaffer, president of Shaffer Development LLC.
The market also serves as an amenity for Shaffer’s neighboring Spur 16 apartments.
“We felt there was high demand” for additional restaurants in Mequon, Shaffer said. And the market drew patrons before the pandemic hit hard in March, she said.
Three vendors, Bavette, Bowls and Beans & Barley, announced in June they would not reopen.
However, Middle Eastern restaurant Falafel Guys moved to Mequon Public Market in August after closing its Thiensville location.
And, national chain Aloha Poke and Pizza Man, a local group, are opening at the market this fall.
Food halls remain good options for restaurant operators because their shared central kitchens carry lower costs than stand-alone locations, Shaffer and Gokhman said.
“That is absolutely a benefit a food hall can bring to the vendors,” Gokhman said.
Other Milwaukee food hall operators say they are working through the pandemic and its effects on the economy — especially higher unemployment rates — that have hurt the restaurant industry.
Restaurant business is tough
The National Restaurant Association has estimated 30% of U.S. restaurants could close permanently because of the pandemic and recession.
Wisconsin’s 12,800 restaurants and taverns accounted for 284,600 jobs and $10.1 billion of sales in 2018, according to an industry estimate.
Sherman Phoenix, a hub of 27 small businesses in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood, includes eight food and beverage vendors.
It opened in November 2018 at 3536 W. Fond du Lac Ave. The business hub redeveloped a former BMO Harris Bank branch which was torched during the 2016 civil unrest after the police killing of Sylville Smith.
Sherman Phoenix used donations to waive rent for its tenants in April, May and June, with 50% discounted rent in July. That helped businesses adjust to the pandemic, including food vendors adding more carryout products, said Jan Anderson, general manager.
The building lost one food vendor, but that was replaced in June by a Rise and Grind Cafe.
Restrictions on inside dining remain a big challenge, Anderson said.
“Although increasing capacity would greatly benefit food and beverage tenants,” she said, “we plan to monitor how the pandemic continues to move across the nation before advancing any additional effort to bring more customers inside Sherman Phoenix.”
Meanwhile, Milwaukee Public Market has seen a decline in traffic but hasn’t seen any closings among its 17 vendors, said Ellen Kullerstrand, operations and events director.
The market, 400 N. Water St., relaunched in June with more outdoor seating. It opened its mezzanine-level indoor seating at 50% capacity the week of Sept. 7.
Its collective sales are “exceeding expectations” despite the traffic decline, said Ron San Felippo, chair of the Historic Third Ward Business Improvement District, which operates the market.
“We’re very pleased with where we are,” he said. “It may be that customers are coming in less often but buying more when they do come in.”
The Milwaukee Public Market opened in 2005.
‘Getting through the winter’
Nationally, 80% of over 250 U.S. food halls have remained open during the pandemic, said Phil Colicchio, an executive managing director at Cushman & Wakefield, a global commercial real estate services provider.
“Their sales, of course, have taken a hit,” Colicchio said, during the panel discussion.
But most food hall vendors have been able to “take the proverbial pivot” to carryout and delivery orders, he said.
At Crossroads Collective, Egg & Flour Pasta Bar has done “pretty good” through the pandemic, said chef-owner Adam Pawlak.
While his stand-alone location, which opened this year at 2273 S. Howell Ave., does twice the sales of the food hall location, Pawlak remains committed to Crossroads Collective.
Outdoor seating has helped, he said.
Milwaukee Public Market is among the local food halls that have been holding their own through the COVID-19 pandemic.
ANGELA PETERSON / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
That includes the new East Side Art Lot, at 1915 E. North Ave., for neighborhood restaurant dining.
“The big thing is getting through the winter,” Pawlak said. “But, patio or no patio, we’ll do our best to stay busy.”
Cafe Corazon’s location at Mequon Public Market saw a strong opening in summer 2019 followed by a slow fall and winter before the pandemic hit hard in March, said co-owner Wendy Mireles.
Business picked up thanks to good weather this summer and ample outdoor dining space, said Mireles, who with her husband, George, operates two other Cafe Corazon Milwaukee locations at 3129 N. Bremen St. and 2394 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
When the weather turns cold, and outside dining is no longer attractive, they might operate just for carryout, she said.
Pandemic alters plans
Bavette was among Mequon Public Market’s restaurants that chose not to reopen in June.
Chef-owner Karen Bell said food halls might need more time to catch fire in the suburbs.
“I think it was just a different concept for Mequon,” said Bell, who still operates Bavette’s stand-alone Milwaukee restaurant at 330 E. Menomonee St.
Meanwhile, plans remain on hold for Greenfield Public Market, which developer Scott Yauck announced in August 2019. It’s proposed for the northwest corner of West Layton Avenue and South 84th Street, at the 84 South mixed-use development.
“We have paused on the Greenfield Public Market given the pandemic and are studying variations to that model,” said Yauck, Cobalt Partners LLC president and chief executive officer.
Cobalt partnered with The Brass Tap to operate the pop-up Lokal Beer Garden at that site this summer and fall.
That has provided data about traffic patterns and other factors that Cobalt will use to “inform our ultimate implementation,” Yauck said. He declined to elaborate.
Also, Gokhman hasn’t yet started the interior buildout on Flour and Feed, a food hall planned for street-level commercial space at New Land’s Kinetik apartment building. Kinetik opened in June at 2130 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
“Covid, of course, made us pause,” Gokhman said, in an interview. “but we’re starting to field inquiries again.”
However, work is proceeding on two other Milwaukee food halls.
Renovations started in August to convert part of downtown’s former Grand Avenue mall into 3rd Street Market Hall.
That large food hall, at 275 W. Wisconsin Ave., will be part of The Avenue mixed-use development, which includes offices and apartments. It is to open in spring 2021 after the developers delayed work for several months.
3rd Street Market Hall originally was to open with 20 food vendors when its plans were announced in December 2018.
With the pandemic, and subsequent recession, the food hall lost around half of its prospective vendors, said Omar Shaikh, the Milwaukee restaurateur who’s overseeing the project.
But some of those vendors are now again interested, said Shaikh, who also operates Carnevor steakhouse, 718 N. Milwaukee St.
Shaikh and his partners, developers Tony Janowiec and Josh Krsnak, are considering a Topgolf simulator and duckpin bowling to join a lineup of games designed to make the food hall “more experiential,” Shaikh said.
Meanwhile, renovations are to begin in November on converting a former bank branch, 5900 W. North Ave., into North Avenue Market.
That smaller food hall, which received Board of Zoning Appeals approval on Sept. 10, has a projected opening date between March 1 and April 15, said developer William Harris-Wimsatt.
North Avenue Market is around a dozen vendors.
Harris-Wimsatt said more than 30 potential vendors have toured the building, with two businesses committing to the project and several others interested.
Despite the pandemic, be believes the time is right for the food hall.
“It allows for shared costs among a diverse group of vendors, expanding everyone’s ability to reach into and connect with the local community,” Harris-Wimsatt said.
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