A New Farmers Market for Downtown

The downtown area will have a new farmers market Downtown, beginning June 25. It will be opening at Schlitz Park, on N. 2nd St., with produce from farmers who are Fondy Farmers Market vendors.

Young Kim, Fondy’s executive director (and a former Urban Milwaukee contributor who wrote our Urban Foodie column ), told onmilwaukee.com that the new Schlitz Park market “adds another gathering place where shoppers can meet the farmers that have grown their produce and tenants can meet each other… The Fondy Farmers Market has been a true intersection of food and community, health and heritage, and cultural diversity.”

The Schlitz Park market will run through October, open each Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, and the vendors will change weekly at the market.

Merriment Social

The new restaurants just keep coming to Walker’s Point. Andrew Miller, one the city’s better know chefs, has left Mequon’s Salotto Zarletti to open a restaurant in Walker’s Point in mid- to late summer, the Journal Sentinel reports.

It will be located in the former location of Prodigal Gastropub, at 240 E. Pittsburgh Ave., a restaurant we reviewed here.

Miller told the paper the new decor will be more modern, the style will be casual, and the fare will focus on seasonal foods with snacks delivered dim sum style, on carts and trays. He hopes for a place that’s boisterous, with a neighborhood feel. “We also want to be very whimsical with food,” Miller said, with food that combines different ethnic styles.

Fixture Pizza and Anodyne

Walker’s Point is set for a brand new pizza joint. Fixture Pizza Pub will open at 625 S. 2nd Street, formerly occupied by Boom/The Room. The new restaurant’s Facebook page promises a September or October opening, and an emphasis on “Milwaukee-style” pizza which we’re guessing means thin crust pies.

In other pizza news, Anodyne’s café in Bay View will now serve its wood-fired pizzas on Sundays and will open for lunch on weekends, according to the Journal Sentinel. Anodyne’s pizza menu features 11 pies and one special.

According to the story, the café owners are taking locally grown to a whole new level this summer, and will grow many of the ingredients used for the menu on the building’s roof.

Anodyne is open noon to 9 pm on weekends, and 4:30 to 9 pm from Tuesday to Friday.

Evolution Gastro Pong

With plans for the new Bucks arena coming along, the nearby businesses and eateries lining Old World Third Street are in a prime position to receive thirsty and hungry clientele from a brand new source of business. The new arena will seat 17,000 – that’s a lot of happy (or angry) basketball fans to serve. With that in mind,  some savvy restaurateurs, like Scott and Susanne Mayer, are taking the initiative and setting up shop.

The Mayers own the Third Ward’s Evolution Gastro Pong at 233 E. Chicago Street. The bar, lounge, and event center sports 12 professional-grade ping pong tables and facilities, and rents space for weddings and private events. According to a recent press release, the pair teamed up with partners JJ Kovacovich and Drew Deuster, as well as Phil Erno, to buy the vacant building at 1023 N. Old World Third, formerly Irish Rec Room. After the Mayers’ lease expires this summer, Evolution will make a jump from the Third Ward to Third Street, occupying the top floor of the new building. The street level will house a new restaurant from Kovacovich and Deuster – who are also behind Trocadero, Red Lion Pub, and Red Rock Saloon.

The new development is still in its early stages. We can expect official announcements this summer, according to the press release.

Giovanni’s and Comedy Café

Evolution isn’t the only space relocating to Old World Third, according to reportage by OnMilwaukee.com. Giovanni Safina and sons, the owners of Tutto Restaurant at 1033 N. Old World Third, are reopening as Giovanni’s. The restaurant’s upstairs space, Notte Night Lounge, will close. In its place will be Comedy Café, relocating from its current space at 615 E. Brady St.

The changes come in response to a number of incidents involving Notte Night Lounge this past winter that ended with police calls, one involving a shooting. According to OnMilwaukee.com, the Milwaukee Licensing Commission agreed to the partners’ renewal application, provided that changes were made to the venue so that similar problems wouldn’t occur. Enter Comedy Café.

Safina and sons formerly owned Giovanni’s on Van Buren Ave. The restaurant closed in 2006, and the group opened Tutto the following year.

PHO One24

Brookfield now has a new Vietnamese restaurant: PHO One24, at 3705 N. 124th St. as its Facebook page notes, and promises to “Give your taste buds a break from routine burgers & fries!” Owner Kim Nguyen told the Journal Sentinel said she wanted a new career after being a manicurist for 25 years; joined by her best friend, Minh Nguyen, a cook, Nyguyen decided to open a restaurant.

The restaurant is open daily 10am-10pm for dining and carryout,

serves 20 variations on pho; most of the soups are $9.50. In addition, it offers various rice and noodle dishes. To contact: (262) 583-1250.

Ground Round

The story of the Ground Round franchise restaurants, is something of a snoozer, to judge by the account on its website: http://www.groundroundfranchise.com

“The first Ground Round® was built in 1969, and provided a ‘neighborhood pub’ experience where everyone, including couples and families, felt comfortable. The restaurant had a limited menu with only 12 items featuring primarily burgers in a basket, snack food and pitchers of beer… During the early 1980s, Ground Round® evolved towards a fun, family-oriented environment,” and it also expanded the menu to include soups, salads, sandwiches and burgers to flatbreads, steak, ribs, Tex-Mex and other main dishes, all the while firmly maintaining that registered trademark.

Absent from that history is the loss of a Ground Round in metro Milwaukee in 2004. Have you missed it? Well, its back! Yes, a Ground Round has come round to the Midway Inn & Suites, at 1005 S. Moorland Road in Brookfield, the Journal Sentinel reports, and is located in the space formerly occupied by Maxwell’s.

The Ground Round company is based in Freeport, Maine, and has about 30 franchises, largely clustered in northern states, with the most in Minnesota and Wisconsin not far behind. This state has locations in Neenah, Oshkosh, Tomah and Onalaska, and now in Brookfield. The kitchen serves from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. The bar stays open until midnight every day. End of story.