Jeramey Jannene
Dining

Urban Beets Closes Downtown Cafe

Vegan restaurant closes only city location, will continue running Wauwatosa restaurant.

By - Jan 29th, 2020 10:57 am
Urban Beets Cafe & Juicery. Photo by Cari Taylor-Carlson.

Urban Beets Cafe & Juicery. Photo by Cari Taylor-Carlson.

Urban Beets Cafe & Juicery closed its downtown location Tuesday.

The vegan restaurant operated out of the first floor of the Park Enterprise Lofts apartment building at 1401 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. just north of W. McKinley Dr.

A Facebook post announcing the news cited a lack of parking and “growing demand for space in a corridor that has quickly developed into a congested area for commerce and entertainment alike.”

“We as a cafe have felt the effects of this increasingly more, and it is with heavy hearts that we have decided that this location is no longer a sustainable option for us to maintain,” said the post.

The area has seen a wave of development in recent years with Fiserv Forum opening.

The downtown location opened in January 2016 and owner Dawn Balistreri added a second location in Wauwatosa in 2019.

The Wauwatosa location continues to operate at 3077 N. Mayfair Rd. Balistreri is planning to open a new location in Brown Deer at 5091 W. Brown Deer Rd.

Urban Milwaukee restaurant critic Cari Taylor-Carlson praised the space’s design in a December 2019 review, but found the food quality uneven.

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One thought on “Dining: Urban Beets Closes Downtown Cafe”

  1. Donald Cramer says:

    Will they change their name to Sub-urban Beets?

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