Paloma Opening Second Location, This Time in Bay View
Washington Heights restaurant will open second location at north end of southside neighborhood.
KinetiK, 2154 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Popular Washington Heights restaurant Paloma Taco and Tequila is planning a second location. The taqueria announced it will open a Bay View location in the ground level of the KinetiK apartments complex, 2154 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
Owner Pattie Ford took to social media Monday morning to share the news, thanking patrons, employees and building owner New Land Enterprises in a glowing post.
“Y’all have made this dream possible and I am beyond grateful,” she wrote. “Cheers to new beginnings and cheers to opening in one of my favorite parts of the city, Bay View!”
In a series of photos attached to the announcement, Ford posed with a celebratory bottle of bubbly inside the future restaurant. In the coming months, the barebones space — which currently sports gravel floors and cinder block walls — will undergo a complete transformation courtesy of Three Sixty. Most recently, the design firm completed the interior for 1033.
“As you can see it is a complete build out again,” Ford wrote. “But trust me when I say that it is going to be stunning!”
Paloma opened its flagship location in July 2020 at 5419 W. North Ave. The restaurant serves a variety of Mexican eats and cocktails. The original restaurant is expected to continue operations alongside the upcoming location.
An online menu for the restaurant includes traditional offerings such as chorizo and carne asada tacos, tortas and elotes, as well as fusion dishes like the tuna poke tostada, cajun shrimp taco and a fat Elvis dessert taco.
Paloma strikes a balance between meat-heavy and vegetable-forward offerings. The crispy tofu tacos are fully vegan, while the brussel sprout taco or tostada is easily modified for plant-based eaters. A number of other menu items can be served with vegan cheese in place of regular.
A drink menu includes plentiful craft cocktails — including the restaurant’s namesake paloma — as well as bottled beer, margarita pitchers and more than 30 tequilas. All cocktails can be made non-alcoholic.
Ford, a seasoned industry veteran, has worked with and partnered on a handful of Milwaukee restaurants including the now-closed Tusk and Juniper 61.
The future restaurant space was once slated to become Flour & Feed, a food hall and marketplace. New Land’s plans for the business, originally proposed in 2019 as a sister location to Crossroads Collective on the East Side, have been in limbo for several years. The restaurant, for which no permits have been filed, would consume much of the space planned for the food hall.
The upcoming location for Paloma will have quite the patio. The alley-like E. Archer Avenue was converted into a pedestrian plaza as part of KinetiK’s development and now connects the building with Zillman Park. The Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee in May approved a plan to rehabilitate and redesign the park, with funding coming from KinetiK’s property tax revenue.
Ford and New Land did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
KinetiK
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I’m dubious as to if this could actually do well in Bay View. It will be near GTO and Corazon, not to mention in the same neighborhood as Las 7 Estrellas. All three of those restaurants are vastly superior in terms of quality — and I say this as someone who isn’t a big fan of Corazon and has some quibbles with Las 7 Estrellas. There was a clear market in Washington Heights because the closest taco place was BelAir, and some people love treating BelAir as Milwaukee’s culinary punching bag. Maybe the vegan options will make it stand out since only Corazon really delivers there, but I’m very skeptical.