North Avenue Market Closes

North Avenue Market, 5900 W. North Ave. Photo taken Sept. 11, 2023 by Sophie Bolich.

North Avenue Market closed Tuesday.

The market opened in 2022 as a food hall and co-working space with nine vendors, including bars run by Bittercube, a local bitters producer, a coffee shop and a bike-repair shop among its offerings. The business opened at 5900 W. North Avenue in a former Associated Bank branch building.

In May this year, the owner Chris Harris Morse pivoted the business, turning the market into an event space and a standalone restaurant, which he opened with Michael Pyle-Harris serving as the general manager and chef.

The short-lived Christopher’s Southern Kitchen opened in May this year. Bittercube stayed on through the transition to a restaurant, overseeing the cocktail menu and running Mosler’s Vault, a cocktail bar on the first floor. But on Tuesday, North Avenue Market announced its closure in a post on Facebook.

“Dear community and family, after trying numerous ways to enrich our community through a variety of shared experiences at North Avenue Market… we have made the extremely difficult decision to close our facility effective today,” the post said. “At the end of the day, our monthly expenses continue to far exceed our monthly revenue, leading to a model we are unable to sustain.”

Not long after opening the market made its first major change. Four months in, three vendors left and the market rolled Taste of Java, Sam’s Deli and A&B Desserts into one “super vendor” called 4 Corners Cafe.

When Harris Morse and Pyle-Harris opened their restaurant, they each drew from their southern roots. Harris Morse is from North Carolina and Pyle-Harris is from Virginia. The restaurant served comfort food and classic southern dishes like fried pickles, deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes, collard greens, gumbo, catfish, salmon croquettes, barbeque pork chops and sweet potato pie.

As North Avenue Market evolved the mission always stayed the same: “It’s about trying to connect the community,” Harris Morse told Urban Milwaukee earlier this year.

The team at North Avenue Market hasn’t lost faith in the food hall model either, explaining in the parting message on Facebook that the idea could work long-term, but the business lacked the funding it needed to get there.

Existing members must be signed in to see the interactive map. Sign in.