New Owners Plan to Reopen MobCraft
Two partners, including a former MobCraft employee, plan to reopen the shuttered brewery and taproom.
MobCraft Beer. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Three months after closing its doors in Walker’s Point, MobCraft Beer is on track to reopen under new ownership.
Sarah and Michael Halstead have applied for a license to resume production and taproom operations at the brewery, 505 S. 5th St.
A MobCraft alum, Sarah previously worked as the brewery’s director of finance and HR between 2019 and 2023. According to her LinkedIn profile, she later transitioned to a role as bookkeeper for a private equity firm.
The Halsteads plan to continue MobCraft as a brewpub, offering beer and other alcoholic beverages, plus sandwiches, pizza and bar snacks. They’ll also keep the name — and sound system — from the previous business.
The proposed menu includes more than a dozen signature pizzas—such as margherita, barbecue chicken, and The Shroom—along with sandwiches like the beer cheese mushroom melt, pesto mozzarella, and arugula BLT. Gluten-free crust is available for pizzas, and vegan cheese can be substituted in both pizzas and sandwiches. Appetizers include Milwaukee Pretzel Company pretzels, cheesy garlic bread, buffalo chicken dip and more.
Beyond food and drinks, the new owners plan to restore community programming in the 3,782-square-foot taproom, including trivia, music bingo, beer festivals, live bands and DJs.
The Halsteads paid $160,000 for the business, according to the license application. Their lease for the building began March 20 and continues for five years.
Given city approval, they plan to reopen as soon as April 22. A license application is pending before the Milwaukee Common Council.
The proposed hours of operation are Sunday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to midnight. Outdoor entertainment will have slightly shortened hours, ending at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.
Henry Schwartz and former co-owner Andrew Gierczak founded MobCraft in 2011. They opened the Walker’s Point taproom in 2016 after relocating from Madison, then expanded with locations in Denver (2022) and Illinois (2023). The Denver taproom closed in 2023, followed by the Illinois location last November. A planned Waterford location never came to fruition.
Schwartz told Urban Milwaukee in October that he planned to wind down operations in Walker’s Point while negotiating a potential acquisition by another brewery.
Neither Sarah nor Michael responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Update: After publication, Sarah Halstead confirmed that Mobcraft’s assets were included in the purchase. “We are really excited to bring MobCraft back under new ownership and are looking forward to sharing more details as we work through our project plan.”
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They got the building and the name, but what about the beer? Are they going to be brewing? Do they get to keep producing any of the former recipes? Seems like that is an important part of the story…?
This place was supposed to be sold off to new owners back in November or so, but it sounded like that deal fell through and then the whole thing remained in limbo.
And suddenly these two appear and the whole things gets sold for a song (less than a quarter mil), sure the timing is bad with this incoming recession, but it sure feels like there’s a larger story here that all the local agencies are missing.