Health-Focused Restaurant Coming to Paper Table
Urban Eats Fresh would serve power bowls, salads and organic fare at downtown food hall.
Site of Paper Table, 733-737 N. Milwaukee St. Photo taken Oct. 31, 2022 by Sophie Bolich
A new restaurant is expected to open next month at Paper Table, bringing healthy and energizing options — with an emphasis on kosher-friendly foods — to the downtown food hall, 733-737 N. Milwaukee St.
The new concept, Urban Eats Fresh, is slated to open in April.
For the past 10 years, owner Yvonne Arvanitis served as a state recruitment manager at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA) annual airshow, where she oversaw five restaurants and approximately 200 workers.
After a decade of serving a larger organization, Arvanitis said that the new restaurant is something she’s doing for herself. The Milwaukee-native said she’s looking forward to returning to her hometown, as well as the opportunity to provide healthy, convenient and accessible meals to the community.
“Everyone’s so busy all the time,” she said. “If we can offer people some really good power, energy food, that would be amazing.”
A cancer survivor, Arvanitis changed her diet years ago to include more fresh and organic foods — an approach she said will carry over to the menu at Urban Eats Fresh. She also had numerous requests to include kosher menu items. In researching the practice, she discovered that much of her diet already aligned with kosher specifications.
“So that’s one of the things we’ll be focusing on,” she said.
The restaurant will offer power bowls with vegetables and protein atop a base of couscous or quinoa, salads and a variety of Greek and Mediterranean dishes, along with scratch-made empanadas, a recipe Arvanitis learned more than two decades ago from a late friend.
The act of making and sharing the Puerto Rican-style recipe is Arvanitis’ way of keeping his legacy alive, she explained. “We’re going to keep some heritage here,” she said.
The upcoming Milwaukee restaurant has Arvanitis’ full attention for now, but the entrepreneur said her long-term goal is to expand the concept to other food hall locations across the nation, starting with Chicago.
Since its August 2022 opening, takeout and delivery-focused Paper Table has seen significantly more turnover than its sit-down counterparts. As of mid-March, the food hall’s website featured 10 concepts, nine of which are under the ownership of restaurateur Kamal Shkoukani.
At least one additional concept, dessert-focused Sweet Party Treatz, is slated to join the lineup in the coming months. Paper Table contains 17 commercial kitchens with approximately 180 square feet of space each.
