New Juice Bar Opens in Bay View

The Canteen, 3040 S. Delaware Ave. Photo taken July 29, 2025 by Sophie Bolich.

From freighthopping and hitchhiking to trading a car for a cargo bike, John and Onamikii Cameron have never been ones to follow the crowd. So when a major hurdle at Milwaukee City Hall threatened their plans to open a juice bar, they kept pushing—and are now the proud owners of The Canteen.

The business officially opened earlier this month at 3040 S. Delaware Ave., next door to the couple’s retail store, MKE Outdoor Indoor Exchange. Once home to Little Cancun Sports, the space now serves fresh-pressed juices and healthy snacks—swapping tequila for turmeric, but keeping the wraparound bar intact.

“The shape of the bar is my favorite because you’re forced to look at each other, you’re forced to interact,” said John, also noting that The Canteen fulfills his longtime goal of giving customers a “place to sit the heck down and relax.”

More than just a juice bar, The Canteen serves as an extension of the couple’s neighboring shop, which is so densely packed with gear that it’s difficult to see everything at once. “We were kind of at a bottleneck with the business,” John added.

The Outdoor Indoor Exchange partners with more than 700 consigners to offer a wide range of outdoor gear at reduced prices, increasing accessibility while also prioritizing sustainability.

“My goal, as a person and through my career choices, has been to reduce, reuse, repair, recycle,” John said. “What I want to do in my life is try to offset what I can while I’m here.”

The Camerons initially planned to knock down a dividing wall, merging the former sports bar with their retail space and launching the juice bar as an added bonus. But after clearing inspections and attending a final meeting with the City of Milwaukee, they were told the spaces couldn’t be combined.

“We walked out and we were just broken, Onamikii said. “The only reason to expand was to [grow the footprint of the] shop. We had just put all of our money into this.”

According to the Camerons, the issue stemmed from operating two separate LLCs under one roof—a decision made for insurance purposes. They announced the juice bar’s demise on social media and began brainstorming alternative plans.

But after a conversation with Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic and a second meeting with the city, the definitive “no” changed to a “yes.”

“All of a sudden, the [occupancy] was just approved,” John said.

Jeremy McGovern, marketing and communications officer for Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services, added that a plan examiner “worked closely with the applicant and Licensing to help find a code pathway to achieve occupancy solution.”

The city is also working to hire a business liaison representative to ease this process in the future, he said.

But the couple remains frustrated with the current system and its the potential effect on novice business owners. “You’re going to talk to 100 different people and they’re all going to say something different,” Onamikii said. “The reason we got through is because we knew somebody, and as much as that’s great for us, that’s not how a system should work.”

John agreed, pointing to inconsistencies throughout the process.

“They changed all my paperwork back to the way I handed it in the first time,” he said. “So I went in there and they messed it all up … And I’m pretty freaking proud that once it was all said and done, they fixed it right back to the way I handed it in.”

With all the paperwork in order, the Camerons can now proceed with demolition and complete the much-needed expansion. In fact, items ranging from hydration packs to rain jackets have already spilled over into the juice bar space, which will soon be accessible through the shared wall.

Meanwhile, The Canteen continues to gain momentum in the neighborhood, offering a green juice, Swamp Monster (kale, green apples, kiwi, celery, parsley), and the antioxidant-packed Rust Punk (carrot, orange, ginger, pomegranate, pineapple, turmeric, lemon), along with fresh-squeezed orange juice and shots like wheatgrass and ginger.

Snacks including nut and seed-packed power bars and bagels are also available. Additional juices will appear as specials.

Onamikii, a fitness instructor and aesthetician who is studying to become a nutritionist, developed the juices, which are currently packaged in bottles made locally at the nearby WB Bottle Supply Company.

“What I really like about the things that I do is that everything lines up— between movement, between nutrition, between skin health,” said Onamikii, whose skincare line, Mikii, will eventually retail at The Canteen. “If you have good gut health in general, it’s gonna make the rest of your body shine.”

The Canteen is aiming to purchase a dispenser, moving away from single-use bottles and instead serving juice in reusable cups. The menu may also eventually expand with housemade bagels and more.

Along with their shared background in—and passion for—the outdoors, both John and Onamikii bring unique strengths to the new business. “It goes very hand in hand,” John said. “Our overlap is just like our team … we do very different things, but they all kind of meet somewhere along the line, and that’s kind of where the juice bar is good for us.”

John added that he hopes the juice bar will function as a third space—somewhere outside the usual confines of coffee, alcohol or even the pressure to buy something.

“I look around in society and the only place it’s free to be is the library,” he said. “Third spaces are popping up all over the country, and I think they’re really essential to have.”

MKE Outdoor Indoor Exchange is open Wednesday through Thursday from noon to 6 p.m., Friday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Canteen is open Wednesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Although The Canteen closes at 2 p.m., the space will remain open for guests to sit, socialize or work until the adjacent shop closes for the day. For more information and updates, follow the juice bar on social media.

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