Usually a quiet side street, Murray Avenue on the East Side burst to life in May when over 1,200 visitors swarmed for the opening weekend of Blue Hour Coffee. The buzzy, ivy-clad café and budding creative space (2410 N. Murray Ave.) is the brainchild of Unfinished Legacy founder and designer Brema Brema, along with co-founders and coffee connoisseurs Andrew Kiessling and Jose Ortega.
Brema has daydreamed about opening a coffee shop for years. “I wanted to build a space my younger self would aspire to be in,” he says. The idea took shape in June 2025 after Kiessling, then a barista at Anodyne Coffee, served java from his and Ortega’s cart at an Unfinished Legacy pop-up in New York City. Kiessling, too, had always wanted to open a shop of his own; it was simply a matter of finding the right space and partners. Soon, the three transformed Brema’s former personal studio space into Blue Hour.
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Blue Hour Coffee soft-opened to the public for a “Cars and Coffee” pop-up in October 2025. A strong community response gave the team the momentum to transform the concept into a permanent storefront.
Now open with regular hours, the cafe serves coffeehouse classics alongside specialty espresso and matcha drinks. The sleek, Milwaukee-made interior features design work by studios Bughouse MKE and Form Interiors, art by painter Squire and ceramicist Tony Macias and a bookshelf curated by sellers Melon Books. Blue Hour’s design also melds influences gathered from the founders’ time in cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
The cafe’s centerpiece, a bar counter built with backlit pink Himalayan salt bricks sourced from Miracle Salt Collective in Oak Creek – a company owned by a friend of Brema’s family – was designed and constructed by Bughouse MKE’s John Lyman and Alec Dolter. The duo also created the cafe’s custom furniture, upholstered in a signature electric blue.
Brema says the plan is to grow Blue Hour as a third space for neighbors and creatives, with art exhibitions, live music and other events rooted in art and design. “Bringing people together is the center of everything I do.”
