Bar Time

Hotel Foster photo from thehotelfoster.com While many festivals come and go throughout the summer in Milwaukee, not one makes quite the impression like Summerfest. The anticipation builds all year round, with updates on stage line-ups and Marcus Amphitheater headliners trickling into our email inboxes. Come late June, the city is bursting at the seams with people from all over the states coming not only to see the performers, but also to experience all the madness and excitement that swarms around the fairgrounds. Yesterday marked the last day of this year’s Summerfest, and whether you loved all of the festival’s hullabaloo and…

Whew! Summer is here in all her sticky, sweaty glory. I guess we should have expected an extreme temperature swing seeing as our winter and spring were delightfully warmer than normal. But, for us patio hounds, this weather is seriously lacking motivating qualities. Sure, I can bear it for a few minutes, but when your Summer Shandy goes from ice cold to lukewarm in minutes, it’s safe to say air conditioned air is the way to go. The recently opened and latterly refurbished patio at Jackson’s Blue Ribbon Pub (11302 W. Bluemound Rd., Wauwatosa) was oddly quiet on the eve…

Photo courtesy of Hotel Metro.  Built in a time when the Art Deco reigned supreme—and maintained in that ‘30s fashion when remodeled in 1996—Hotel Metro is the cool kid on the block, as far as downtown Milwaukee hotels are concerned. Long before old-is-new and vintage-is-modern were societal trends, Hotel Metro tapped into that design aesthetic, from the Metro Cab, an old London taxi that serves as a complimentary guest vehicle, to the distinctive stylistic choices of both the exterior and interior of the building. Much to my surprise, the hotel is also home to Zen on Seven: a tropical oasis…

There’s no better indication of how much Wisconsinites loves summer than when the first mildly warm day after winter has passed. In that murky in-between period before we’ve even truly reached spring, much less summer, that first day brings swarms of people donning shorts and flip flops, jumping at the opportunity to shed layers and expose our  skin to the sun once more. It’s at this time that the area restaurants, cafés and bars begin to drag their patio furniture out each day, anticipating our growing desire to be outside as much as possible. Now as the days seem to…

I never saw myself as a “beer” person, but if I’m being honest, I am. Maybe it’s nature, growing up in Wisconsin and all, or maybe it’s hanging out with countless beer aficionados – but more often than not, beer is my drink of choice. (For the record, I’m not talking about anything produced by “The Big Three”.) But yet I find myself drawn to craft cocktails, perhaps thanks to the craft cocktail movement that has slowly but surely establishing a presence in the local bar scene —and not just in Milwaukee. Thanks to some of my favorite Alterra customers,…

If you haven’t lived for any amount of time in another country, you may not understand how quickly that new place can become like a second home. Spain does that for me. Not only did I visit twice in high school, but I also studied abroad in Sevilla (Seville) in the south of Spain for nine weeks, and I yearn for Seville every single day.  When I first saw a neon sign touting the Spanish national flag on the corner of W. Wells St. and N. Plankinton Ave., I knew I was going to have to spend some time at…

The weekend is over and so begins the long wait for the next segment of freedom. In the words of Bob Geldof and the other Boomtown Rats, “I don’t like Mondays /I want to shoot/The whole day down.” One area option that will help you shoot the day down, beginning promptly at 7 a.m. – Angelo’s Café Vino (N88 W16521 Main St., Suite 100, Menomonee Falls). The early morning hours offer coffee and minor breakfast items in the small café section of the building (this area also doubles as a store where you can purchase wine, beer and cheese). But…

Tucked into the corner of W. Juneau Ave. and N. 9th St. sits a discreetly marked beer hall next to the old Pabst Brewery gift shop and it goes by the name Best Place Tavern. If ever there was a bar made for history lovers, this is most certainly the place. The Pabst Brewing Company, established in 1844 by the German immigrant Jacob Best Sr., put Milwaukee on the map in the beer world, becoming the largest brewer from the late 1800s until 1946. After the brewery in Milwaukee shut down in 1996, Jim Haertel, the current “Steward/Historic Tour Guide,”…

 Sabor, the Brazilian churrascaria (steakhouse) that has been serving Gaucho barbeque for some time on Water Street, unleashed their version of southern hemisphere-inspired pub food and unconventional cocktails nearly one year ago. Beta by Sabor (777 North Water Street) takes up the front portion of the building, greeting customers with a modish bar, pub tables, at-bar seating and a view of the hustle and bustle of Water Street. Those that require a more conventional dining experience can continue into Beta’s high-ceilinged lounge area for a booth, a table or even a comfortable sofa.  On this night, my lady and I…

A quick game of word association will reveal that much like peanut butter is to jelly, German influence is to Milwaukee. Starting in the 1840s, floods of German immigrants made their way to Wisconsin—and Milwaukee, in particular—and settled down, largely thanks to cheap land and the exciting rush of liberation from their homeland. And if drawing connections between Germans and Milwaukeeans (which, in some cases, can be interchangeable) can amount to nothing more than the love of a good pint (or five), Von Trier helps make up the glue that holds that connection together. The history of the building in…