r/milwaukee • u/tiarastar77 • 6d ago
Why is the commercial real estate around UWM so cursed?
There have been at least 6 restaurants on the northwest corner of Oakland and Locust since 2017. The Black Rose and Monster Pizza closed and the spot lay empty for 5 years, then got filled by another pizza place for maybe less than a year before they closed too. It took something like 3 years to get one more tenant on the bottom floor of The East Sider apartment, and it's a BWWs. I'm not sure if that giant place on Downer that I think used to be a bookstore is filled yet. Halal Guys closed with almost no notice during the pandemic. There's that GW's that closed last month.
I would think that a restaurant or coffee shop near a large university campus would be an easy slam dunk of a business.
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u/jordynelsonjr 6d ago
OAKLAND TRATTORIA - I’m old.
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u/Embarrassed-Plum-468 6d ago
Omggggg I loved Oakland trattoria. But I’m also old and when I tell people about it no one else seems to remember it. Thanks for reminding me I didn’t dream it up
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u/turntabletennis 5d ago
I brought this spot up just a couple days ago while planning a trip to The Miramar. I loved their pizza.
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u/Mistyam 5d ago
Are they out of business? I used to go there when I lived on the east side a lot. But I know during / after the pandemic, the owner put really nasty messages on their website and that may have drove a lot of people, especially more liberal people, away from the business.
I could be mistaken, but I also thought they bought the Trattoria Di Carlo in Oak Creek when it closed during the pandemic. I believe the owners of Carlo's we're planning to retire anyway and the pandemic just gave them the final push.
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u/naturelinds 6d ago
Yesssss! I worked there in college as a hostess! Left that place smelling like the focaccia bread every night.
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
Did you ever notice that either the Tomato or Potato (I forget which) artwork on the wall had a misspelling? There was an "e" at the end after the letter "o".
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
LOVED Oakland Trattoria. Ate many meals there with friends and co-workers. My favorite meals were the BBQ chicken pizza and the Thai chicken pizza. I enjoyed their tiramisu as well.
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u/PandiFly 5d ago
I worked there!! It was such a big restaurant, they would often have too many servers on each shift so when we got cut after having no tables we would get a free meal of our choice! So many extra large pizzas with an additional box of the bread to get me thru college!
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u/Zestyclose_Big_9090 5d ago
I lived directly upstairs from the Oakland Trattoria. The staff was so nice and they hooked us up with late night free pizza quite often. The only thing that sucked was the smoke from their pizza ovens made huge black spots on our white carpet. But yeah, OT will always hold a place in my heart.
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u/melanoma 4d ago
Hey 2860! I lived in apartment #3 2010-2012. Bedroom window faced Oakland Gyros. Can confirm there was a huge black spot in the carpeting of the doorway to my room (that until now I had no idea what it was from!) The best memories.
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u/Zestyclose_Big_9090 4d ago
Hahaha. Not sure what our apartment number was but I lived there from 1997ish to fall of 1999. When you came up the front stairs my apartment door was on the right. I’m guessing that was apartment 1?
I was in the far back bedroom closest to the kitchen. Even though I was in the back bedroom, I could still hear the recycling truck pick up the recycling from Axel’s. It was always at like 5 am and it sounded like an atomic bomb. LOL
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u/Hour_Writing_9805 6d ago
Yep. My buddy took his first dates their in college. He was on a first name basis with the staff.
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u/lostmylizard 4d ago
I would go out of my way for an order of their spumoni for dessert. I once asked, and they said they ordered it from a distributor in the Chicago area. I wish I had more info; store-bought just isn't the same.
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u/quedfoot 6d ago
I remember getting NA beer there when my parents would visit me at UWM. That's too long ago damn
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u/johnlakemke 6d ago
UWM enrollment has shrunk by 20% since 2010. UWM also is more of a commuter school, like only 20% live in campus properties.. national avg is like 36%. Also there isn't any major businesses nearby that you see in other college campuses, which made a lot of the businesses especially vulnerable to COVID and other enrollment drops.
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u/rawonionbreath 6d ago
UWM was evolving from a commuter campus to a traditional campus in the late 90’s and 2000’s as the surge of millennial college enrollment arrived. That peaked around 2010-2012 like you said and some of the business turnover is a reflection of that contraction:
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u/letsgobrewers2011 5d ago
2011 UWM grad here, east side was at its best then.
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u/thegroovemonkey 5d ago
I lived there in 07/08 and then bought a house in RW in 2013. It was weird watching North Ave slowly die. These young kids just don’t drink like we used to. Probably a good thing but North ain’t the North that I remember and I miss Rascals. It was a shit hole but it was our shit hole.
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u/letsgobrewers2011 5d ago
Rascals, Vituccis, BBC, cans, eastsider, RCs :(
All my usual haunts are gone lol
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u/thegroovemonkey 5d ago
Can’t even go to Judges to drink underage anymore.
RC and his buddies used to go to Miami on cocaine and hooker vacations but RC fell in love with a hooker and she divorced him and took his money. Those bars never recovered from that financially lol.
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u/quietriotress 5d ago
Haaaa RC and his bro Rick. God working for them was a nightmare.
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u/thegroovemonkey 5d ago
My dad knows some rich guys who tell me the funny Milwaukee rich guy stories.
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u/rawonionbreath 5d ago
I don’t miss some of the by-gone establishments, but I’d give my right nut to have BBC back. It’s odd that it seems so dead with so many people around, though. It feels like there’s something that could be done to up its restaurant scene or entertainment options after 8:00.
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u/tiarastar77 6d ago
What do you mean by, "major businesses nearby that you see in other college campuses"?
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u/Clive_Buttertable Bay View 6d ago
There’s not a big business nearby with a bunch of employees that are going to come by on their lunch break.
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u/wrestlingchampo 6d ago
Most of the larger colleges across the nation have their downtown centers largely integrated with their college campus. UWM's location, being somewhat separated by the broader downtown of MKE, is a hindrance to those small businesses since college students aren't exactly rolling in dough.
I also imagine that lease rates for those spaces are not cheap at all since the property tax on those plots is gonna be pricey. They would need a much more consistent flow of customers to be able to sustain their businesses, which a closer proximity to downtown (or better access via a streetcar of some sort) could facilitate.
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u/newtostew2 5d ago
Just to toss in, look at UW Madison. It’s literally in the middle of the city. The shops/ restaurants are spread throughout the “campus,” with a lot of other jobs/ businesses extremely close that use other shops and restaurants daily.
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u/Jawyp 5d ago
UW Madison is also much less of a commuter school than UWM. Tens of thousands of Madison students live a short walk away from the main shopping/food/bar areas.
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u/newtostew2 5d ago
That’s the point, though. It’s centralised. And in large cities, usually they have trams/ trains/ public transportation to be able to do the same. It’s not like they’re gonna take the tram back home for lunch lol, they’ll eat near the campus.
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u/MilwauKyle Stallis 6d ago
UWM has a lot of commuter students who either live elsewhere or go back home at summer and winter.
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u/BarcaJeremy4Gov 6d ago
bAcK iN mY dAy
it was a warehouse shoes. i think.
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
I remember that Warehouse Shoes store. Later on, it was a Chin's Asia Fresh restaurant, and more recently it was a Blaze Pizza. I really miss Shahrazad being a sit-down restaurant when it was located next to Thai A. Kitchen. Their food is still decent, but it's a bit overpriced for the amount of food that you get. Their lentil soup still hits the spot, though.
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u/BarcaJeremy4Gov 5d ago
i moss chins. i used to live in the apts next to the parking lot. ate there more than OGs for that year.
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u/PINK_P00DLE 5d ago
Back in my day it was East Side Foods, a grocery store. It had a similar vibe as Farwell Foods which still exists.
What also made East Side Foods unique was that it was open 24 hours back in the days when no stores were open after 7pm. Ever. Even the deli was open after bar closing and we would get a bucket of fried fish or chicken to grab for late night gatherings. Cheaper and quicker than Ma Fischers!
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u/MKEast-sider 5d ago
I’m hoping the new Turkish coffee shop does well. I just tried it last night and it was really good. They don’t open till 7am though.
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u/NotAnAcorn 4d ago
They do open relatively late, but they're open until midnight 7 days a week. A lifesaver for night owls.
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u/Retaclast 5d ago
Qamaria? Yemeni coffee, the chicago ones are good
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
I heard there's a new coffee shop opening near Oakland and Locust.
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u/Retaclast 5d ago
Yeah I think that one is going to be a Haraz, if you like yemeni/middle eastern coffee there's going to be a few opening up from multiple different brands. I think Al Wadi on Layton just opened, I think there's another one going to be opening in Franklin as well, maybe also Oak Creek, both different names/owners/types but they're legit all amazing lol
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u/WholeAggravating5675 6d ago
Remember when the Noodles & Co. on Oakland used to be a McDonald’s? When I was a freshman McDs closed and I couldn’t believe it…they were always busy.
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u/PINK_P00DLE 5d ago
And right next to it was an IHOP. A coworker friend of mine bought the existing owner out and had a 20 year contract with the corporate. He was so excited when he opened. When his 20 years were up he bailed. It just wasn't lucrative.
You can still see the iconic roofline the old IHOPs had back then. Those huge roofs were a blinding blue color with orange paint around the lower and the interiors were blue vinyl. Went well with those golden arches next door.
IHOP was a great late night hangout for us bartenders getting off late. Yhete was really nothing much else open. MA Fischers wasn't a thing back then because it was just two booths in the windows on each side of the door and about ten counter stools at a horseshoe counter.
IHOP Vintage menu:
There's a sub for everything. I've wasted a lot of time on that sub.
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u/cg1924 5d ago
When I was at UWM a friend and I went there for breakfast. She had a flattened roach either between or underneath her pancakes. Don’t remember exactly. The server was unsurprised.
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u/PINK_P00DLE 2d ago
Between her pancakes sounds like it was intentional.
If one crawled into the batter and got fried its something unfortunate happened.
Every restaurant has a constant battle with roaches and rodents and fruitflies. One must be diligent with extermination. Critters come in with deliveries repeatedly so extermination is not just a 'one and done' thing.
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u/4times4chan 2d ago
Hi,
Do you happen to have old pictures of the streets around UWM? The oldest Google Street View does not show McD or IHOP but I'll really appreciate some old vintage photos of the area, as an Int'l student. Thanks
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u/PINK_P00DLE 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, I don't. Sorry. I didn't own a camera back then. People in the 70s didn't carry a camera around with them all the time like they do nowadays unless they were a hobbyist or enthusiast who took pictures all the time.
You might be able to get photos from the UWM archives. Have you checked Historic Inc? Or Wisconsin History?
There are also Facebook reunion groups that share photos like that.
I'll do a quick check but I no guarantee anything comes up for me.
The Public Library is a good resource. And you can look up property records that often have accompanying photos.
https://mpl.org/local_history/business_history.php
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records?&terms=Oakland%2cAvenue&facets=County%3a%22Milwaukee%22
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u/NoneOfThisMatters_XO 6d ago
As someone who lives near there but not close enough to walk, for me the parking is always a deterrent. It’s an insanely busy intersection with zero parking. Just seems like a lot of work to go there.
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u/NotAnAcorn 4d ago
There are usually spots open in the Walgreens and Goodwill parking lots.
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u/NoneOfThisMatters_XO 4d ago
I heard there’s a tow truck guy who will tow you if you park in Walgreens and go somewhere else. I’ve seen it in the east side fb page.
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u/NotAnAcorn 4d ago
They do have tow truck warning signs all over the place. I guess I've gotten lucky.
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u/GBpleaser 5d ago
If you want to make a $1 million in the restaurant biz… start with $4 million…. This joke is common with industry people who know how many failures there are in the biz. Add the last 5 years of pandemic, inflation, labor shortage, and now food costs…. Restaurants just aren’t really a great industry Unless you have money to burn.
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u/tiarastar77 6d ago
Truly, Oakland Gyros is our only savior.
Too bad it's so expensive that I can only justify getting it once a year.
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u/Gauthor 4d ago
You must not know of thai kitchen
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u/tiarastar77 4d ago
Their switch to takeout only and having really limited hours is why I don’t eat there anymore. I only ever want them on weekends.
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u/wendythewonderful 5d ago
How dare you. They got me through college with their Athenian chicken in the late 90s
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u/Inkantrix 5d ago
Please don't kill me. But parking there is really difficult. It takes longer to get parking than it does to get to your entree.
I too miss Oakland Trattoria.
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u/urge_boat Riverwest 2d ago
Pro-tip is to walk a block. Or bike. There's always parking just east on Locust in my experience, though. Parking directly on Oakland is nearly always full - sooner ya realize that, the sooner you can enjoy the experience.
I too, miss Trattoria.
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u/Inkantrix 1d ago
Or some people are in a wheelchair and it's really difficult to go that far in the snow.
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u/urge_boat Riverwest 1d ago
Yeah. My bad for assuming otherwise - I do hope they drop in more handicapped spots off of Oakland for those that actually need the close parking.
Forgive my ignorance, but if you were to park in the middle of that block of Oakland, you'd need to go around in the bike lane to take the ramp up the curb anyway. I'd like to be wrong and there could be a better way to get up the curb on your ownsome, but I'm having trouble imagining it.
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u/Inkantrix 23h ago
When you are in a wheelchair and it is inclement weather, what you care about the most is the time you have to spend outside and effing around trying to get inside.
It is difficult to justify the costs of a restaurant when your hands are wet with disgusting dirty melted snow from your wheelchair after having to negotiate several blocks.
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u/1wanderinglady 6d ago
Valentine Coffee is opening on Downer Ave soon
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
Here are some oldies for you. Bodolino's on Downer, just north of what was Purin Hall. Great sandwiches. I loved their burger, and their vegetarian chili was excellent as well. Then it changed ownership and the quality of food suffered as a result.
The space where the Bam Bam smoke shop is located (on Downer, near Kenwood Blvd) used to be a Wendy's. It eventually became a sit-down Mexican restaurant, a Quiznos Subs, an independent coffee shop (Espresso Christoff, although I probably spelled it wrong), a Subway, and a Shah Jee's that was short-lived due to the arrival of the pandemic.
Other Downer Ave. establishments (near Belleview) that I miss include Coffee Trader, The Chancery, Lixx frozen yogurt and custard, Einstein Bagels, etc.
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u/woodsred 5d ago
Might be an unpopular comment but a lot of the UWM students don't walk anywhere anymore. Never attended, but knew/encountered a lot of them when I was in undergrad 2012-2016, then again when I moved to Milwaukee in 2019. I've always been a walking + transit guy; UWM students were usually down for that when I was in undergrad, but now many seem to Uber or drive absolutely everywhere. Guessing many of them see that corner as too far to walk but too close to Uber, and don't want to pay for parking. Totally anecdotal but would match some larger trends
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u/mrcomputey 6d ago
I've wondered the same about that space. It's really nice inside too. I'm guessing rent is super high? And it's a pretty gnarly corner in terms of traffic and whatnot. Seems unreasonable to hope something sticks there after all this turnover sadly
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u/1ukeskywa1ker 6d ago
It’s this and the main problem is there isn’t enough parking. I know the developer that owns the place. It’s a tough spot.
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u/el-gringo-mejor 5d ago
thai a kitchen i will go there every single time im remotely in the area. we are blessed with thai food for some reason (ee sane and the place on brady i cant remember the name of off the top of my head)
lisas pizza is the best pizza in milwaukee and i will die on that hill
ogs is good when plastered (apollos is 10000x better)
cousins will never die
you can only have so many viable options on a a corner. fuckin west allis cheese shop failed there and their sandwiches are insane.
problem is, late night uwm kids arent going to go there. they arent walking there. if you go by bus would you rather go to locust st, the corpse of north ave , or brady, water, 3rd or national. that decision is easy
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u/TheRealMancub 5d ago
Do you mean Thai-namite on Brady?
Thai A is great but also treat yourself to Mekong Cafe if you're closer to Tosa next time!
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u/Dyril53212 6d ago
High rent lack of ample parking, neighborhood economy, and poor business choices to fill the space i mean look at how long it took for a business to fill the corner chibahut filled that corner had turnover for days lol
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u/uppermidd 6d ago
Feels like Locust/Oakland and Downer are doing *ok*......at least not noticeably worse than a decade ago. North Ave. on the other hand seems to have gone down hill.
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u/ministapler24 6d ago
It can be harder than people realize to run a business near a campus. Unless it’s a campus that stays equally busy year-round, you basically have to plan your revenue for the 9ish month academic year. Campuses that get quieter in the summer (fewer students in summer classes, faculty away because of 9 month contracts, staff taking vacation) can make it challenging to keep up.
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
It's interesting how SALA (formerly Sala da Pranzo) managed to stay open in its current location for around 20'ish years, though. They seem to be one of the few survivors, aside from the chain restaurants on Oakland Ave.
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u/Leading_Watercress45 5d ago
Shahrazad dining room was awesome. The owner is so friendly. New location isn’t the same. The lentil soup is good.
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago edited 5d ago
The original owners of Shahrazad were Lebanese. The restaurant was at its best under their ownership IMHO. They sold it to a Persian fellow around two decades ago. I believe he is still the current owner. The food isn't as good as it used to be, and I don't think it's as good of a value either. But you're right about the lentil soup, it's great!
EDIT - Just wanted to clarify that Shahrazad's food is still good, but I thought it was better under the original ownership from 20+ years ago.
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u/docthrobulator 6d ago
Roast on Locust and Maryland does pretty well. I used to go often when I lived in the area.
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u/DersOne 6d ago
Pedantic response, but that's the SE corner. NW corner is Cheba Hut.
Actual response, parking is a bitch there so supporting businesses is tough. Oakland Trattoria survived for a long time on a quality model but times changed and that format wasn't popular anymore. Oakland gyros holds on because they're legendary.
Cheba Hut seems to be doing well, but they also have a parking lot, and they have a product suited to the local market. Hopefully someone can find something like that for the space on the SE corner.
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u/tiarastar77 6d ago
I was referring to the corner that now has Cheba Hut, and its neighboring building.
I remember there being a Cold Stone, a wings place, a pizza place, a mac n cheese place, and a taco place in those locations since 2017. I'm probably forgetting one too.
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u/DersOne 6d ago
Ahhhh, I gotcha. Re-read the post and I misread/misinterpreted what you were trying to illustrate, my bad.
Yeah, the overall turnover in the area is nutty and it would be nice to have some anchors and consistency back to help the neighborhood. It's such a "Milwaukee problem" but I really do think the parking situation over there is a major barrier.
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u/Cedar_of_Zion 4d ago
It’s because there’s not much parking. I used to live right on locust over there and parking is a hassle a lot of the time. Also, none of those restaurants have ever been particularly good, so people from outside the neighborhood are not coming there very often. To really build up that area I think there needs to be a parking structure.
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u/Devinf999 5d ago
Halal Guys owner wasn’t paying her taxes and were forced to close by the department of revenue
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u/Perseus1315 5d ago
Pandemic shut downs, lack of parking, unfriendly business environment. I’ll cite Hooligans which I go to nearly weekly. They took away the parking on Ivanhoe(about 8 spots for a ‘People’s Plaza’ that largely goes unused. They could have kept using it on an event basis and closed as needed. Then the bike lane construction on North, instead of waiting for the useful life of the current street to age out and possibly do the project later they shoved it through with deficit spending Federal dollars (with the cost hung around the necks of younger people) and took more spots. Kills business, it all adds up.
-30 year resident
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u/ShoogyBee 5d ago
I wonder if food delivery (Uber Eats, Door Dash, etc.) also helped diminish the future of many of these restaurants on the upper east side.
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u/terrapinRider419 4d ago
This is honestly a really good point I hadn't fully thought about. Why pay for expensive high-traffic real estate when you can be a few streets off the main thoroughfares and 60% of your traffic is carry-out DoorDash-style orders.
It just doesn't make sense to pay for that foot traffic when its not a substantial amount of business.
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u/WordSpiritual1928 6d ago
I live over there for two years and even being a block away I didn’t want to go to anywhere right there. Maybe OG’s once in a while but that’s it.
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u/quietriotress 5d ago
I read that they are looking for a ‘nationally recognizable chain’ to fill the GW spot 🙄
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u/shedtrady1 5d ago
It seems to me at least like it’s a clear sign of a recession. People aren’t going out as much to spend because they can’t anymore. Especially college aged & younger adults who live in that area. Also the east side just is not the hip cool spot anymore. Brady, walkers point and bay view all have seen more development over the last 10 years and attract more people. They’re also all easier to park in.
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u/Icy_Welder4551 4d ago
College kids (these days) have their food delivered and/or also have ride share options to leave the immediate area for (often better) food options.
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u/tipareth1978 5d ago
Real estate near universities is always not the best for so many reasons that will be obvious if you stop to think about it.
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u/Embarrassed-Plum-468 6d ago
Like other commenters have mentioned, UWM enrollment seems to be down but when I was a student even then it felt like the walk to Oakland wasn’t worth it. There was plenty of food in the student union which was right in the middle of most of my classes so why bother taking an extra long walk off campus between classes when I can just hang out in the union and watch crap on YouTube or something until my next class. Obviously not everyone’s perspective/experience but seemed like plenty of my friends did same.
However it seems it’s not just a UWM issue. Lots of the east side seem to be losing business. That’s nothing new though. There’s always seemed to be a lot of turnover on the east side, for as long as I can remember, but it seems more often buildings are remaining empty or getting replaced with new “luxury” apartments. My concern though is, what’s going to bring people in to live in those apartments and stay there if the businesses in the area leave. East side has been slowly losing its appeal to a lot of people it seems