New Book, ‘Classic Restaurants of Milwaukee,’ Highlights Historic Eateries

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Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, Public Natatorium, Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 16281

Milwaukee has a long and storied history of restaurants over the years. A new book by Jennifer Billock, Classic Restaurants of Milwaukee, highlights around 150 establishments, whittled down from a list of around 400. Hard to believe there have been that many, but this book focuses on some of the quirkier restaurants and ones with interesting beginnings or ends.

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The book was released earlier this month and is Billock’s first book on restaurants. She has published two cook books, a book on ghosts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and a couple others on Kenosha and Keweenaw County. Billock has been a freelance contributor to many major publications, including National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times and Playboy to name a few.

“The White Tower story is pretty interesting: they ripped-off White Castle,” says Billock. “They were forced to change their design, and that change only made them more popular, which irritated White Castle quite a bit.”

White Tower was started in downtown Milwaukee in 1921, by John and Thomas Saxe, and became one of the largest burger chains in the country by 1930. The lawsuit from White Castle came in 1929 and unfortunately, the chain no longer exists.

Billock’s favorite story from the book revolves around the Public Natotorium, which was a renovated public pool from the 1880s. In 1979, the building was reopened as a restaurant and featured captive dolphins, which were trained to put on shows for diners. Think about that in a restaurant now. There were protests going on even before they opened, but the cost of housing the animals and trying to keep the restaurant going turned out to be too high and the restaurant closed in 1985.

Billock will be featured in a virtual event for the book coming up on Tuesday, December 1 at 6 p.m., hosted by Historic Milwaukee. The event is hosted on Zoom and interested parties must register – for free – to attend the event.