Photo courtesy VISIT Milwaukee
Regano's Roman Coin
Regano's Roman Coin on Brady Street
Brady Street has been my Main Street for decades. Things grew grim there in the 1980s, but thanks to neighborhood activists, courageous businesspeople, and the leadership of art gallery owner Julilly Kohler, Milwaukee’s former hippie haven found new creative life.
Asked to write about the street today, I sought a business owner’s view. Mike Eitel, creator of the Nomad Campus, as he calls his ever-growing armful of indoor-outdoor urban architecture and landscaping, kindly obliged. His Nomad World Café was the first new bar in the street’s mid-90s comeback. When he convinced then-mayor John Norquist to lift the city’s ban on sidewalk cafés, the street was Europeanized. Eitel also had the street’s first outdoor television screens, the first parklet, and in partnership with Club Brady across Warren Street, the first permission from the city to close off a noisy intersection and create a street café, the colorful Brady Beach, a creative response to covid.
“I don’t think many people realize that for many of us in this industry, the pandemic wasn’t just turning the switch off and then back on,” Eitel says. “It was massively challenging, even to this day, to even just be here. And it’s going to be a banger of a summer,” he continues, mentioning the Brady Street Festival, and the six weeks of all-day World Soccer tournaments he’ll televise on Nomad’s outdoor screens. “Every year the street gets more traction. We get so many tourists now, markedly different groups of people. We have the Harley-Davidson parade every year now. We’re kind of a magnet for that in a cool way.
“Every day on Brady Street is definitely different,” he summarizes. “Julilly never intended for this to be a nighttime only entertainment district. Everybody living down here’s goal is to keep it a mix of really livable residential neighborhoods and businesses. I’m cheering for the retail spots that are hanging in there.”
The newest of those is Beer’d, a variety shop of local art, gifts, and plants. The oldest might be Art Smart’s Dart Mart and Juggling Emporium, a different kind of variety. Ground Up Sneakers offers footwear and underwear. Economy Clothes offers used women’s wear. Bandit is a must-visit used clothes shop for everybody. Halo is a stand-out women’s hair salon. The street’s a haven for barbershops and smoke shops. There’s extraordinary artwork in Black Ink Tattoo’s windows.
From Dogg Haus to Kompali Taqueria, Brady Street’s eastside is at a high point. Sidewalk seating’s packed at Malone’s, Saint Bibiana, Jack’s American Café, Rochambo, Jo Cat’s Pub, La Masa, Wurstbar, Famous Smoke Shop, HiHat, Pete’s Pub, Easy Tyger. Music streams from everybody’s outdoor speakers. Live musicians play in Nashville North’s front window.
Add the indispensable Apollo Greek Café, Sweet Joy Brazilian Café, Qdoba, Jimmy John’s, King Crab Shack, the newcomers Megawich and Concoctions Frozen Drinks—virgin or spiked. It’s like nowhere else in town.
