Photo via Beans & Barley - Facebook
Beans & Barley
Beans & Barley
A silence fell over Milwaukee’s culinary landscape when Polly Kaplan and James Neumeyer, owners of the iconic Beans & Barley (1901 E. North Ave.) café-deli-market, announced via social media that the business would close Jan. 31, 2026.
Kaplan and Neumeyer cited the pending sale of their building as the primary reason for the closure.
The building includes lower-level tavern space (currently leased by indoor mini-golf bar Nine Below), and a triangular parking lot. The building was listed for $2,250,000; Kaplan and Neumeyer state in their press release announcing the closure that they are “not in a position” to buy it.
Other factors also influenced their decision to close. “We have faced every challenge under the sun, the same as pretty much every business since Covid,” Kaplan related via email to the Shepherd Express. “We struggled with staffing, we struggled with affordable prices, we struggled with customer demand. When demand was high, we had very little staff, and then when we had a fantastic staff and demand was low.”
Rising Cost of Doing Business
Kaplan noted that all the supplies they bought increased by 2.5% when the new Milwaukee County and city of Milwaukee sales taxes went into effect January 2024.
Kaplan said the lack of parking, and the “predatory policing” of parking enforcement on the East Side, was also an issue. She cited several examples of employees receiving parking tickets issued under questionable circumstances.
“How the city enforces parking really hurts the poorest citizens who don't have the luxury of private parking,” Kaplan said.
A Pioneer in Healthy and Vegetarian Fare
An East Side staple since 1973, Beans & Barley began as a small health food store on Murray Avenue and grew into a café-deli-market that has become a go-to place for reliably consistent, healthy, vegetarian-friendly fare.
Beans & Barley was founded by health food grocery pioneer Michael Stevens. The original location was at 2410 N. Murray, on Milwaukee’s East Side. Stevens was also a cofounder of Kane Street Co-op, which would become Outpost Natural Foods.
Beans & Barley employee Lynn Sbonik eventually became a business partner. Stevens bought Stone Ground Bakery, where he had worked as a baker, and renamed it Mike’s Bakery. It supplied Beans & Barley, along with about 30 other wholesale accounts, with whole grain baked goods.
Shepherd Express publisher Louis Fortis lived on Milwaukee’s East Side during the early ‘70s while working as an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer. He knew Stevens when he was a baker at Stone Ground Bakery/Mike’s Bakery.
As one who has always had an appreciation for healthy, wholesome foods, Fortis enthusiastically supported his neighbor’s endeavors to expand access to natural, scratch-made fare, and see the business thrive.
“Beans & Barley became a major East Side institution,” Fortis said. “Everyone knew what Beans & Barley was—a place that was very comfortable, the food was good, and the vibe was wonderful. It was a nice place for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the food was healthy.”
In 1979, Beans & Barley moved to 1901 E. North Ave. and added a café. Their new digs had previously housed other restaurants, along with pubs and record stores. Beans & Barley was owned at the time by Sbonik, along with partners Peg Silvestrini, Patty Garrigan and Pat Sturgis.
A fire in 1993 destroyed the building that housed Beans & Barley and two adjoining businesses. In 1994, Beans & Barley reopened in a newly constructed, contemporary style building that serves as its current home.
Kaplan and Neumeyer, long-time Beans & Barley employees-turned-managers, bought Garrigan’s and Sturgis’ shares in 2012. In 2017, Sbonik and Silvestrini retired.
Leaving a Legacy
“I don't think Beans & Barley influenced East Side culture but was instead influenced by it,” said Kaplan. “As a business, we were really driven by the bottom up. Each individual employee contributed to the culture and the recipes. That is what made us unique. There are literally hundreds of people who once worked at Beans who contributed a recipe that went on to become a classic.”
At the café, their Vegetarian Chili and the Tofu Scrambler were popular menu favorites. Omnivores weren’t excluded; menu choices such as Red Lentil Chicken Soup were featured in their “Another Little Book of Beans – 2000” recipe pamphlet. The Tuna Melt was among other healthy choices for non-vegetarians.
The announcement of the upcoming Beans & Barley closure brought in a wave of tributes via social media. Some Beans & Barley customers shared with the Shepherd Express what the iconic restaurant-deli-market meant to them.
Local writer, editor and pre-school nature educator Katherine Keller recalls how dining out choices were bleak for eccentrics—vegetarians—back in our city’s “culinary dark ages.”
“In 1980s Milwaukee, a meatless pizza on the east side, cheese enchiladas on the south side, or a provolone sub were classic vegetarian choices, given the dearth of meatless menu options,” she said. “Occasionally, one could wrangle a hearty salad as entrée, if the kitchen consented to hold their chef salad’s ham, roast beef, and turkey.”
When Keller moved back to Milwaukee during the ‘80s, she worked at AUM Books on North Avenue across from Beans & Barley. “When I, then a strict vegetarian, discovered their menu featured many delectable meat-free options, it thrilled me no less than the city’s introduction of curbside recycling! The future had found Milwaukee. Decades later, Bean’s and Barley patrons sadly bid farewell to this beloved east side institution.”
Keller will miss one of her favorite dishes, Beans & Barley’s “perfect” black bean burrito.
The business also included a deli and bakery counter, and a small grocery store that stocked artisan and small brand products, organic produce, beer and wine. The catering department offered creative, elevated versions of menu favorites for weddings and events.
Milwaukee-based food and travel writer Kristine Hansen and her husband, Tony, hired Beans & Barley to cater their wedding. “When my husband and I married in 2013, we wanted a caterer to satisfy different dietary restrictions, including my own, as I'm pescetarian and don't eat meat,” Hansen said. “Beans & Barley truly delivered, with classic dishes like macaroni and cheese, because who doesn't want a love letter to Wisconsin cheese on their wedding day, and an amazing root-vegetable tart from their catering menu, as well as salade nicoise.”
She adds that the restaurant has also been a part of the couple’s history. “We both lived on the East Side before meeting and, once we met, enjoyed many meals there together."
(Author’s note: Beans & Barley also catered my wedding in 2014. My husband Doug and I sought wholesome, elevated appetizers, and Beans & Barley came through with divine cocktail sandwiches, artisan cheeses, a root vegetable tart and other noshes that our guests still praise to this day, all with amazing service and set-up.)
Kaplan and Neumeyer, and their team, recognized what worked and knew that you don’t mess with a good thing. With few changes over the years, the menu favorites welcomed you like old friends.
What’s next for the business partners? As for Polly, after closing, she’s going to give herself a month to recover, “or as we say in Milwaukee, recombobulate,” she said, and will look for work after that.
“As god-awful as it has been to run a small business the last six years, it was really rewarding and meaningful to be a part of this community of good people,” Kaplan shared.
The upcoming closure of Beans & Barley will leave a large hole on Milwaukee’s East Side. Some loyal customers aren’t ready to lose their beloved deli-market-café. Could Beans & Barley, or a similar concept, be resurrected in another relocation? Shepherd Express publisher Louis Fortis thinks it’s a possibility.
Fortis was part of the Riverwest group, ESHAC, that transformed the only grocery store in Riverwes into the Gordon Park Food Co-op during the mid-‘70s. As community activist, economist, former state legislator and consultant, he also served as treasurer on the board of Outpost Natural foods co-op during the ‘90s.
“Beans & Barley currently has a strong following and a strong support group of people,” Fortis says. “It will be very interesting to see if the community would rally and set up another Beans & Barley store-restaurant as a member-owned co-op versus a worker co-op,” he suggested. “The Outpost as a member co-op has flourished for over 50 years.”
