Bartolotta Restaurants will end its management agreement with Chicago-based Phoenix Hospitality Group for the four restaurants at the Mayfair Collection in Wauwatosa on Nov. 1.
The Milwaukee-based restaurant company began transitioning the management oversight and ongoing operations of Osgood’s, ABV Social, Café Grace and Tacqueria El Jefe to Phoenix Hospitality on Aug. 28.
“We are very proud of the restaurant concepts we developed and our partnership with Phoenix Hospitality Group, and we are excited to see the continued development of the Wauwatosa area,” said a statement from Bartolotta Restaurants.
“As a company, the Bartolotta Restaurants will shift focus to our new projects in the fine dining and catering areas: the opening of Mr. B’s in Mequon and the Italian Community Center in downtown Milwaukee.”
John Mangel, chief executive officer of Phoenix Hospitality Group, did not say if the company will be replacing Bartolotta.
“We at Phoenix Hospitality are much appreciative of the assistance the Bartolotta Restaurant Group has provided since the inception of the restaurants,” Mangel said in a written statement. “Now is the moment we look to the outstanding talents within the team to advance to the next level.”
Bartolotta Restaurants and Phoenix Hospitality Group developed the Mayfair Collection restaurants under a partnership agreement. Their first restaurant at the Mayfair Collection, Osgood’s, opened in November 2015. The other three, located at 11200 W. Burleigh St., across the parking lot from Whole Foods in a 17,000-square-foot building owned by Phoenix, opened in summer 2016.
The restaurants are a small piece of The Mayfair Collection, a mixed-use project at the former site of Kohl’s and Roundy’s warehouses. Chicago-based HSA Commercial Real Estate has been working on the 69-acre development project for several years.
In a June 2016 interview with BizTimes, Joe Bartolotta, the company’s co-owner, said he was excited about the Mayfair Collection restaurants because of the density that would be at the Mayfair Collection.
“There are going to be 1,100 apartments built here in two-and-a-half years,” Bartolotta said. “There is going to be a lot of density, and we’re going to be in the heart of it. I’ve learned that to be successful, you have to have a lot of bodies around you.”
