Long-time East Side Milwaukee staple Beans & Barley will open a second restaurant, at the Mequon Public Market at Spur 16.
Beans & Barley will join Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co. and Purple Door, which will also add locations at the Mequon development.
Beans & Barley was started in Milwaukee on Murray Avenue in 1973 by Michael Stevens as a small health food store.
In 1979, the store moved to North Avenue and added a restaurant. A fire destroyed that building on June 28 1993, and moved to the current location at 1901 E. North Ave., in late in 1994.
Beans & Barley has been owned by eight different people over the years. The current owners are James Neumeyer and Polly Kaplan, who bought the business in 2012.
Kaplan started working at Beans & Barley in 1994 as a barista and waitress before becoming a manager in 1999. Neumeyer started working at Beans & Barley in 2000, as a dishwasher and later a line cook and kitchen manager.
“Beans & Barley has always been about fresh food, made from scratch, but it is really so much more,” Kaplan said. “It is a community of customers and employees who are invested in seeing their place thrive. We are really looking forward to working with the other vendors in the Market Place.”
The Mequon Public Market at Spur 16 is located at 6300 West Mequon Road and will be next door to the recently announced St. Paul Seafood Company, which is also part of the Spur 16 Development. The project is being developed by Cindy Shaffer, owner of Shaffer Development, LLC.
Mequon Public Market at Spur 16 will have approximately 10 vendors.
Shaffer said the project will open this fall and 10 townhomes will be completed in January of 2019. The project also includes 146 apartments in three buildings that will be completed in the spring and summer of 2019.
“We have had a great response from people who love the idea of living in such a walkable community with amenities that have not been available in this area before, Shaffer said.
