A civil engineer with a long family history in the craft brewing business plans to open a brew pub at Southridge Mall this fall in Greendale.
Mike Doble is planning a 6,000-square-foot brewery and restaurant, to be named The Explorium Brewpub, on the upper level of the mall, next to Buca di Beppo. The brew pub will include an outdoor patio and bar and will feature 24 taps including eight legacy family recipes that are served at his parent’s bar, Tampa Bay Brewing Company in Tampa, Florida.
Doble relocated to Wisconsin in 1998 with his wife, who is originally from Muskego. He wanted to bring a brewery similar to Tampa Bay Brewing to Wisconsin and after several years of contemplating, he decided to pull the trigger last year.
“I snooped around for almost a year looking for the right spot and had a lot of lukewarm responses,” Doble said. “A friend of mine works at the food court at Southridge and saw there was space available. I gave the mall my pitch, and they loved the idea.”
Doble is requesting a $250,000 SBA loan to fund equipment purchases related to the new restaurant from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp.’s loan and finance committee. The committee will decide Tuesday on the request.
According to his proposal, the brewery will have 49 full-time employees and 21 part-time employees.
The restaurant will serve a mix of bar food, pizza and steak. Besides the legacy brews, Doble will serve eight of his own recipes, brewed on site, and eight beers from local brewers.
He hopes to open the brewery in early November.
“Everything is just coming together,” Doble said. “You usually think of a brewery in a cool, historic building, but this is really the ideal situation.”
