Developers of The Trade hotel in downtown Milwaukee's Deer District have brought on Madison-based
Food Fight Restaurant Group to operate the hotel's rooftop restaurant.
More details on the concept will be announced Monday at a media event, where general contractor J.H. Findorff & Sons will hoist a 4,300-pound pizza oven up to the top-floor restaurant space.
The nine-story hotel is currently under construction at the corner of Juneau and Vel R. Phillips avenues - directly north of Fiserv Forum - and on track for a spring 2023 completion. The Milwaukee Bucks and Middleton-based
NCG Hospitality broke ground on the project
last September. Its name is an homage to the tradespeople who built the city of Milwaukee.
The partnership with Food Fight Restaurant Group is the latest news coming out of the project. Boasting views of the downtown skyline, The Trade's ninth-floor restaurant and lounge will be the first Milwaukee-area concept for Food Fight, which was founded in 1994 by Monty Schiro of Monty’s Blue Plate Diner and real estate investor Peder Moren.
The group now owns and operates a portfolio of 18 restaurant locations across greater Madison, including Aldo's Cafe, Bar Corallini, Bassett Street Brunch Club, Canteen, Catering a Fresco at Overture Center for the Arts, Cento, The Coopers Tavern, Craftsman Table and Tap, DLUX, Everly, Hubbard Avenue Diner, Johnny Delmonico's Steakhouse, Luigi's Pizza Manny's Parkside, Miko Poke, Monty's Blue Plate Diner, Steenbock's on Orchard, and Tex Tubb's Taco Palace.
In addition to its 205 tech-enabled guest rooms, The Trade will have a two-story VIP suite with its own private access, 9,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting and event space, ground-floor retail space and two restaurants, including a signature concept on the southeast corner of the ground floor. In March,
Rich Lundt was named general manager of the hotel, overseeing all day-to-day operations including guest management, events and the two restaurants.
The Milwaukee Bucks have said the Marriott
Autograph Collection hotel would be the
first of two hotel properties they’d like to develop in the Deer District. The other would likely be built on a portion of the former Bradley Center site - along with the $50 million indoor music venue complex the Bucks are
planning with Madison-based concert promoter Frank Productions.
