Just in time for the winter season,
Biggby Coffee is getting ready to open its new location at
Red Arrow Park, home to the popular Slice of Ice skating rink, in downtown Milwaukee.
The coffee shop will have its grand opening on Nov. 25. The start date for the upcoming Slice of Ice season has yet to be announced.
Owned and operated by local franchisees
Curtis Grace and
Keith Washington, Biggby has taken over the 1,000-square-foot cafe space previously occupied by Starbucks for nearly 20 years. After Starbucks
closed that location in November 2023, Milwaukee County Parks selected Biggby as Red Arrow's new food and beverage operator.
It's the second location for Grace and Washington, who, under the entity
Cream City Ventures LLC, opened their first Biggby Coffee location in Franklin in 2021. The Milwaukee natives and longtime friends have a third location under development in Cudahy, slated to open in the first half of 2025. In addition to their franchise operation, Grace is an officer and branch manager for
U.S. Bank and Washington is a real estate broker and owner of Milwaukee-based real estate firms
Washington Investment Group and
Boardwalk Realty.
With a goal of one to two store openings in southeastern Wisconsin per year, Grace and Washington recently sat down with BizTimes associate editor Maredithe Meyer to discuss their newest location in the heart of downtown Milwaukee.
How is the opening process coming along?
Washington: "Things are coming down to the wire right now, Obviously, we've been working very hard to get it going. This location has been almost a year in the works from Submitting our bid to win the location, then going through the plans, the permits, the approvals. One thing we underestimated was the length of time to deal with the county and the city at the same time. But, we have hired over 30 employees thus far and we have a grand opening on Nov. 25. We got our first deliveries (last) Friday and we are actually making coffee right now out of this location."
Tell me more about the experience working with both the city and the county and how that impacted the timeline.
Grace: "So, with our other locations, they're (privately owned) locations. This one being a county-owned location, but in the city of Milwaukee, just meant getting the lay of the land as far as knowing that we need to pull City of Milwaukee permits, as well as Milwaukee County permits. And then just from an approval standpoint, as far as from like, with the lease and everything like that, just the number of hands it has to touch before we get it. So it was just that added layer of not just city approvals but county approvals."
Did increased construction costs pose any challenges during the build-out?
Washington: "With it being a (former) Starbucks location, we kind of got a head start (on the build-out), but the way Starbucks, for a lack of better words, cannibalizes the places, we tried to reuse what we could in a lot of different places but 70% to 80% of the infrastructure is all new and updated from us, including all cabinetry, lights, electrical. HVAC, the heating and cooling, is probably the only thing that remained, and we just modified it. We do share the space with Milwaukee County for the Slice of Ice; Milwaukee County has been amazing to work with as far as getting everything done. We had our fair share of challenges, but it's definitely working with a good team and a good contractor and our point of contact at Milwaukee County pretty much helped guide us through that."
Grace: "We definitely see the, the increase in construction costs, um, just between like materials and labor, but it just seems like that's kind of like the norm."
How do you anticipate benefitting from the foot traffic and brand exposure Slice of Ice will bring?
Washington: "So, we're really excited about that. That's one of the main focuses or what excited us the most about coming to this location was Slice of Ice. In our bid to the county, we made it clear that we wanted to do everything that Starbucks wouldn't. Starbucks had their own set hours and would not deviate from those. We pledged to the city saying, 'Hey, as long as the skating rink is open, and there's employees here for that, we will be open to serve those customers as well.' That's what we want to do. Obviously the previous occupant didn't, was turning away people, but with Curtis and I being local to Milwaukee, we are active in the stores - we're going to be shaking hands, kissing babies, supporting our team as much as we can and everything else. That's going to be very exciting for us as well as the different partnerships that we have within in the area. We're actually a small business partner with the Milwaukee Bucks and we have things in the works with the Milwaukee Admirals and Milwaukee County, getting all the advertisement around the skating rink, including our logo on the side of the Zamboni.
"And with the drink combination, we're extremely kid friendly, family friendly as far as drinks go. Any drink can be made into a hot chocolate. So we can have 200, 300 different types of hot chocolates.
"The Milwaukee Downtown BID has also been amazing to work with, so any events going on in the summer, spring or fall, we have a heads up on all that so now we can plan and prepare and make sure that we're well equipped for those events."
Grace: "The nice thing about Slice of Ice, the exciting part, is that it brings people here from all of different areas, all walks of life, so it'll be a ton of different people that might not even be just downtown people -- whether they're workers or residents of downtown -- but people from all over Milwaukee County and even some of the further out counties, too. So it's nice having the logo downtown, but then it's even nicer bringing those different people that may not have ever even heard of Biggby because they live in areas we haven't touched yet."
You mentioned you've already hired 30 people for this location. Was that a challenge?
Grace: "Not really, actually. We kind of got spoiled initially before we actually started officially. We were accepting applications all the way before we started advertising that we were hiring. And then we did a few open interview days and we had a good turnout for those; some people just saw the sign go up and they were walking past and saw the open interviews and just popped in. It was, it was easier than the first time we opened a store."
What else should people know about Biggby and its local franchise operation?
Washington: "I think the biggest thing that I guess differentiates us from the other concepts and coffee chains is that each location is 100% locally owned and operated. And Biggby right now is 50% farm direct with the coffee beans, with the goal on track to be 100% in the next few years.
"I would say any drink can be made hot, iced, or frozen. We have something for everybody. Yeah. Coffee, teas, lattes, smoothies, energy drinks and food options as well. Whether you're a coffee lover or not a coffee lover, we have something for you."
"And the employees, too. Our team is amazing. We pour it to them so they can pour it to our customers. It sounds cliche, but actually we serve them and then they serve everybody else. We're not, micromanagers, we empower our managers to do what they need to do to support the team. Curtis and I get our hands dirty as well when we need to -- when they let us behind the counter."
