Port Washington’s Inventors Brewpub will open its new location, which also includes the Edison Hall community space, at the end of April.
It will host a soft opening for the general public at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 30, on the heels of a Monday, April 29 opening for Port Washington residents only.
Inventors' 10-barrel brewing system went online on April 5 and it plans nearly a month of soft opening events before hosting a full grand opening celebration on May 25.
"Inventors Brewpub will be having this series of soft openings for the purpose of allowing our business to test its operations, identify any challenges, train staff, and gradually build momentum before fully launching,” noted a statement issued Monday, adding that it will limit the number of patrons at these events.
“This provides our business a process to gather feedback from early customers before making a full-scale debut.”
The soft openings are slated for Wednesday, May 1-Sunday, May 5 at 4 p.m. (11 a.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday).
Then, Inventors will be open Monday, May 6-Friday, May 24, at 11 a.m.
At the Grand Opening event on May 25, the first 100 people in the door will get a free beer and will be entered into a raffle to win free beer for a year.
Inventors, which has occupied an old Lakeside Brewery building in Port Washington, announced the new location at 305 E. Washington St. in late 2021 and broke ground the following summer.
The newly constructed 25,000-square-foot space, with views of downtown, the marina, lighthouse and the lake, will have an expanded kitchen and menu, and brewery, and is switching from counter service to table service.
The 3,200-square-foot restaurant and bar has seating for 160 inside and 80 outside.
The building, designed by architects Streigel-Agacki Studio, also has a 350-person Edison Hall community events space, where it plans to host events like live music, dinner theaters, beer dinners, comedians, open mics, tournaments, movies and festivals, and will be available for private events such as weddings, conferences and other events.
"Since the loss of the Viking Room 25 years ago, Port Washington hasn't had a large downtown event space,” said founder Adam Draeger. “We are looking to host community and private events with spectacular views."
Inventors is now booking the hall. Contact Marketing and Event Coordinator Jessica Rost for more information.
For more on Inventors, visit inventorsbrewpub.com.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
